For those who have never seen A Christmas Story, the movie centres on nine-year old Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley), a boy residing in the fictional small town of Hohman, Indiana in 1940. Ralphie wants nothing more for Christmas than an official Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock. In addition to Ralphie trying to figure out how to get a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, the movie is composed of other vignettes as well, including Ralphie and his friends Flick (Scott Schwartz) and Schwartz (R. D. Robb) constantly being tormented by the bully Scut Farkus (Zack Ward), Ralphie's Old Man (Darren McGavin) winning a "major award" and the conflict it creates with Ralphie's mother (Melinda Dillon), the Old Man's conflicts with the neighbours' dogs, and a few others.
A Christmas Story drew inspiration from the anecdotes of Jean Shepherd, primarily in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, but also in part from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters and his radio show. A Christmas Story was not the first time Jean Shepherd's work had been adapted to another medium. In 1976 the TV movie The Phantom of the Open Hearth, based on In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, aired on the PBS anthology series Visions. It was set in the late 1940s/early 1950s and featured a teenaged Ralph Parker. It was followed in 1982 by The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, which aired on the PBS anthology series American Playhouse. Even after A Christmas Story, PBS would continue to air TV movies based on Jean Shepherd's works: The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski on American Playhouse in 1985 and Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss on American Playhouse in 1988.
While A Christmas Story was primarily based on In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, it would be Jean Shepherd's radio show that would lead to the film. It was in 1968 that Bob Clark was living in Miami. He was on his way to pick up a date when he heard Jean Shepherd on his car radio telling the story "Flick's Tongue." It was then that he decided to adapt Jean Shepherd's stories as a movie. "Flick's Tongue" would be familiar to anyone who has seen A Christmas Story, as it is the tale of how Schwartz dared Flick to stick his tongue to a flagpole. It would be years before Bob Clark could actually make a movie based on Jean Shepherd's work. It was only after the success of the critically reviled comedy Porky's (1981) that MGM agreed to go ahead with A Christmas Story. The studio gave Bob Clark $4.4 million to make the movie, a meagre sum even at that time.
The screenplay was written by Jean Shepherd himself, Bob Clark, and Leigh Brown. While Jean Shepherd had written the source material for A Christmas Story and co-wrote the screenplay, he and director Bob Clark did not always get along. Jean Shepherd acted as a bit of back seat driver where Bob Clark was concerned, constantly keeping watch on the director and making suggestions. He would even make suggestions to the actors, leading Bob Clark to yell at him to stay away from the actors. Having to stay under budget and on schedule, and concerned that Jean Shepherd's interference could jeopardize both, Bob Clark eventually banned the author from the set. Regardless, Jean Shepherd narrated the film as the adult Ralph Parker. He also has a cameo in the film as a man standing in the line to see Santa Claus at Higbee's department store.
To cast the all important role of Ralphie, Bob Clark auditioned 8000 boys. The role ultimately went to 12-year old Peter Billingsley. Peter Billingsley was already a veteran actor. He had appeared in many television commercials in the Seventies, including playing Messy Marvin in a series of ads for Hershey's. He had guest starred on the TV show Little House on the Prairie and appeared in the movies as Honky Tonk Freeway (1981) and Paternity (1981). For the role of the Old Man, Bob Clark initially considered Jack Nicholson, but the role ultimately went to Darren McGavin. At the time Mr. McGavin was best known for playing Mike Hammer in the Fifties series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and Carl Kolchak in the Seventies series Kolchak:The Night Stalker.
Melinda Dillon was cast as Ralphie's mother based on her role as Jillian Guiler in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). She later played Teresa Perrone in Absence of Malice (1981). She had been nominated for an Oscar for both movies.
Of course, among the stars of A Christmas Story is the fictional city of Hohman, Indiana. Hohman is based on Jean Shepherd's hometown of Hammond, Indiana, which had a population of 70,183 in 1940. The name "Hohman" is taken from the name of a major street in Hammond. In addition, many of the places in Hohman are taken from actual places in Hammond. Cleveland Street, where Ralphie lives in Hohman, is the street on which Jean Shepherd grew up in Hammond. There is an actual Warren G. Harding Elementary School in Hammond. In A Christmas Story there are also references to Lake Michigan and nearby Griffith, Indiana, an actual town near Hammond.
