A Christmas Story

For other uses, see A Christmas Story (disambiguation)

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.

Since 1997, the film has been best-known for traditionally airing in a 24-hour marathon on Christmas on the Turner family of networks.

Tagline: "A Tribute to the Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas..."

Plot summary

It's 1940, in the fictional northern Indiana town of Hohman (based on real-life Hammond, IN). 9-year-old Ralph "Ralphie" Parker (Peter Billingsley) wants only one thing for Christmas -- an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model BB gun with a compass in the stock.

Between run-ins with his younger brother Randy (Ian Petrella) and having to handle school bully Scut Farkus (Zack Ward), Ralph doesn't know how he'll ever survive long enough to get the BB gun for Christmas.

When Ralph asks his mother (Melinda Dillon) for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, she says, "No, you'll shoot your eye out." When he writes a theme about it for Mrs. Shields (Tedde Moore), his teacher at Harding Elementary School, Ralph gets a C+, and Mrs. Shields writes "You'll shoot your eye out" on it. When Ralph asks a department store Santa Claus (Jeff Gillen) for a Red Ryder BB gun, Santa responds, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Soon afterward, Scut Farkus and his sidekick Grover Dill (Yano Anaya) tease Ralph on the way home from school. The frustrated Ralph knocks Grover Dill to the ground and beats Scut's face bloody. Although he unexpectedly goes unpunished for this, Ralph thinks he'll never get the BB gun for Christmas now, while all the other kids get what they want.

On Christmas morning, Ralph's disappointment turns to joy as his father (Darren McGavin) points out one last, half-hidden present, ostensibly from Santa. As Ralph unwraps the BB gun, Mr. Parker explains the purchase to his wife, stating that he had one himself when he was 8 years old.

Ralph goes out to test his new gun shooting at a paper target perched on top of a metal sign, and predictably gets a ricochet from the metal sign. This ricochet ends up hitting just below his eye, which causes him to flinch and lose his glasses. While searching for the glasses, Ralphie ends up stepping on them with his snow boot, subsequently breaking the glasses. However, he concocts a story to his mother about an icicle falling on him and breaking his glasses, which she believes.

Subplots

Several subplots are incorporated in the body of the film, based on other separate short stories by Shepherd. The most notable involves the Old Man (Darren McGavin) winning a "major award." He entered a trivia contest out of the newspaper, which asked for the name of The Lone Ranger's nephew's horse (thanks to his wife, who supplied the answer). A large crate arrived and inside was a lamp shaped like a woman's leg wearing fishnet stockings, much to Mrs. Parker's displeasure. The leg was the logo of the contest's sponsor, the Nehi bottling company (the details of the contest were not necessarily made clear in the movie).

Other vignettes include:

• Ralphie's friends Flick and Schwartz disputing over whether or not a person's tongue will stick to a frozen flagpole. Schwartz ultimately issues Flick a "triple dog dare" (the most serious of those used by the kids; he bypasses a "triple dare" from a "double dog dare", a serious boyhood protocol breach), and Flick's tongue gets stuck to the pole, much to his terror. A suction tube within the flagpole was used to simulate the freezing of Flick's tongue to the pole.
• Ralphie receiving his Little Orphan Annie Secret Society decoder pin, and learning a lesson about being ripped off (his first secret message with the pin turned out to be an Ovaltine radio commercial).
• Ralphie and his friends dealing with the neighborhood bully, Scott Farkus (Zack Ward).
• The Old Man's legendary battles with the aging and malfunctioning furnace.
• Ralphie letting slip the dreaded "f-dash-dash-dash" word (after his father knocks a hubcap from his hands, spilling its contents, the lug nuts from a flat tire) and later, when asked where he'd heard the word, falsely blaming his friend, Schwartz, instead of pointing out that his father utters the word daily.
• The numerous smelly and bothersome hound dogs of the next door neighbors, the Bumpuses, including the dogs destroying the turkey (prompting the family to go out and have Peking duck in its stead).
• 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" (related to his swearing).
• The "Battle of the Lamp" when the old man wins a lamp from a newspaper contest, mom becomes jealous, breaking the lamp, causing the old man to try and tape it together (Mom had used up all the glue on purpose). Later that night, he buried it next to the garage. "Now I could never be sure but I thought I heard the sound of Taps being played, gently."

