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For other uses, see A Christmas Story (disambiguation).
A Christmas Story
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Bob Clark
Screenplay by

Jean Shepherd
Leigh Brown
Bob Clark

Based on In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
by Jean Shepherd
Produced by

René Dupont
Bob Clark

Starring

Melinda Dillon
Darren McGavin
Peter Billingsley

Cinematography Reginald H. Morris
Edited by Stan Cole
Music by

Paul Zaza
Carl Zittrer

Production
company

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by MGM/UA Entertainment Co.[a]
Release date


November 18, 1983

Running time
94 minutes[1]
Countries

United States
Canada

Language English
Budget $3.3 million[1]
Box office $19.2 million[2]

A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd's semi-fictional anecdotes in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, with some elements from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters. It stars Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, and Peter Billingsley. Widely considered a holiday classic in the United States and Canada, it has been shown in a marathon annually on TNT since 1997 and on TBS since 2004 titled "24 Hours of A Christmas Story", consisting of 12 consecutive airings of the film from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day annually.[3] It is the third installment in the Parker Family Saga.

The film was released on November 18, 1983, and received positive reviews from critics. Filmed partly in Canada, it earned two Canadian Genie Awards in 1984. In 2012, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]

The film spawned three sequels. The first, entitled It Runs in the Family, also directed by Clark, was released in 1994. The second, entitled A Christmas Story 2, was released straight to DVD in 2012. A third sequel, entitled A Christmas Story Christmas, was released on HBO Max in 2022 and features most of the original cast returning.
Plot
The front of the Parkers' house where A Christmas Story was filmed in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland's west side. The building was restored and reconfigured inside to match the soundstage interiors and is open to the public as A Christmas Story House.

The film is presented in a series of vignettes, with narration provided by the adult Ralphie Parker. As a 9-year-old boy in 1940, all Ralphie wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Ralphie's desire is rejected by his mother, his teacher Miss Shields, and a disgruntled Santa Claus at Higbee's department store, all of whom give him the same warning: "You'll shoot your eye out".

On Christmas morning, Ralphie receives some presents that he enjoys but is disappointed not to find the rifle among them. Ralphie's father ("The Old Man" wink directs him to one last box hidden in the corner, which proves to contain the rifle. Ralphie eagerly hurries outside to try it out, but when he shoots at the metal target he has set up, the BB ricochets and knocks off his glasses. Ralphie accidentally steps on and breaks the glasses while trying to find them; he makes up a cover story about a large icicle falling and hitting him in the face, which fools his mother and keeps him from getting in trouble.

That night, Ralphie goes to sleep with the gun by his side, as his adult self reflects that it was the best Christmas present he had ever received or would ever receive.
Other vignettes

Interspersed with the main story are several loosely related vignettes involving the Parkers:

The Old Man fights a never-ending battle with the malfunctioning furnace in the Parker home. His frustrations cause him to swear profusely (heard as gibberish in the film), leading Ralphie to suspect a cloud of profanity "is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan".[7]
Ralphie's friends, Flick and Schwartz, argue about whether or not a tongue will stick to metal in the winter. Schwartz "triple-dog dare"s Flick to try sticking his tongue to the schoolyard flagpole, and Flick does indeed get stuck, requiring the fire department's help to get him unstuck. Flick refuses to rat out Schwartz to Miss Shields, though she suspects either Schwartz or Ralphie is responsible.
The Old Man is delighted when he wins a "major award" in a newspaper contest – a table lamp in the shape of a woman's leg wearing a fishnet stocking. Mrs. Parker dislikes it, and the ensuing "Battle of the Lamp" ends with her "accidentally" breaking it. Unable to fix it, the Old Man buries it in the backyard. [8][9]
Ralphie eagerly checks the mail each day for a secret decoder ring, which he earned through a promotion Ovaltine and the Little Orphan Annie radio show were running. However, when the ring finally arrives, and Ralphie decodes the secret message broadcast on the radio show, he is disappointed to find the message is merely an Ovaltine ad.
While unsuccessfully helping The Old Man change a blown tire, Ralphie accidentally lets an f-bomb slip, and gets his mouth washed out with Lifebuoy soap as a punishment. That night, he fantasizes about making his parents sorry, by becoming blind from soap poisoning.
Ralphie, his brother Randy, and Flick and Schwartz are tormented by the neighborhood bullies Scut Farkus and Grover Dill. Ralphie eventually snaps and attacks Farkus, unleashing a stream of vulgar gibberish similar to the Old Man's.[10] Mrs. Parker halts him mid-fight and escorts him home; Ralphie and Randy expect The Old Man to "kill" Ralphie when he finds out, but Mrs. Parker manages to distract The Old Man by talking about football, earning Ralphie's respect.
Ralphie is dismayed to receive an embarrassing pink bunny footed sleeper from his Aunt Clara. Mrs. Parker forces him to try it on and thinks its adorable, but The Old Man calls it "a pink nightmare" and allows Ralphie to take it off. Mrs. Parker agrees to only have Ralphie wear it when Aunt Clara visits.
The Old Man is frequently chased by a pack of "at least 785 smelly hound dogs" owned by the Bumpus family, the Parkers' hillbilly neighbors. On Christmas Day, the dogs ruin the Parkers' dinner by romping through their kitchen and eating their turkey, forcing the family to go to a Chinese restaurant to eat, where they enjoy an entertaining dinner of "Chinese Turkey".[11]

