- For the Christian Christmas story, see Nativity of Jesus
A Christmas Story is a 1983 film based on the short
stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books
In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by Bob
Clark.
Plot summary
Ralph in bunny pajamas is a memorable moment in the movie.
The film relates the tale of Ralphie Parker (played by Peter Billingsley), who
wants a BB gun for Christmas (specifically, "an official Red
Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and 'this thing' which tells time") and will go to any lengths to get it despite the numerous adult admonitions of
"you'll shoot your eye out." Over the course of the film, Ralphie hides a Red Ryder advertisement in his mother's magazine, fibs
about the spotting of a dangerous animal in the neighborhood, blurts his desire outright, writes a theme on the subject, and asks an impatient Santa just as the department store closes.
Ultimately, Ralphie's "Old Man" gives Ralphie his BB gun for Christmas, stating that he had one himself at an earlier age.
Ralphie eagerly runs outside in his boots and pajamas to "try it out", but the BB ricochets off his glasses, injuring him
slightly and briefly, but incorrectly, convincing him that he did shoot his eye out.
Subplots include the Old Man (Darren McGavin) winning a "major award": a lamp shaped
like a woman's leg wearing fishnet stockings, much to his wife's displeasure (the leg was the
logo of the contest's sponsor, the Nehi bottling company; this was not made clear in the
movie)[citation needed]; Ralphie getting his
Little Orphan Annie secret decoder
pin; and Ralphie dealing with the neighborhood bully, Scut Farkus, played by
Zack Ward. There are also numerous vignettes, including the Old Man's battle with the furnace,
Ralphie not saying "fudge" in a moment of stress, and disaster with the Christmas dinner, courtesy
of the Bumpuses' dogs. One memorable scene involves a dispute over whether or not a person's tongue immediately sticks to a
frozen metal object, in this case a flag pole. When Flick responds to the "triple dog dare" and touches his tongue to the flag
pole, he is proven wrong, and begins to scream in terror. Several fantasy sequences depict Ralphie's daydreams of glory and
vindication, including the vanquishing of prison-striped villains, an extremely good grade for
his written theme about the BB gun, and parental remorse over a case of "soap poisoning".
Major credits
The movie was written by Jean Shepherd, Leigh
Brown and Bob Clark. Shepherd provides the movie's narration from the perspective of an
adult Ralphie, a narrative style later used in the dramedy The Wonder Years. Shepherd also has a cameo appearance in the department store scene, as the man
who directs Ralphie and Randy to the end of the line. Director Clark has a cameo as Swede, the neighbor who questions the Old Man
about the Leg Lamp.
Cast
- Melinda Dillon as Mrs. Parker - Ralphie's mom is the primary dispenser of the
oft-repeated phrase, "You'll shoot your eye out"
- Darren McGavin as The Old Man (Mr. Parker) - Ralphie's dad is at the center of the
Major Award vignette, and is depicted using colorful nonsensical invective
- Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker - the film's protagonist, an imaginative
dreamer
- Ian Petrella as Randy Parker - Ralphie's little brother, who won't eat his
meatloaf
- Scott Schwartz as Flick - Ralphie's friend, who learns about tongues and cold
metal the hard way
- R.D. Robb as Schwartz - Ralphie's other friend, on whom Ralphie pins the blame for him knowing "the f-dash-dash-dash
word"
- Tedde Moore as Miss Shields - Ralphie's fourth grade teacher, who appears in two fantasy sequences, calls the
fire department to help Flick, and is the only on-screen character played by the same actor
in the sequel, My Summer Story
- Zack Ward as Scut Farkus - the neighborhood bully, who torments Ralphie and his friends en
route to and from school
- Yano Anaya as Grover Dill - Scut's crony, who is promoted to main bully in My Summer
Story
- Jeff Gillen as Santa Claus - the rather frightening and cranky department store incarnation of "the Head Honcho", who
delivers the last blow to Ralphie's hope for a BB gun
- Jean Shepherd as adult Ralphie - the narrator. (Also has an on-screen cameo; see
above.)
- Drew Hocevar: As Christmas Elf, he pushes Ralphie down the slide at Higbees.
In the DVD commentary, director Bob Clark mentions that Jack Nicholson was considered
for the role of the Old Man; Clark expresses gratitude that he ended up with Darren McGavin instead, who also appeared in several
other Clark films. He cast Melinda Dillon on the basis of her similar role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Peter Billingsley was already a minor star
from co-hosting the TV series Real People; Clark initially wanted him for the role of
Ralphie, but decided he was "too obvious" a choice and auditioned many other young actors before realizing that Billingsley was
the right one after all. Ian Petrella was cast immediately before filming began. Tedde Moore had previously appeared in Clark's
film Murder by Decree, and Jeff Gillen was an old friend of Clark's who had been
in one of his earliest films.