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

• 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. His first name is never revealed.
• Melinda Dillon as Mrs. Parker - Ralphie's mom is the primary dispenser of the oft-repeated phrase, "You'll shoot your eye out."
• Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker - the film's protagonist, a nine year old imaginative dreamer
• Ian Petrella as Randy Parker - Ralphie's younger brother, who will not 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 his knowing "the f-dash-dash-dash word"
• Tedde Moore as Miss Shields - Ralphie's fourth grade teacher, 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 toadie, 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.
• David Svoboda as Goggles (little boy in line, wearing goggles).
• Helen E Kaider as the Wicked Witch - one of the Oz characters, as seen in the department store.

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 in Playboy magazine between 1964 and 1966. 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. 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 1983 to moderate success, earning about $2 million in its first weekend. Critics generally supported the film. Leonard Maltin proclaimed it a "Top screen comedy," while Roger Ebert proclaimed it "Funny and satirical...a sort of Norman Rockwell crossed with MAD magazine." The film would go on to win two Genie Awards, for Bob Clark's screenplay and direction. Years later, Ebert would re-evaluate the film, this time more favorably, writing that "some of the movie sequences stand as classic." On December 24, 2007, AOL ranked the film their #1 Christmas movie of all time.

By Christmas 1983, however, the movie was no longer playing at most venues, but remained in about a hundred theaters until January 1984. Gross earnings were just over $19.2 million. In the years since, due to television airings and home video release, A Christmas Story has become widely popular and is now a perennial Christmas special. Originally released by MGM; Warner Bros. (through Turner Entertainment Co.) now has ownership of the film due to Ted Turner's purchase of MGM's pre-1986 library and Time Warner's subsequent purchase of Turner Entertainment.

Television

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the film began airing quietly on SuperStation WTBS and Superstation WGN (now known as WGN America). From 1988-1992, the film had a short-lived tradition of airing Thanksgiving night (or the night after Thanksgiving) to open the holiday television season. In 1988, then-fledgling FOX aired the movie the night after Thanksgiving. In 1989-1990, TBS showed it Thanksgiving night, while in 1991-1992, they aired it the night after.

Turner broadcasting, now a part of the TimeWarner umbrella of cable networks, has maintained ownership of the broadcast rights, and since the mid-1990s, airing the movie increasingly on TBS, TNT and TCM. By 1995, it was aired on those networks a combined six times over December 24-25-26, and in 1996, it was aired eight times over those three days.

Due to the increasing popularity of the film, in 1997 TNT began airing a 24-hour marathon dubbed "24 Hours of A Christmas Story," consisting of the film shown twelve consecutive times beginning at 7 or 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve and ending Christmas Day. This was in addition to various other airings earlier in the month of December. In 2004, after TNT switched to a predominantly drama format, sister network TBS, under its comedy-based "Very Funny" moniker, took over the marathon. Clark stated that in 2002, an estimated 38.4 million people tuned into the marathon at one point or another, nearly one sixth of the country. TBS reported 45.4 million viewers in 2005, and 45.5 million in 2006. In 2007, new all-time ratings records were set, with the highest single showing (8 p.m. Christmas Eve) drawing 4.4 million viewers.

In 2007, the original tradition was revived, as TNT aired the film twice the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend (November 25). The 24-hour marathon continued on TBS for the eleventh year, starting at 8 p.m. eastern on Christmas Eve.

Subsequent works

A movie sequel involving Ralphie and his family, called My Summer Story (alternate title It Runs in the Family) was made in 1994. With the exceptions of Tedde Moore as Ralphie's teacher (Miss Shields) and Jean Shepherd as the narrator (the voice of the adult Ralphie), it features an 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.

Home releases

• Betamax (1985)
• VHS (1985, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2000)
• Laserdisc (1985): pan & scan
• Laserdisc (1993): Delux letterbox edition
• DVD (1997): pan & scan
• DVD (2000): widescreen; includes original theatrical trailer
• 20th Anniversary 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2003): Widescreen; includes cast interviews, audio commentary, and featurettes.
• HD DVD (2006)
• Blu-ray (2008)
• DVD (2008) Ultimate Collector's Edition: Features the same 2003 2-disc special edition, but includes special memorabilia .