Cast

Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker
Jean Shepherd as adult Ralphie (voice) / man standing in the Santa Claus line at Higbee's
Ian Petrella as Randy Parker
Melinda Dillon as Mrs. Parker
Darren McGavin as Mr. Parker (The Old Man)
Scott Schwartz as Flick
R. D. Robb as Schwartz
Zack Ward as Scut Farkus
Yano Anaya as Grover Dill
Tedde Moore as Miss Shields
Jeff Gillen as Santa Claus
Patty Johnson as Lead Elf[12]
Drew Hocevar as Male Elf[12]
Leslie Carlson as Christmas Tree Salesman

Casting

The basis of the screenplay is a series of monologues written and performed by Jean Shepherd on the radio. Shepherd wrote the adaptation with Bob Clark and Leigh Brown. Several subplots are incorporated into the body of the film, based on other separate short stories by Shepherd. Shepherd provides the film's narration from the perspective of an adult Ralphie, a narrative style later used in the comedy-drama television series The Wonder Years. Shepherd, Brown, and Clark have cameo appearances in the film: Shepherd plays the man who directs Ralphie and Randy to the back of the Santa line at the department store; Brown – Shepherd's wife in real life – plays the woman in the Santa line with Shepherd; Clark plays Swede, the neighbor the Old Man talks to outside during the Leg Lamp scene.[13]

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 later appeared in several other Clark films.[14] He cast Melinda Dillon on the basis of her similar role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Some 8,000 actors auditioned for the role of Ralphie, among the 8,000 actors were Keith Coogan, Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton;[15][16] "He walked in, and he had us from the beginning", Clark later recalled of Peter Billingsley who was already a successful actor in commercials[13] and 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 choice after all.[17]

Ian Petrella was cast immediately before filming began. Tedde Moore had previously appeared in Clark's film Murder by Decree and was the only onscreen character from A Christmas Story who was played by the same actor in the sequel, My Summer Story. Jeff Gillen was an old friend of Clark's who had been in one of his earliest films.[18] The schoolyard bully, Scut Farkus, was played by Zack Ward, now an actor, writer and director, who had actually been bullied himself while in elementary school. In 2017, he said he was surprised at the impact his role had over the years: "I saw that I was ranked – as Christmas villains go – higher than the Grinch. That's amazing".[19]
Production

The screenplay for A Christmas Story is based on material from author Jean Shepherd's collection of short stories, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. Three of the semi-autobiographical short stories on which the film is based were originally published in Playboy magazine between 1964 and 1966.[20] 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.[21] 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 that Shepherd told live audiences "on the college circuit".[18] While shooting scenes in Cleveland in early 1983, Clark told a reporter that it had taken him a considerable number of years to get the film into production.[22] Shepherd envisioned his stories as "Dickens’s Christmas Carol as retold by Scrooge", although Clark would soften it for the movie; the two did not particularly get along, as Clark did not admire Shepherd's attempts at trying to guide the actors with ideas about how the characters should be played, to the point where he had him barred from the set.[23][24]
Locations

