A Christmas Story (1983)

I've planned on doing this movie for many years but, each time, I've either gotten side-tracked with something else, ran out of time, or just lost the gumption to do it and want to enjoy Christmas without any distractions. What's more, I often wondered if there was any point in my talking about it, not because it's a movie that everyone's either seen or knows but because, regardless of whether or not I review it, you're likely going to see at least a little bit of it, thanks to those annual 24-hour marathons. Heck, on a more cynical note, you're probably rather sick of it at this point. Therefore, I'll say upfront that, while I do enjoy this film, I don't absolutely love it, and think it's become very overexposed and lost much of its luster due to those marathons. However, since 2023 is the 40th anniversary, I figured there's no better time to do it. When thinking about how to start things off, I, as always, thought about when I first saw it, only to then ask myself, "When did I first see A Christmas Story?" It's one of those situations where I can't quite remember when I first saw it or even when I first heard of it, as it's always just sort of been there. After thinking hard, I believe I might've actually first seen it during my first or second year of middle school, which would've been 1999 at the earliest. That would make sense, as those 24-hour marathons didn't start until 1997, so it wasn't quite as overexposed and, even then, my earliest memories are not from one of those, but rather from seeing it on videotape, right before we'd let out for Christmas vacation at the private high school I went to. We'd either taken or were about to take our midterm exams, and one of the teachers brought a group of us to one of the dorms or some other such place, I think just to give us a break. I truly believe that's where I first saw A Christmas Story, and three scenes, in particular, stuck in my brain immediately. One, of course, was the flagpole scene; another was Ralphie saying "fudge" while unsuccessfully helping his dad change a blowout; and finally, my favorite scene in the whole movie, which is Ralphie beating the crap out of Scut Farkus. I don't think we saw the whole thing, though. Either way, after that, I didn't really think about it, and it wasn't until like the next Christmas or so that I realized just how popular the movie was, as I stumbled across one of those marathons.

Though I've likely seen a number of the scenes and setpieces numerous times over the years, it wasn't until much later in my life that I actually sat down and watched A Christmas Story from beginning to end (I don't even think I saw the movie's actual opening until I was in my 30's!). Moreover, I hadn't seen it without any commercial interruptions until I re-watched it a couple of times for this review. Regardless, it's so penetrated pop culture by this point that everybody, even if they haven't seen it, knows the main plot: Ralphie Parker wants a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle for Christmas and spends the whole movie trying to get it, despite his mom and others shutting him down. Everybody also knows the most popular scenes and subplots: Flick getting his tongue frozen to the flagpole (our local news used a clip of that when covering a story about someone who was dumb enough to actually do it), Scut Farkus and Grover Dill chasing the boys to and from school, the odyssey of the leg-lamp, the disgruntled department store Santa Claus who crushes Ralphie's hopes before pushing him down the slide, and Ralphie's aunt sending him pink bunny pajamas. And no one ever forgets, "I double-dog dare you!", and, "You'll shoot your eye out." When you've been parodied as much as this movie has, including by a Cingular commercial, and are seen by the studio as a valuable enough IP to warrant some direct-to-video sequels that no one asked for, you've definitely made an impact. All that said, I still feel that those marathons, as popular as they are (from everything I've read, they continue to get good ratings every year), have really hurt the film's specialness, if I can make up such a word. Don't get me wrong, it is definitely worthy of the love it gets, as it's very well-made, has great characters and good performances, especially by the kids, is genuinely funny, has an interesting and effective mix of childhood whimsy and cynicism about it, and truly encompasses what Christmas is about, both the good and bad, but I think it would hold up so much better if it wasn't so forced into your face.

