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A Christmas Story

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A Christmas Story is a Family/Comedy movie based on Jean Shepherd's novel In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. It is the first in it's series and has four sequels, My Summer Story, A Christmas Story 2, A Christmas Story Live!, and A Christmas Story Christmas, ordered respectively. The list of the thirty-two scenes of A Christmas Story is listed here.

Plot[]

The film is about a boy named Ralphie Parker who wishes for an official Red Ryder Carbine-action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas. He tries to get this BB gun while getting through childhood problems like two menacing bullies, a protective mother, grumpy father, a whiny younger brother, and a mean Santa Claus.

Synopsis

Set in the fictional city of Hohman (based on real-life city of Hammond, Indiana), 9-year-old Ralph "Ralphie" Parker wants only one thing for Christmas: "an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time." Between run-ins with his younger brother Randy and having to handle school bully Scut Farkus, and his sidekick Grover Dill, Ralphie does not know how he will ever survive long enough to get the BB gun for Christmas. The plot revolves around Ralphie's overcoming a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his owning the precious Red Ryder BB gun: the fear that he will shoot his eye out (the classic BB gun mother's block, "You'll shoot your eye out.") In each of the film's three acts, Ralphie makes his case to another individual; each time he is met by the same retort. When Ralphie asks his mother for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, she says, "No, you'll shoot your eye out." Next, when Ralphie writes a theme about wanting the BB gun for Mrs. Shields, his teacher at Warren G. Harding Elementary School, Ralphie gets a C+, and Mrs. Shields writes "P.S. You'll shoot your eye out" on it. Finally, when Ralphie asks an obnoxious department store Santa Claus for a Red Ryder BB gun, he responds, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid. Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!", before pushing Ralphie down a long slide with his boot.

On the day he gets the C+ on his composition, Ralphie is struck in the face with a snowball thrown at him by the bully Scut Farkus, who then begins to tease and taunt Ralphie. Having had enough of Scut along with Grover Dill bullying him, Randy, and his friends Flick and Schwartz, Ralphie angrily charges at Farkus, tackling him to the ground. After knocking down Grover Dill (who tries to intervene for his pal), Ralphie proceeds to beat Scut's face, giving him a bloody nose. During the fight, Ralphie begins to swear non-stop as he lands blow after blow to the squealing Farkus the kids behind the fence are shocked by the swearing. Randy runs to get their mom, who shows up and pulls her son off the bully, and takes him and Randy home. This part of the film occurs shortly after a scene where Ralphie gets into trouble for swearing while helping his dad ,The Old Man", as he is referred to throughout the movie fix a flat tire. Ralphie is worried about the swearing and is sure he will be in big trouble when his father gets home from work; Randy is also worried and hides under the sink. Instead, Ralphie's mother tells his father about the fight casually at the dinner table. She then changes the subject of the conversation to an upcoming Chicago Bears game, distracting his father and getting Ralphie off the hook in the process.

On Christmas morning, Ralphie looks frantically for a box that would hold the BB gun to no avail. He and his brother have quite a few presents, but he is disappointed because he did not get the gun. His disappointment turns to joy as his father points out one last half-hidden present, ostensibly from Santa. As Ralphie unwraps the BB gun, Mr. Parker explains the purchase to his none-too-thrilled wife, stating that he had one himself when he was eight years old.

Ralphie goes out to test his new gun, shooting at a paper target perched on top of a metal sign, and predictably gets a ricochet from the metal sign. This ricochet ends up hitting just below his eye, which causes him to flinch and lose his glasses. While searching for the glasses, Ralphie ends up stepping on them, breaking them. However, he concocts a story to his mom about an icicle falling on him and breaking his glasses, which she believes. She takes him upstairs to the bathroom to clean him up, and accidentally forgets to close the door. This allows a horde of the Bumpuses' (the Parkers' hillbilly neighbors) dogs, who frequently torment Ralphie's dad, to enter the house and eat the Christmas turkey that is cooling on the kitchen table. Making a last-minute decision, Mr. Parker takes the family out to a Chinese restaurant where they have a hilarious time dining on Peking duck, which adult Ralphie calls "Chinese turkey".

At the end of the story, Ralphie is lying in bed on Christmas Day night with his gun by his side. Randy is holding the toy zeppelin he received. The voiceover states that this was the best present he received or would ever receive.

Subplots[]

Several subplots are incorporated in the body of the film, based on other separate short stories by Shepherd. The most notable involves the Old Man winning a "major award." He entered a trivia contest out of the newspaper, which asked for the name of The Lone Ranger's nephew's horse (thanks to his wife, who supplied the answer: Victor). A large crate arrived and inside was a lamp shaped like a woman's leg wearing fishnet stockings, much to Mrs. Parker's displeasure. Just two days later, Mrs. Parker broke the lamp, infuriating the Old Man. The leg was the logo of the contest's sponsor, the Nehi bottling company (the details of the contest were not necessarily made clear in the movie).