To create the fictional city of Hammond, scouts were sent to 20 different cities. Ultimately, Hohman would emerge from a combination of three different cities. The bulk of what is supposed to be Hohman in the movie is actually Cleveland, Ohio. Ralphie's house on Cleveland Street is actually on W. 11th Street in Cleveland. Downtown Hohman, where the Christmas parade in A Christmas Story takes place, is the Public Square in downtown Cleveland. As to Higbee's, it was an actual store situated on the Public Square in Cleveland. A Christmas Story utilized both the exterior and interior of Higbee's. The opening scene in which Ralphie views the Red Ryder BB gun in the store window was filmed at Higbee's, while Ralphie's visit to see Santa was filmed inside the store. Of course, here it must be pointed out that Higbee's stores were only found in northeast Ohio, while the film is set in the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana. The actual department store located in the hometown of Jean Shepherd (who wrote the stories upon which A Christmas Story) was Goldblatt's, a chain with stores in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Higbee's stores would continue to operate until 1992, when they were bought out by Dillards and the stores, including the Higbee's store in Cleveland, were rebranded as Dillard's.
While much of A Christmas Story was shot in Cleveland, other scenes were shot elsewhere. The schoolyard of Warren G. Harding Elementary, where the famous flagpole scene took place, is actually Victoria School in St. Catharines, Ontario. Two scenes were shot in Toronto, Ontario. The bridge on which the Old Man's car has a flat is the Cherry Street Bridge in Toronto, while the Chop Suey place in the movie is located on Gerrard Street East in Toronto. Other scenes shot in Toronto included Sears Street in Toronto (down which the bullies chase Ralphie, Flick, and Schwartz), 232 Queen Street W (where the Christmas tree lot was located), and 64 Sears Street (where Ralphie finally has it out with Scut Farkas), among others.
One problem that the production faced is that while it was cold that winter in Ohio, there was no snow. Snow had to be shipped in from ski resorts that were often over a hundred miles away. When the weather was even too warm for that, artificial snow was made from potato flakes and for set dressing they used shredded vinyl. In yet other scenes firefighting foam was used. A Christmas Story was filmed from January 14 1983 to March 24 1983. To help with the filming of the movie, the City of Cleveland actually kept their Christmas decorations up longer than they usually would.
A question that many fans of A Christmas Story had for years is, "What year does the movie take place?" On the commentary for the DVD, director Bob Clark stated that he and Jean Shepherd wanted the movie to be "...amorphously late-'30s, early-'40s." For that reason a specific year is never mentioned. Characters from The Wizard of Oz (1939) appear both at the Christmas parade and in Higbee's, so that A Christmas Story could be set no earlier than December 1939. There is no mention of World War II, so it has to be set earlier than December 1941. A calender dated 1939 appears in the Parker family's kitchen, which would seem to make it clear the movie takes place in 1939. The sequel A Christmas Story Christmas states that the events of A Christmas Story took place in 1940. I suppose it is up to individual fans if they want to regard that as canonical or not.
As mentioned earlier, A Christmas Story was released on November 18 1983. The film actually did fairly well early in its release. It ranked no. 3 at the box office for its first weekend in release, no. 1 at the box office for its second weekend in release, and no. 6 in its third weekend in release. Unfortunately, A Christmas Story ultimately proved not to have legs. By Christmas 1983 it was only still playing at around 100 theatres nationwide. In the end it earned $19.2 million at the box office. With a budge of $2.2 million, this made it a modest success.