History and related works
Three of the semi-autobiographical short stories on which the film is based were originally published by Playboy magazine in 1964 – 1966.[2]
Shepherd later read "Duel in the Snow, or Red Ryder nails the Cleveland Street Kid" and told the otherwise unpublished story
"Flick's Tongue" on his WOR Radio talk show, as can be heard
in one of the DVD extras.[3] Bob Clark states on the
DVD commentary that he became interested in Shepherd's work when he heard "Flick's
Tongue" on the radio in 1968. Additional source material for the film, according to Clark, came from unpublished anecdotes
Shepherd told live audiences "on the college circuit."
Initially overlooked as a sleeper film, A Christmas Story was released a week
before Thanksgiving to moderate success. By Christmas, however, the movie
was no longer playing at most venues, but remained in about a hundred theaters until January 1984. In the years since, A Christmas Story has become widely
popular and is now a perennial Christmas special. Originally released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Time Warner (through Turner Entertainment Co.) now has ownership of the film due to Ted
Turner's purchase of MGM's pre-1985 library and Time Warner's subsequent purchase of Turner
Entertainment. However, it should be noted that producer-director Bob Clark is said to still
hold 20% of the film's rights. Turner Broadcasting System owns the broadcast
rights, and for several years the Turner-initiated station TNT aired it 12
consecutive times over a 24-hour period beginning on Christmas Eve. When TNT switched to a
predominantly drama format, sister network TBS took over the marathon beginning in
2004. Clark has stated that one year, an estimated 38.4 million people tuned into the marathon at one point or another, nearly
one sixth of the country.
A movie sequel involving Ralphie and his family, called My Summer Story
(alternate title It Runs in the Family) was made in 1994, featuring an almost
entirely different cast. A series of television movies involving the Parker family, also from Shepherd stories, was made by PBS,
including Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, The Great
American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, and The Phantom of the Open Hearth.
In the year 2000, an authorized stage play adaptation of A Christmas Story was written by Philip Grecian and is
produced widely each Christmas season. In 2003, Broadway Books published the five Jean Shepherd short stories from which the
movie and stage play were adapted in a single volume under the title A Christmas Story (ISBN 0-7679-1622-0), with stories
including: "Duel in the Snow, or Red Ryder nails the Cleveland Street Kid", "The Counterfeit Secret Circle Member Gets the
Message, or The Asp Strikes Again", "My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award that Heralded the Birth of Pop Art", "Grover
Dill and the Tasmanian Devil", and "The Grandstand Passion Play of Delbert and the Bumpus Hounds". This collection was also
released as an audio book (ISBN 0-7393-1674-5), read by Dick
Cavett.
The book Excelsior, You Fathead! The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd (2005, ISBN 0-55783-600-0), has several sections
which comment on the movie A Christmas Story.
Settings
Locations
- Main article: A Christmas Story House
The front of the Christmas house where Ralphie was filmed, in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland's west side
The movie is set in fictional Hohman, Indiana, based on Hammond, Indiana, where
writer Jean Shepherd grew up. The name is drawn from Hammond's early settlers, Ernst and Caroline Hohman. [4] Local references in the film include Higbee's department store, Warren G. Harding Elementary School,
Cleveland Street (where Shepherd spent his childhood years), and a mention of nearby Griffith, Indiana.[5]
The school scenes were shot at the Victoria School in St. Catharines,
Ontario, Canada. The school was sold to developers in 2005 and
has been remodeled into a women's shelter. The Christmas tree purchasing scene was filmed
in Toronto, Ontario, as it was the only location that still
used red PCC streetcars - in fact, TTC
streetcars can be seen during the scene. Ralphie beating up the neighbourhood bully was also filmed in Toronto, as was the
soundstage filming of interior shots of the Parker home.[6]
The St. Catharines' Museum owns some props used in the film, including two pairs of
Ralphie's glasses (one of which is the smashed pair), and two scripts.
Director Bob Clark reportedly sent location scouts to twenty cities before selecting
Cleveland, Ohio, as the principal site for filming. Higbee's department store in downtown Cleveland was the stage for three scenes in A Christmas Story. The
first is the opening scene in which Ralphie first spies the Red Ryder BB Gun. The second is the parade scene, filmed just outside
Higbee’s, on Public Square, at 3 AM. The final scene is Ralphie and Randy’s visit to see
Santa which was filmed inside Higbee’s. Higbee’s kept the Santa slide that was made for the movie and used it for several years
after the movie’s release. Higbee's was known for decades as a cornerstone of Public Square, as well as for its elaborate
child-centered Christmas themes and decorations (e.g. the Twigbee Shop [1]), with Santa as the
centerpiece, until the store, which became Dillard's in 1992, closed for good in 2002.[7] Higbee's was exclusive to Northeast Ohio -- there were no
Higbee's stores in Shepherd's hometown. As such, he was most likely referring to Goldblatts in downtown Hammond (with the Cam-Lan
Chinese Restaurant three doors down on Sibley Ave.)
