Posted on 12/09/2004 6:13:18 AM PST by Phantom Lord
A sassy classic
Ralphie, the lamp, the BB gun and why we love them
Every year at this time we get to unwrap a gift package filled with red cabbage, BBs and fishnet stockings.
It's the movie "A Christmas Story," arguably America's favorite holiday film. The 90-minute picture celebrates its 21st anniversary this year, happily planted in the middle of our pop traditions.
In 2003, more than 38.4 million viewers tuned into the 24-hour "A Christmas Story" TV marathon, said the film's director, Bob Clark, by phone as he sat next to a special lamp in his Los Angeles office.
This year, the marathon will begin at 7 p.m. Dec. 24 on TBS. For those who can't wait, First Stage Children's Theater is performing a stage version of the story at the Marcus Center.
Not bad for a low-budget flick that took 14 years to get produced. Clark spent that long trying to find a studio to back a film based on radio storyteller Jean Shepherd's lectures and 1966 book, "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash." It wasn't until Clark made the 1981 hit sex comedy "Porky's" that studio bean-counters gave their OK.
"A Christmas Story" stars Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon and Peter Billingsley as the earnest but edgy pre-adolescent Ralphie Parker. Set in Indiana sometime in the mid-20th century, the film tells the story of the Christmas when Ralphie dared ask for a Red Ryder BB gun.
The film portrays Christmases that so many of us experienced or at least wish we had. Says Clark, "Even shooting it, we knew we had at least a modest classic. It breathed life. It had magic."
So why does this picture speak to us so? Here are some of the reasons we love "A Christmas Story":
The Old Man's major award:
Ahh, that leg lamp. Never in the history of cinematography has one prop so successfully combined the concept of sexuality with middle American kitsch.
In the movie, Mom knew immediately that this lamp was so wrong. It arose like a monster from the depths of its crate, a ceramic she-devil's leg in black high-heel and fishnet stocking. The lamp shade bore a fringe straight off some hootchy-kootchy dancer.
This lamp exemplified temptation, the "soft glow of electric sex," wrote Shepherd. Billingsley admits in his DVD commentary that when he first saw it, he couldn't keep his hands off its thigh (he was 13 during the filming).
Today, memories of that most famous of lamps remain so bright that there is a big market for reproductions. Every Christmas for the last 15 years, Steve Allemandhas made leg lamps to sell at Le Esthers Lampshade and Repair Shop, the Kenosha store he co-owns with this wife, Chris. They sell about 25 a year at around $250 apiece.
"It is quite an eye-catcher when people walk by. We display them in a wooden crate in the front window," says Chris. "It's fun and tacky at the same time, something that is a fun conversation piece. The leg lights up, so that's hilarious."
Warm memories of the first time we got caught using that word:
When was your first time? When the garbage bag you were lugging broke open on the living room rug in front of Dad? When you smashed the kitchen window with a baseball while your mom stood at the stove? Evergreen moments, these.
They're unforgettable because for Ralphie and many of us, the f-word was "the queen mother of dirty words," the one you must never ever use. In "A Christmas Story," Ralphie lets loose with it. ("Oh, fudge!" he says on the soundtrack, but he admits that "fudge" wasn't the word actually verbalized.) His mother screams when she learns he said it and Ralphie gets "sudsed" - his mouth washed out with a bar of soap.
Clark says he's "never heard a single complaint" about the scene or about the SOVAB invective that the Old Man spews. In fact, every time this film runs, golden memories spring forth and many of us once again recall the piquant flavor of Fels Naphtha.
The Red Ryder BB Gun:
It carries a lot more firepower than any ordinary Two-Hundred Shot Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle. The present that Ralphie schemed for - and, indeed, risked his life for - at the hands of Santa's elves represents the universal gift that we have all lusted after. It is, in Shepherd's words, "the holy grail" of all presents.
As with the Grail, there is some question whether this rifle ever actually existed. Joe Murfin, vice president of marketing for Daisy Outdoor Products, which makes Red Ryder rifles, recalls that when Shepherd contacted the company for movie props, he described a gun with a compass and a sundial in the stock. Such a Red Ryder was never made.
"We told him, 'You're remembering two different guns.' He said, 'Oh, no I'm not,' " said Murfin.
So Daisy concocted a hybrid rifle for the movie. "It's really a case of history imitating art," Murfin says.
Daisy welcomes the attention "A Christmas Story" has brought the Red Ryder; this year the company is marketing a special Red Ryder / Little Beaver kit in connection with the film. Daisy even remains unfazed by the "You'll shoot your eye out" line and the scene where Ralphie nearly does just that.
"The way we like to look at it, the parents were taking responsibility by saying this. The BB rifle is not something you can just hand to children. The only negative part is the first thing they allow him to do is go out alone with it. But Ralphie learned his lesson," says Murfin.