Settings

Locations

The movie is set in a fictional town in Indiana, strongly resembling Hammond, Indiana where writer Jean Shepherd grew up. Local references in the film include Warren G. Harding Elementary School, and Cleveland Street (where Shepherd spent his childhood years). Other Indiana references in the dialogue include a mention of a person "swallowing a yo-yo" in nearby Griffith, Indiana, the Old man being one of the fiercest "furnace fighters in northern Indiana" and that his obscenities were "hanging in space over Lake Michigan," a mention of the Indianapolis 500, and the line to Santa Claus "stretching all the way to Terre Haute." The Old Man is also revealed to not be a fan of the Bears (and in fact calls them the "Chicago Chipmunks") and White Sox, consistent with living in northern Indiana.

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 neighborhood bully was also filmed in Toronto, as was the soundstage filming of interior shots of the Parker home. 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 ), with Santa as the centerpiece, until the store, which became Dillard's in 1992, closed for good in 2002. 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 at the foot of Cherry Street in Toronto.

Vehicles

Cleveland car buffs donated the use of a number of vintage vehicles for 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 thoroughly washed to remove road salt, and parked underground beneath the Terminal Tower.

The Parker's car was a Model 6, four-door Oldsmobile sedan from 1937.

Dating the story

Based on certain key references to popular culture in the film, the story probably takes place in December 1939, the year the MGM film The Wizard of Oz came out. In December 1940, Ovaltine's sponsorship of the Little Orphan Annie radio broadcasts had been over for 11 months. Additionally, the Old Man's negative reference to the Chicago Bears makes 1939 most likely, since on Dec. 8, 1940 the Bears had just beaten the Washington Redskins 73-0 for the NFL Championship and his Chicago "Chipmunks" comment would hardly make sense. Ralphie's new Radio Orphan Annie decoder pin is the 1940 model.

1939-40 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 1939). However, it should be noted that Shepherd was age 10 in 1931, while Clark was age 10 in 1949 - a separation of 18 years. If the consensus between Shepherd and Clark was to find a "middle-ground" for their youths, they may well have divided the difference in half (9), then added that amount of years to the earliest date (1931), thereby arriving at 1940.

However, the writers and producers intended, as director Bob Clark states in the movie's commentary, to set the film in the "amorphously later Thirties, early Forties." 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. Ralphie's parents at one point are talking in the living room while the Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters version of "Jingle Bells" - recorded in 1942 - is heard on the radio. A 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. During the flagpole scene, an accurate-period 48-star U.S. Flag is displayed.

Despite the many props and other indications of a 1939-1942 setting, 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. Ralphie's father complains in the movie that "the Sox traded Bullfrog!" which is a reference to Chicago White Sox pitcher Bill Dietrich, who was in fact released from the Sox, not traded, in 1946. The police car (which can be seen through the classroom window) that responds to the stuck tongue is a 1947 Chevrolet. Following the tire change scene, a "49" year tag can be seen on the license plate. Finally, Ralphie's father wears a Royal Air Force issue flight cap in one scene, indicating that Mr. Parker was probably a volunteer American pilot for the RAF, which would imply a post-war setting. 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.

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 Farkus appears, the Wolf's theme from Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf plays in the background. ("Farkas" is a Hungarian name, but literally means "Wolf") The piece that plays after Ralphie says "fudge", after the lamp breaks for the second time, and after Ralphie breaks his glasses 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 observes a snowy Christmas morning from his bedroom window, which follows a segment of glockenspiel music which comes, again, from the latter half of Movement 3 [On The Trail] of Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite which plays as Ralphie awakens on Christmas morning. The classroom fantasy scene where Mrs. Shields is grading Ralph's paper features two excerpts from Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture."

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 allegedly inspired by the film. The show, set in the 1960s, 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. Fantasy sequences, much like those in the film, were also used on occasion. 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.
• 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).
• A series of passwords from The Lost Vikings II (specifically, the pirate-themed levels) spell out "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine", the coded message on the "Little Orphan Annie" show in the film.
• In a special Christmas episode of "MythBusters," the plot of the "triple dog dare" was tested. It was found to be true: it is possible to get one's tongue stuck to a pole and have difficulty getting it off.
• The Less Than Jake album "Hello Rockview" features a song called "Scott Farcas Takes It On The Chin", a homage to the bully in the film.
• Fall Out Boy were featured on the album "A Santa Clause", with a song entitled "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out".
• Lupe Fiasco made a reference to Ralphie. On the unreleased song, "Gangsta [Up In Here]." He stated, "They wanna shoot out I/EYE like Ralphie."

References

External links

• A Christmas Story House
• Article about the Red Rider Leg Lamp company
• No more fa-ra-ra-ra-ra for Christmas Story chinese restaurant