Other vignettes include:

  • Ralphie's friends Flick and Schwartz disputing over whether a person's tongue will stick to a frozen flagpole. Schwartz ultimately issues Flick a "triple dog dare" (the most serious of those used by the kids), and Flick's tongue gets stuck to the pole, much to his terror. A suction tube within the flagpole was used to simulate the freezing of Flick's tongue to the pole.
  • Ralphie receiving his Secret Society decoder pin from the Little Orphan Annie radio show. After weeks of anxious waiting, and missing out on the daily "secret message" (which to a kid appeared very important) Ralphie finally is able to participate. However, he learns a lesson in being ripped off, as the secret message turned out to be an Ovaltine commercial.
  • Ralphie and his friends dealing with the neighborhood bully, Scotty Farkus (Zack Ward).
  • The Old Man's legendary battles with the aging and malfunctioning furnace.
  • Ralphie letting slip the dreaded "Queen Mother of Dirty Words", the "F-dash-dash-dash word" (censored with the word "Fudge" after his father knocks a hubcap from his hands, spilling its contents, the lug nuts from a flat tire) and later, when asked where he'd heard the bad word, falsely blaming his friend, Schwartz, and not pointing out that his father utters the word daily. After Ralphie's mother telephones Schwartz's mother to inform her that her son had been responsible for passing along the bad word to Ralphie, we hear Schwartz getting what appears to be the thrashing of his life at the hands of his hysterical mother. Ralphie himself gets a bar of soap in the mouth for saying the word. To keep it censored, Billingsley says "fudge" on camera (the narration points out that he really didn't say "fudge").
  • The numerous smelly and bothersome bloodhounds of the next door neighbors, the Bumpuses, including the dogs destroying the Christmas turkey (prompting the family to go out and have Peking duck instead, resulting in a giggling fit by the mother and the boys).
  • Several fantasy sequences depict Ralphie's daydreams of glory and vindication, including the vanquishing of a small army of villains dressed in stereotypical burglar costume of flat caps, black masks and striped shirts with his Red Ryder BB gun obtaining his parents' gratitude, an extremely good grade for his written theme about the BB gun, and parental remorse over a case of "soap poisoning" (related to his cursing).
  • Mrs. Parker's misadventures in overly bundling Randy up for the winter weather by wrapping him in sweaters and a jacket so tightly he is unable to put his arms down, then Randy getting inadvertently knocked down and unable to get up under his own power (his only defense when they are confronted by Scut Farkus.)
  • Randy's refusal to eat a meal on his own incites hilarity between him and his mother at the dinner table.

Cast and Crew[]

Crew[]

  • Directed by: Bob Clark
  • Author of the novel In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash of which the movie is based off of: Jean Shepard.
  • Screenplay by: Jean Shepard, Leigh Brown, and Bob Clark.

Cast[]

Reception[]

A Christmas Story is a huge success. When it was released it wasn't as popular as it was today, but in recent years, it has grown in popularity as one of the best Christmas movies of all time. It holds generally favorable reception with a 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.9 on IBMb, and 77% on Metacritic. There is a 24 hour marathon on TNT and TBS with 12 consecutive airings of the movie from Christmas Eve evening to Christmas Day evening. This event has been reoccurring since 1997. The film, despite much positive reception did get criticized for some racism in the scene, "Chinese Turkey?", or the fact it is not completely about Christmas and rather Ralphie's (and most other kids) childhood problems.

Transcript[]

See: A Christmas Story: (Transcript)

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • The reactions from the Parker family's actors in the thirty-first scene of the film, "Chinese Turkey", were their actual reactions. This made it easier to get the reactions the director wanted, which were shocked reactions.
  • The movie wasn't a big hit until sometime after its release.
  • Despite being the star of the film, Peter Billingsley and his role as Ralphie Parker is listed very low in the cast list at the eleventh spot.
  • Jean Shepherd, the author of the novel, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash is also the voice for Adult Ralphie and part of the screenplay team.
  • The scene where Flick's (played by Scott Schwartz) tongue is stuck to the flagpole, they placed a hidden suction tube to safely do this scene in the film to make it look as if his tongue was stuck.
  • The family eats meatloaf, red cabbage, and mashed potatoes at the dinner table every night. Except Christmas Day.
  • Close viewers may catch on to this, but Ralphie says he wants a "Red Ryder BB Gun" 28 times in the film.
  • Peter Billingsley said the f-word, but kept it censored.
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