It was only after I learned of Bob Clark's early work in the horror genre, particularly Black Christmas (which I say is still an underappreciated gem), in 2004 or so that I eventually learned he also directed A Christmas Story. It's been said many times before but it truly is amazing how he managed to make two very different, yet equally effective, takes on the holiday. In doing some research, I learned that A Christmas Story was something of a passion project for Clark, as he first became interested in Jean Shepherd's work just after he managed to get his first films off the ground as a director. Upon hearing the story of Flick's Tongue on Shepherd's radio show, which made him very late for a date, Clark said he knew that he wanted to make some sort of film based on those stories. But it took nearly fifteen years for it to finally come to fruition, specifically after he'd had a massive hit with Porky's in 1981 and gained some creative autonomy. Clark wrote the screenplay along with Shepherd and his wife, Leigh Brown, basing it on the collection of Shepherd's short stories, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, as well as unpublished stories he'd told throughout the years. However, throughout filming, Clark and Shepherd tended to butt heads, as the latter tried to influence the younger actors and give them his own directions, which Clark did not appreciate. Shepherd is even said to have been banned from the set due to his interference.

Although A Christmas Story is definitely the most well-known adaptation of Shepherd's work, it wasn't the first, nor was it the last. Beforehand, there were two television movies based around the fictional Parker family: 1976's The Phantom of the Open Hearth and 1982's The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters. While most are aware of the notoriously bad direct-to-video sequel to this, A Christmas Story 2, and the better received A Christmas Story Christmas, Shepherd himself also wrote and narrated a couple of other television movies about the Parker family in the 80's: 1985's The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski and 1988's Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss. In 1994, he and Bob Clark re-teamed for My Summer Story, or It Runs in the Family, which played in very few theaters and bombed horribly. After that, the two of them never worked together again, and according to Ian Petrella, who played Randy, they divided up the rights to the characters and stories, with Clark owning everything involving Ralphie from a kid to a teenager, while Shepherd had all the stories where Ralphie is an adult.

Speaking of Ralphie, although a handful of actors have played him throughout these many films, most notably Jerry O'Connell and Kieran Culkin, there's a reason, besides the obvious, why Peter Billingsley is the definitive image of the character: he's very much the ideal young boy next door, with his short blonde hair and glasses. He's quite shy and awkward (despite being the protagonist, he doesn't have a lot of dialogue), as well as very imaginative, given to intricate daydreams, be it about using his beloved Red Ryder BB-gun to fend off "Black Bart" and his cronies, his teacher absolutely swooning over his theme, or him going blind from his mother washing his mouth out with Lifebuoy soap. While definitely a decent enough kid, he also has moments of not-so-uncommon childhood cruelty, like when he and the others leave Flick with his tongue stuck to the flagpole, names Schwartz as the one he heard the f-word from, prompting his mother to beat him senseless, both he and Schwartz leave Flick at the mercy of Scut Farkus and Grover Dill (as his adult self says, "BB-gun mania knows no loyalty,"), and the way he slightly pushes Randy around (he still looks out for him, though, like when he falls in the snow and can't get up because of how overly bundled up he is). But what makes Ralphie especially relatable is the sheer hell he goes through to get the Red Ryder gun for Christmas. While I don't think I ever wanted a Christmas present as badly as he wants that gun, I think most of us can identify with attempting to drop hints to our parents about what we want, and not letting their telling us that we can't have it, for whatever reason, deter us (I know I didn't let my Mom stop me from getting R-rated horror movies for Christmas and birthdays long before I was seventeen!).

The film is definitely a coming of age story for Ralphie in many ways, and his desire for the BB-gun is part of it. While he's still a really young kid at nine (though Billingsley was actually twelve), and the gun is probably seen by most just as the quintessential gift for a boy that age at the time, it's also a rite of passage and a way for him to take a step towards manhood, as he's interested in something far riskier than any toy he likely got beforehand. Also, while his mother is genuinely 

concerned that he will badly hurt himself with it, there's also a hint that she's not quite ready to let go of her "little boy," given how she makes him try on Aunt Clara's pink bunny pajamas, despite it obviously being humiliating for him. And while he does indeed injure himself while trying the gun out, it doesn't sour his feelings for it at all, as the movie ends with him holding it as he sleeps, with his adult self calling it the best Christmas gift he ever got in his whole life. However, there are other