The exterior shots (and select interior shots, including the opening of the leg lamp) of the house and neighborhood where
Ralphie lived were filmed in the Tremont section of Cleveland's West Side. The house used as the
Parker home in these scenes has been restored, reconfigured inside to match the soundstage interiors, and opened to the public as
A Christmas Story House. The "...only I didn't say fudge" scene was
filmed just down the street from the house.
Vehicles
Cleveland car buffs donated a number of vintage vehicles for use in the film, which helped to enhance the authenticity of the
production despite a limited budget. During filming in downtown Cleveland, members of a local antique automobile club, following
a preset route, repeatedly circled the square. At the end of filming each day, the cars were washed under pressure to remove
road salt, and parked underground beneath the Terminal
Tower.[citation needed]
The Parkers' car was a Model 6, four-door Oldsmobile sedan from 1937.
Dating the story
Based on references to popular culture in the film, the story takes place no earlier
than 1939, when the MGM film The Wizard of
Oz came out, and no later than 1940, the last year that Ovaltine had sponsorship of the
Little Orphan Annie radio
broadcasts.[8][9] The World War II time frame is consistent
with the presence of shoppers in military uniforms peering into the display window,
which contained a toy tank. The most likely year is 1940, because
Ralphie's new Radio Orphan Annie decoder pin is the 1940 model.[10] This dating is slightly later than author Jean Shepherd's own childhood (he was
19 years old in 1940) but earlier than that of director Bob Clark (who was born in 1941). The Red
Ryder BB gun was available during this period and for many years afterward, but never in the exact configuration mentioned in the
film.[11]
Despite the many props and other references to this era, however, one can find the occasional anachronism, such as Scut Farkus (and the Old Man in a fantasy sequence) wearing a coonskin cap, a piece of apparel more evocative of the 1950s. Also, the police
car (which can be seen through the classroom window) that responds to the stuck tongue is a 1947 Chevrolet . Such fuzziness of dating may be seen as a way to generalize the
nostalgia for Ralphie's childhood as applying to other time periods as well. As Clark states
in the commentary: "I set it in my mind as basically close to World War II. 1940 is my idea of when it is. That's when the cars
are set for.... It's amorphously later Thirties, early Forties."
Music
The mock heroic tone of the narration, filled with such hyperbole as "the legendary battle of the lamp", is matched by the
extensive use of familiar classical music themes. For example, when the character Scut Farkas appears, the Wolf's theme from
Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the
Wolf plays in the background. (The name "Farkas" is derived from the Hungarian word for "wolf.") The piece that plays
after Ralphie says "fudge", and after the lamp breaks for the second time, is the opening of Hamlet by Tchaikovsky. The Grand Canyon Suite by
Ferde Grofe is featured prominently in the movie. Movement 3- On The Trail provides a
suitable Western feeling to a Red Ryder rifle fantasy sequence, and bits of Movement 1 [Sunrise] and Movement 4
[Sunset] were also freely arranged and adapted throughout the score. The music in the dream sequence with Ralphie in a cowboy
outfit shooting at bandits and later when he finally plays with his BB gun outside of the house is based on the main theme from
the classic John Ford western Stagecoach
(1939). The Harp Solo from Benjamin Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" is briefly excerpted for the scene in which Ralphie awakens to
a snowy Christmas morning.
Popular music of the time was also used, ostensibly as coming from the radio. This included three Christmas songs sung by Bing Crosby, two of them
in conjunction with the Andrews Sisters.
Original music for the film's score was by Carl Zittrer, who worked with director Bob Clark on
at least ten films between 1972 and 1998; and by
Paul Zaza, who has worked with Clark on at least sixteen films, including Murder by Decree (1979) and My Summer Story
(1994).
Parodies and homages
- The television show The Wonder Years was inspired by the this film. The show, set
in the 1970's, centered on its young male character, Kevin Arnold and his experiences
growing up. It was narrated by an older, wiser Kevin (voiced by Daniel Stern), describing
what is happening and what he learned from his experiences. Peter Billingsley makes a
guest appearance as one of Kevin's roommates on the series finale.
- The Starz cable network has an animated online parody of the film entitled "A
Christmas Story in 30 Seconds (and Re-enacted by Bunnies)", produced in 2005 by Jennifer Shiman.[12]
- For the 2006 Christmas season, Cingular Wireless commissioned a television commercial that featured a condensed version of the film's story where the lead
character has a similar obsession with getting a particular type of Motorola cell phone. The repeated admonition is "You'll run the bill up!" (the commercial is for a prepaid service).
- The Flash animation "A Fairly Stoopid Christmas Story" by animator Thorne Winter as appears on Newgrounds contains several
comedic elements relating to "A Christmas Story", and is a semi-parody.[2]
- A series of passwords from The Lost Vikings II (specifically, the pirate-themed
levels) spell out "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine", the message on the Little Orphan
Annie show in the film.
References
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
