It was almost a week before Thanksgiving in the United States when A Christmas Story (1983) was released on Friday, November 18, 1983. Christmas day would come in approximately five weeks, with the day of holiday being the day we review and remember the movie with those who found us on Matt Lynn Digital.
Peter Billingsley portrayed nine-year-old Ralphie Parker, whose experience of anticipating Christmas that year was shared through a series of vignettes leading up to the secular holiday from 1940. The stories for the movie, set in Hammond, Indiana, reflect the hometown of Jean Shepherd, the narrator and adult voice of Ralphie Parker. Shepherd‘s books In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters provide the source material for A Christmas Story. Bob Clark directed the movie.
We are introduced to the Ralphie’s fantastic daydreams associated with receiving a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle for Christmas. We meet Ralphie, his brother Randy, some of Ralphie’s friends, and Ralphie’s parents in the opening scenes of the movie. Ian Petrella portrayed Randy Parker, Ralphie’s younger brother. Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon portrayed the mother and father of the Parker children.
The vignettes contained with The Christmas Story offer some delightfully engaging notions of what life was like growing up in a North American factory town in 1940. Others offer glimpses of poor taste bordering on garish. Others engage the audience with a realistic sense of time and place, referencing old fashioned means of transportation, communication, electric power and living. The drive for Ralphie’s toy rifle intermixed with traditions of Christmas and growing up in the neighborhood.
The neighborhood and schoolyard were the sources of many of the neighborhood storytelling. There were the stories with Ralphie Parker, Flick and Schwartz in the class of Miss Shields that included classroom shenanigans as well as a metal pole in the winter cold of the school yard. There was bullying in the schoolyard and along the path home of bullying by Scut Farkus and Grover Dill. R.D. Robb and Scott Schwartz portrayed Schwartz and Flick, respectively. Zack Ward and Yano Anaya portrayed Scut Farkus and Grover Dill, respectively.
Miss Shields, as portrayed by Tedde Moore, transitioned between the vignettes for Ralphie’s home life and school life. Beyond the school yard and classroom specifics offered in The Christmas Story, there is a very clear theme from the adults to Ralphie regarding the safety concerns related to the safe operation of Ralphie’s desired air rifle. Would Ralphie get the gun? Could Ralphie handle the gun without hurting himself? Would the adults speak past Ralphie’s wishes to the safety concerns, in essence dashing his hopes? This recurring plot point worked quite well for the movie, even with repeated viewings of the film. The multiple storylines related to getting the family Christmas tree, in addition to a lamp won as an award, hit different people different ways on the engaging and garish question.
My intention here has been to give you some glimpses at a high level of some plot points that were engaging to me for this movie, while touching others in glancing form. There are vignettes that were not discussed, and the engaging quality of them get into the humor and sentiment related to time, specific subject matter, the fantasy with humor interspersed throughout, along with other points. There is plenty to enjoy with A Christmas Story as directed by Bob Clark, which I give 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
Matt – Saturday, December 25, 2021
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