The film is set in Hohman, Indiana, a fictionalized version of Shepherd's hometown of Hammond, near Chicago. The name is derived from Hohman Avenue, a major street in downtown Hammond.[25] Local references in the film include Warren G. Harding Elementary School and Cleveland Street (where Shepherd spent his childhood). Other local references include mention of a person "swallowing a yo-yo" in nearby Griffith,[25] 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 be a fan of the Bears (whom he jokingly calls the "Chicago Chipmunks" wink and White Sox, consistent with living in northwest Indiana. In commemoration of the setting, the City of Hammond holds an annual exhibit regarding the film in November and December, including a statue recreating the scene where Ralphie's friend Flick freezes his tongue to a flagpole.[26]

Director Bob Clark reportedly sent scouts to twenty cities before selecting Cleveland for exterior filming. Cleveland was chosen because of Higbee's Department Store in downtown Cleveland. (Since Higbee's was exclusive to northeast Ohio,[27] the department store referred to in Shepherd's book and the film is most likely Goldblatt's, located in downtown Hammond (with the Cam-Lan Chinese Restaurant three doors down on Sibley Ave). Until they connected with Higbee's, location scouts had been unsuccessful in finding a department store that was willing to be part of the film. Higbee's vice president Bruce Campbell agreed to take part in the project on the condition he is allowed to edit the script for cursing. Ultimately, Higbee's was the stage for three scenes in the film:

The opening scene in which Ralphie first spies the Red Ryder BB Gun in the store's Christmas window display. Higbee's was known for its elaborate, child-centered Christmas themes and decorations, with Santa as the centerpiece.
The parade scene, filmed just outside Higbee's on Public Square at 3 AM. The parade was filmed at night because during the daytime the 1960s Erieview Tower and Federal Building was visible from the Public Square, as was the BP Tower, which was under construction at the time.
Ralphie and Randy's visit to see Santa, which was filmed inside Higbee's. The store kept the Santa slide that was made for the film and used it for several years after the film's release. Higbee's became Dillard's in 1992 and closed permanently in 2002.[27]

In addition to the scenes involving Higbee's, the exterior shots (and select interior shots where Ralphie lived, including the opening of the leg lamp) of the house and neighborhood, 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". Appropriately, the fictional boyhood home of Ralphie Parker is on Cleveland Street, the name of the actual street where Shepherd grew up.

Several other locations were used. The school scenes were shot at the Victoria School in St. Catharines, Ontario.[28] The Christmas tree-purchasing scene was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, as was the sound stage filming of interior shots of the Parker home.[29][30] The "...only I didn't say fudge" scene was filmed at the foot of Cherry Street in Toronto; several lake freighters are visible in the background spending the winter at Toronto's port, which lends authenticity to the time of year when the film was produced.

In 2008, two Canadian fans released a documentary that visits every location. Their film, Road Trip for Ralphie, was shot over two years and includes footage of the filmmakers saving Miss Shields' blackboard from the garbage bin on the day the old Victoria School was gutted for renovation, discovering the antique fire truck that saved Flick, locating original costumes from the film, and tracking down the location of the film's Chop Suey Palace in Toronto.[31]
Red Ryder BB Gun
Main article: Red Ryder BB Gun

The "Red Ryder" model BB Gun was manufactured in Plymouth, Michigan, by Daisy, beginning in 1940; it was never manufactured in the exact configuration mentioned in the film. The Daisy "Buck Jones" model did have a compass and a sundial in the stock, but these features were not included in the Red Ryder model.[32] The compass and sundial were placed on Ralphie's BB gun, but on the opposite side of the stock due to Peter Billingsley being left-handed.[33]
Dating the story

