Posted on 12/05/2008 11:11:43 AM PST by qam1
Fans of the holiday classic A Christmas Story are celebrating the films 25th anniversary with a convention and trips to the house where the movie was made.
The 1983 film, an adaptation of Jean Shepards 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 Its a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street as a Christmas classic.
Its 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 Clevelands Renaissance Hotel, where they met some of the films actors, watched documentaries made about the film, and saw the original 1938 fire truck from a famous scene in the movie involving a childs 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 movies worn-out Santa Claus. He traveled from Miami with his family to attend the convention....
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Loved that movie!
Has anyone read or heard Jean Shepherd’s other work? Any recommend place to begin?
He was the one who wrote the stories and narrated.
I feel sorry for anyone who thinks this movie is worth watching. Gag.
He was in “Iron Man”!
I kid you not!
The book’s much better than the movie anyway.
“In God We Trust-All Others Pay Cash” by Jean Shepherd
It’s really a collection of short stories, but all the episodes in the movie are there in greater detail.
Much more about Shep here:
What role in Iron Man?
Soap blindness!!
It takes a different approach. It isn’t “the joke” so much as the telling of the joke. Maybe you should start at the beginning.
Fra-GEE-lay!
It must be Italian!
“Fragggg—iilll—eeee....it must be Italian.” It say that line everytime I see something arrive marked “Fragile”.
ROR!!!
(raughing out roud)
I think you have to have a Dad like the Dad in the movie to appreciate it....
Thank you. I didn’t even know his name.
A major award! Maybe it’s a bowling alley!
Remember the scene where Jeff Bridges yells at the scientist at Stark Industries, “Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!!”
He was yelling at Ralphie. (who shaved his head to look older)
Love that movie
Latest credits are for Iron Man and Four Christmases this year.
“Hey, that’s a major award.”
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