Posted on 12/05/2008 11:11:43 AM PST by qam1
Fans of the holiday classic “A Christmas Story” are celebrating the film’s 25th anniversary with a convention and trips to the house where the movie was made.
The 1983 film, an adaptation of Jean Shepard’s memoir of a boy in the 1940s, was set in Indiana but largely filmed in Ohio. The movie starred Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker, a young boy determined to get a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.
The film was a modest theatrical success, but critics loved it. It eventually joined “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” as a Christmas classic.
“It’s a film about being a kid and looking back,” said Brian Jones, who owns the house where the movie was shot and the neighboring museum dedicated to the film.
About 4,000 fans attended the recent convention at Cleveland’s Renaissance Hotel, where they met some of the film’s actors, watched documentaries made about the film, and saw the original 1938 fire truck from a famous scene in the movie involving a child’s tongue stuck to a frozen pole.
“It is unbelievable that a movie has touched the lives of millions of families,” said Phil Gillen, son of the late actor Jeff Gillen who played the movie’s worn-out Santa Claus. He traveled from Miami with his family to attend the convention....
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
There are radio cds out there somewhere. Stay away from anything post 1967. Shep kind of started to wander.
Of all things, him grumbling under his breath, "Monsters of the Midway, hah!" cracks me up as much as any other line in the movie. It's near the beginning of the movie, when he's reading the sports section, and mom's fixing some oatmeal/gruel. You have to listen carefully.
I know what you mean. I grew up in Hackensack, went to elementary school strikingly similar to the one in the movie.
Not enough can be said for the job Darren McGavin does in the movie.
“Somewhere, Schwartz was getting his.”
My dad was nothing like him but it’s the only one of my favorite Christmas movies that’s anywhere near “traditional” (Die Hard, The Ref and Bad Santa are my more “typical” favorite Christmas movies). I think you have to be willing to remember childhood with the warts and the laughs to get the movie. A lot of people remember childhood seriously edited, they’ve dropped either the good stuff so they can be bitter or the bad stuff so they can be happy. Christmas Story is about remember the whole thing, might also help to have spent some of childhood in the snow belt. Even though I’m two generations removed from the time portrayed, but I spent the “formative years” in between Chicago and Indiana, and some parts of that area just don’t change. I remember getting so bundled up for school I couldn’t put my arms down, I’ve gotten a hand slightly stuck to a frozen flag pole, we’ve all dealt with bullies. I also remember being so excited opening presents I’d forgotten what I wished for and didn’t care if I’d gotten it or not.
Truly a great movie.
“Flick lives.”
Do you remember the Christmas tree lights that went out when one bulb went out? There are lots of little joys in the movie, like that and Ralphie's A+ essay fantasy sequence.
I read somewhere that the director kept the head-chopping part out of the script in order to surprise Melinda Dillon and get an especially candid response.
Was it a major award?!
Watch it...it is all it’s cracked up to be.
Nope
Billingsley was born in New York, New York. His father, Alwin Michaelsen, is a financial consultant who graduated from Princeton in 1954,[3][4] and his mother, Gail Billingsley was once Alwin’s secretary. Gail is the niece of Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley. Gail’s cousin, Glenn Billingsley, was briefly married to actress Barbara Billingsley who continued to use his last name for her stage name.[5] Gail was the one who initially took the children around to auditions. All five of the children in the family had acting careers when they were young. The oldest of Billingsley’s siblings, Dina and Win, had the briefest acting careers working mostly in commercials with brief guest spots on television shows.
We watch this movie on Thanksgiving while enjoying pie and coffee. It’s a wonderful tradition for our family. :o)
It was...it was...soap poisoning!!
Bumping to the top
I’m 39 and I love it. The good old days of the Holiday season weren’t that long ago. In fact, if you do it right and get some co-operation from loved ones, they’re still here.
Wait, I have my fantasies mixed up, shame on me! I meant, “A Plus, Plus, Plus...”
Was just trolling and saw your post. I grew up in norhtern NJ and spent my childhood there duriing the late 50’s - mid 60’s. What makes me write is that for one of those childhood years my family moved up to just outside of Boston (I was around 6 at the time). My brother and I used to call on our friends who lived in an adjoining project and on one particularly cold morning my brother pranked me with the “flagpole” joke from the movie. He got me to stick my tongue on the freezing-cold bannister outside our friends’ home and when they opened the door, there I was—stuck to the railing by the tongue. I think they went to get some water, but I couldn’t wait and pulled away, leaving a small memento of the occasion behind!
Sad thing is my brother didn’t have to double-dog OR triple-dog dare me...what a dope I was!
Why don’t you actually watch the movie and find out.
One of my husband’s friends actually has that leg lamp in his front window. I thought it was a gag Christmas decoration, but he leaves it up all year!
He says people still come up to him and swear he has yellow eyes. The power of good story telling, they never even attempted to make his eyes yellow in the movie, but many people “see” them anyway.
Forgot to add the most important part...my brother pranked me well before the movie had ever come out...Always wondered where he got the idea from...
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