A Christmas Story

A Tribute to the Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas...

MPAA Rating: PG

IMDB Rating: 8.0 / 10

Length: 93 min

Tags: comedy, family, drama

Director: Bob Clark
Writers:

Cast:

The Old Man
(Melinda Dillon)
Flick
(Darren McGavin)
Ralphie as an Adult
(Scott Schwartz)
Randy
(Jean Shepherd)
Miss Shields
(Ian Petrella)
Schwartz
(Tedde Moore)
Scut Farkus
(R.D. Robb)
Grover Dill
(Zack Ward)
Santa Claus
(Yano Anaya)
Ralphie
(Jeff Gillen)
Ming the Merciless
(Peter Billingsley)
Flash Gordon
(Colin Fox)
Christmas Tree Man
(Paul Hubbard)
Mother
(Melinda Dillon)
Christmas Tree Man (as Les Carlson)
(Leslie Carlson)
Freight Man
(Jim Hunter)

Editor Review

Now this is a true classic. The 1983 film A Christmas Story shows a lot of us what we usually see every wintertime. It's a middle class Christmas of dysfunction, of honest to life characters, of loving your family through the nagging, the grudges and the petty arguments.

It tells the tale of a young boy, Ralphie Parker, who wants only one thing for Christmas; a Red Ryder BB Gun, complete with a compass and a sundial. The only problem is, no one seems to share his vision of a wonderful Christmas, taking aim at whatever he fancies. And so he must set out to convince all around him of why he deserves it, all the while they repeat to him over and over that he'll only shoot his eye out.

There is wonderful narration by the creater, and well-known radio personality and raconteur, Jean Shepherd. Shep took the story from a range of his short collections based on his own upbringing in Indiana in the 1940's, including In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. However, a knowledge of any of his work prior to seeing the film is unnecessary, as it is captivating in its own right.

Bob Clark, the director, was seriously determined to make this film. He used the success of his previous film Porky's as leeway, and even promised the studios he would make a horror movie if they granted him the chance at A Christmas Story.

There are Santa Clauses kicking children down slides, there are childish games and torture techniques and a present marked Fragile mistaken for Italian. Don't make the same mistake, this is a down to Earth depiction of what Christmas was like in Hammond, Indiana, in the early 1980's. A lot more honest and salt-of-the-earth a Christmas story as you're likely to see this year.

Fun Fact:

An elaborate fantasy sequence - in which Ralphie joins Flash Gordon to fight his nemesis, Ming the Merciless - was filmed but dropped from the final cut of the film.

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