As to the critics' reaction to the movie, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, the reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave A Christmas Story a good review, noting, "Visits to Santa Claus are more or less standard in works of this genre, but this movie has the best visit to Santa I've ever seen." Roger Ebert's fellow critic at The Chicago Tribune, Gene Siskel also liked A Christmas Story, writing "A Christmas Story is a delightful motion picture that is doomed to box office failure. On their TV show At the Movies, both Siskel and Ebert gave A Christmas Story a "thumbs up." Other critics weren't so receptive to the movie. Kevin Thomas in The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Don't expect much Christmas spirit to be oozing out of A Christmas Story." In a 1984 review in Cinema Canada, John Harkness wrote, 'A Christmas Story is no doubt meant to evoke the lovely sort of Christmas films that were so popular in the late '30s and early '40s, films like Meet Me in St. Louis and Miracle on 34th Street, but it fails to approximate any of them."
While some critics in 1983 and 1984 were not too fond of A Christmas Story, its popularity would grow with audiences over the years. MGM/UA Home Video released A Christmas Story on VHS and BetaMax in 1984. In December 1985 it began airing on the premium channels HBO, Showtime, and The Movie Channel. The event that may have contributed the most to the enduring popularity of A Christmas Story may have the acquisition of the MGM library (including A Christmas Story) in 1986. In 1987 A Christmas Story made its debut on Ted Turner's SuperStation WTBS (now TBS), where it would become a holiday tradition. By 1995 the movie was aired six times between TBS and TNT. It as in 1997 that TNT began "24 Hours of A Christmas Story,' in which the movie was shown non-stop between 8:00 PM Eastern on Christmas Eve and 8:00 PM Eastern on Christmas Day. At the same time, TBS and TNT continued to show A Christmas Story several times earlier in December.
The success of A Christmas Story would lead to both sequels and adaptations to other media. The first sequel was It Runs in the Family (1984), later re-titled My Summer Story for home video and television. While It Runs in the Family was directed by Bob Clark, the only cast members from the original film are Jean Shepherd as the narrator and Tedde Moore as Ralphie's teacher Miss Shields. The film received mixed reviews and failed at the box office.
In 2012 a direct-to-video sequel A Christmas Story 2 was released. Although it was billed as an "official"sequel to A Christmas Story, it was not based on the works of Jean Shepherd, nor did any of the original cast or crew work on the film. It received mostly negative reviews. Last year a third sequel was released on HBO Max. A Christmas Story Christmas was produced and narrated by Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie in the original film. It was directed by animator Clay Kaytis, who had also directed the live action film The Christmas Chronicles (2018). He co-wrote the script with Nick Schenk, who had written the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino (2008). In addition to Peter Billingsley, A Christmas Story Christmas saw the return of several members of the original cast, including Scott Schwartz as Flick, R.D. Robb as Schwartz, and Zack Ward as Scut Farkus. Because Melinda Dillon was in failing health, Julie Haggerty played Ralph's mom. Darren McGavin as the Old Man is scene in photos and archival footage, and the film is dedicated to his memory. Reviews for A Christmas Story Christmas were largely positive.
A Christmas Story has also been adapted to the stage. In 2000 Philip Grecian wrote a stage play based on the movie. In November 2012 A Christmas Story: The Musical opened on Broadway. and ran until December 30 of that year. A television version of the musical, A Christmas Story Live!, aired on Fox in 2017.
A Christmas Story was only a modest success at the box office. Had it not been for home video and repeated airings on television, it might well have been forgotten. As to why the movie ultimately proved to be successful, it is because it was unlike any Christmas movie before it. The film does capture the Christmas spirit quite well. It is a movie that is largely sentimental and reassuring. At the same time, however, A Christmas Story is a bit darker than previous holiday movies. Both Ralphie and Randy are just a little bit scared of the Old Man. Ralphie, Flick, and Schwartz live in fear of Scut Barkus and his crony Grover Dill (Yano Anaya). The commercialism of the holiday (rampant even in 1940) is acknowledged, but not treated negatively as it is in everything from Miracle on 34th Street (1947) to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Ultimately, the reason for the success of A Christmas Story may be that it captures family life in the mid-20th Century at Christmas so well. Christmas as experienced by many children in the United States did not change terribly much from the 1930s to the 1980s. If A Christmas Story remains popular, it may be because it reminds many people of the Christmases they experienced in their own childhoods.
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