Director Bob Clark stated in the film's DVD commentary that both he and author Shepherd wished for the film to be seen as "amorphously late-'30s, early-'40s".[34] A specific year is never explicitly mentioned in the film. The Look magazine that Ralphie hides the Red Ryder ad in, is the December 1937 cover with Shirley Temple and Santa. Ralphie's Little Orphan Annie Secret Society Decoder Pin bears the date 1940 (and is the real-life decoder pin released to society members that year, though by that time Ovaltine had ceased its sponsorship and Quaker was the primary sponsor of the series), the parade in front of Higbee's features characters from MGM's version of The Wizard of Oz, which was released in 1939, a 1939 calendar is seen in one scene,[35] and World War II, which the United States entered in December 1941, is never mentioned. The "Old Man's" treasured Oldsmobile 6 is a 1937 Oldsmobile F-Series Touring Sedan. Despite the director and author both stating that the year has been obfuscated, numerous sources, including The New York Times and CBS News, have dated the film to 1940 or the early 1940s.[36][37][38][39]

The real Shepherd was several years older than Ralphie; Shepherd was intentionally dishonest about many of the details of his own life and regularly obscured the line between fact and fiction in his writings.[40] A teacher named "Miss Shields" was Shepherd's second-grade teacher at Warren G. Harding Elementary School in 1928.[41] By 1939, Shepherd had already graduated from high school.[42]
Release and reception

Initially overlooked as a sleeper film,[43] A Christmas Story was released a week before Thanksgiving 1983 to moderate success, earning about $2 million in its first weekend.[44] Film critic Roger Ebert initially gave the film three stars out of four,[45] but later gave the film four stars and added the film to his "Great Movies" list and suggested the film had only modest success because holiday-themed films were not popular at the time.[46] Vincent Canby's mostly negative The New York Times review complained that "the movie's big comic pieces tend only to be exceedingly busy. Though Mr Billingsley, Mr Gavin [sic], Miss Dillon and the actress who plays Ralphie's school teacher (Tedde Moore) are all very able, they are less funny than actors in a television situation comedy".[36]

In Canada, the film would go on to win two categories in the 5th Genie Awards, for Director Bob Clark and Best Original Screenplay for the work of Leigh Brown, Bob Clark and Jean Shepherd.[47]

By Christmas 1983, the film was no longer playing at most venues but remained in about a hundred theatres until January 1984.[18] Gross earnings were just over $19.2 million.[44] In the years since, due to television airings and home video release, A Christmas Story has become widely popular and is now an annual Christmas special. The film was produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The rights to the film were acquired by Turner Entertainment Co. after Ted Turner's purchase of MGM's pre-1986 film library. Subsequently, Time Warner purchased Turner Entertainment in 1996, and currently holds rights to the film as Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).

Over the years, the film's critical reputation has grown considerably and it is regarded by some as one of the best films of 1983.[48] Based on 61 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 89%, with an average score of 8.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "Both warmly nostalgic and darkly humorous, A Christmas Story deserves its status as a holiday perennial".[49] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 77 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[50] In his movie guide, Leonard Maltin awarded the film a four-star rating, calling the film "delightful" and "truly funny for kids and grown-ups alike" with "wonderful period flavor".[51]

On December 24, 2007, AOL ranked the film their #1 Christmas film of all time.[52] IGN ranked the film the top holiday-themed film of all time.[53] In 2012, a Marist Poll named the film the favorite holiday film in the US.[54] In 2019, a poll commissioned by Tubitv and conducted by Onepoll also ranked the film Best Holiday Movie Ever.[55] A Christmas Story received a nomination for Best Digital – Comedy, and won Best Digital – Animation/Family at the 2023 Golden Trailer Awards.[56][57]
Lawsuit

In August 2011, Zack Ward, who played Scut Farkus in the film, sued Warner Bros. and Enesco over merchandising for the film after the company authorized a figure resembling his character from the film without his permission.[58] It was revealed that when he signed on to play that character, he did not receive any merchandising rights because of a mishap with his contract.[58] The lawsuit was dropped in January 2012 after Warner Bros. revealed that the figurine showed a "generic face" that has been used on them since 2006 and that statute of limitations had run out.[59]

In December 2012, Ward sued Warner Bros. again over his image after attending the annual Christmas Story charity fundraiser convention in Cleveland in November 2010, where a fan handed him a Christmas Story board game, playing cards, and calendar showing his face.[60] The lawsuit was settled three days later.[61]