Besides, fans know that the Red Ryder Rifle stands for more than just childish greed. It symbolizes a purer form of spirituality. Says Robert Thompson, professor of TV and pop culture at Syracuse University: "The rifle is not only not evil, there's almost a metaphoric function, in that the toy you desire in that white light sort of way is an intimation of heaven. The kid has had a certain degree of ascension at the end of the movie."
The bully gets his:
That big, yellow-eyed creep Scut Farkus could only shove Ralphie so many times. One day little Ralphie goes ballistic and beats Scut's proboscis to a pulp.
Fans of "A Christmas Story" often find the sequence with Ralphie's flying fists supremely satisfying.
"If you were one of those kids who grew up picked on, you know the story of the bully," says Bo Johnson, who plays the grown-up Ralphie in the First Stage production. "The great thing about watching the film is I never had the chance to get that moment and win out. Every bully has it coming."
The triple-dog dare:
This scene is so tantalizing that Clark has had "quite a few cases reported to me of kids getting their tongues stuck on the flag post after they saw the movie."
The movie effect was created by suction coming through a hole in the pole, but a tongue can indeed stick to metal. Clark has researched the science behind the phenomenon.
"It has to be awfully cold - zero - and dry."
Plus, you have to be dared to do it.
Mrs. Parker:
"Mom is the heart of the family and runs the show, but makes certain that dad thinks he is," says Jeff Frank, First Stage artistic director.
Don't we love that? Don't we love the fact that Ralphie's mother has been so busy feeding her family that she hasn't had a hot meal - even of red cabbage - for herself for 15 years? Don't we love it that when Ralphie gets into that fight, she handles the Old Man so smoothly that he doesn't even get angry?
The period look:
Audience members are encouraged to speculate on just what that period is. Though Shepherd set his narratives in 1938, Clark placed "A Christmas Story" in what he calls "an amorphous" time period: anywhere from 1940 to the earliest '50s. "It never feels like the Depression is on" is as close as Clark gets to locking in a date.
That expanded time period assures that even more people will be touched by the "Christmas Story" look: the chenille bedspread, the big-flowered wallpaper, the chunky tree lights.
"We gave great attention to all the details and the period so that people suddenly see things they haven't seen in so long - the department store, the parade. All the coloration. It's real and it doesn't stop, it flows," says Clark.
Our darkest suspicions about Santa:
"The Night Before Christmas" be fudged. Many of us spent our childhoods fearing the man in red and what his naughty / nice list could do to us.
In "A Christmas Story," Ralphie innocently hopes to bypass his mother's refusal to give him a BB gun by asking Santa himself for the Red Ryder. But when Ralphie arrives at the department store, he's confronted with a Rudolph-nosed monster attended by crazed elves. When Ralphie manages to spit out what he wants for Christmas, Santa betrays him with the deadly "shoot your eye out" curse before kicking him down the terrifying Santa slide.
Bob Clark shows he knows this kind of Santa.
"He's tired, weary, cynical. It's just a job," he says.
Still as fresh as the season's first snow:
While the setting is close to those other Christmas classics "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) and "Miracle on 34th Street," (1947) "A Christmas Story" is only a couple of decades old.
Says Thompson: " 'A Christmas Story' isn't as worn out as the rest of them. 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a great movie, but it's been around so long, replaying since the '70s when it went into public domain."
"A Christmas Story" is not only newer, says Thompson, "It's cooler. This is a more contemporary movie. It's got an attitude to it, more of 'The Simpsons.' Besides, with 'A Christmas Story,' we haven't yet memorized all of the dialogue."
I dont know....I still like Scrooged :)
Oh no, I shot my eye out! I know, I`ll tell her an icycle came down and hit me in the eye.
I suffered thru it once because my brother bought it for my kids for Christmas and said it was great. It wasn't.
"Scrooged" is very good. I'm a huge fan of "Christmas Vacation," myself.
'Cept my dad didn't fight the furnace and didn't use profanity.
Other than that, "it could be me"!
Oh don't be a Scrooge :)
Christmas Vacation it tops with me too!
Regards,
My mom bought the DVD for my wonderful stepdad who makes sure I watch this movie every year. It is a riot!
If put to a vote, you would lose in a landslide of Mondale proportions.
Is it wrong for a 44 year old man to want a Red Rider BB gun? :o)
A dare don't cut it, ya gotta be triple-dog dared.
Any brave souls who grew up in the northeast or the midwest knows you can, indeed, get stuck to something!
"My Old Man worked in profanity the way Picasso worked in oils."
that and the Muppet Christmas Carol.
I loved watching that when I was younger and my younger cousins were young.
I grew up on the muppets.....
I remember watching this movie in the theaters...
We also had a downtown Santa with an elaborate setting (L.S. Ayres had a train rather than a slide.) My grandmother always gave us weird presents (although I never got bunny pajamas.)
An old movie theater in the county seat south of us had a special showing of "A Christmas Story" in order to raise funds for renovation. Door prizes included reproduction leg lamps and gift certificates to the China Buffet. LOL! My sister went, and said that it was nearly sold out. Great fun!
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