such moments for Ralphie throughout the film, and not all of them are pleasant. Some are downright crushing, like when he finally gets his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, only to decode the supposedly important "secret message" broadcast during that night's show and find it's nothing but an Ovaltine ad. Aggravated and grumbling, "Son of a bitch!", he storms out of the bathroom where he was decoding it, as his adult self tells us, "I went to face the world again, wiser." Speaking of which, Ralphie is also starting to use profanity more often,

and in front of his parents, who make him pay the not so fun consequences, despite his picking it up from the Old Man. Similarly, he's just as taken with the leg lamp as his dad, and only the reminder that it's time for Little Orphan Annie on the radio diverts his attention away from, "The soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window." Most significantly, there comes the moment when Scut Farkus pushes him too far and Ralphie, who's already having a bad day after getting a C+ on his theme, and his teacher writing, "You'll shoot your eye out," on top of that, tackles him and beats the hell out of him, while letting out a string of obscenities.

As he always did with the Parker family productions made during his lifetime, Jean Shepherd, who also cameos as the man who directs Ralphie to the back of the line to see Santa at Higbee's (Bob Clark also has a cameo), narrates as adult Ralphie. His narration is rather unique, as it swings back and forth from objective to subjective, with adult Ralphie feeling either like his younger self's thoughts in the moment or like he's genuinely re-experiencing what he felt as a child in telling us this story. However, I'm not sure on the exact logistics of his storytelling, as he's seeing the same things that we are, including himself as a kid, as he opens the movie with, "Ah, there it is. My house, and good old Cleveland Street. How could I ever forget it? And there I am, with that dumb round face and that stupid stocking cap." His younger self also breaks the fourth wall near the end of the movie, when he manages to fool his mother, so the POV is constantly shifting. As has been noted in other sources, this style of narration is kind of a precursor to Daniel Stern's narration of The Wonder Years several years later.

I have mixed feelings about Mrs. Parker (Melinda Dillon). For the most part, she's a really good, hard-working housewife and mother, doing everything she can to keep the place from falling apart, like making sure the family has a meal come dinnertime, bundling the kids up from the cold (if a bit too much in Randy's case) and sending them off to school, and just doing what she thinks is best for them. Everything she goes through is summed up by Ralphie in his narration during the scene where her own meal is constantly interrupted by others asking for seconds and her having to persuade Randy to eat at all: "My mother had not had a hot meal for herself in fifteen years." She's also quite disgusted with the Old Man's, admittedly, unsightly leg lamp, clearly jealous about the attention he lavishes on it, as well as unsettled by how the boys are quite interested in it and mortified by how it makes a neighborhood spectacle out of their house. This results in the "Battle of the Lamp," where she does everything she can to thwart her husband's attempts to show it off, culminating in her "accidentally" breaking it. Granted, since it happens offscreen, we don't know for sure if she did it on purpose, but odds are that she finally reached her breaking point. Most significantly, there's her relationship with Ralphie. Though he sees his mother as an overprotective spoilsport for discouraging his wish for a Red Ryder BB-gun, she actually has good reason for worrying, as ricochets are much more likely to happen with BBs. She also literally washes Ralphie's mouth out with soap after he drops the f-bomb (I used to think that was just an expression), much to his irritation, and he fantasizes about going blind and making her sorry. But he realizes that she really does love him when she breaks up his beatdown on Scut Farkus and, rather than admonish him for both it and the string of profanities he let loose, is clearly concerned about what's come over him. And when he breaks down crying afterward, she gently takes him home, cleans him up, tells him to calm down, and stops the Old Man from going off on him by just waving it away and distracting him with something else. As Ralphie himself says, his relationship with her improved afterward.

But, despite all those compliments, the moment where Mrs. Parker royally pisses me off is on Christmas morning, when she forces Ralphie to put on those pink bunny pajamas, even though she can tell it's embarrassing as crap for him. She even taps a flyswatter on her knee for emphasis when she orders him to go upstairs and put it on, as if threatening to hit him with it if he puts up a fight. She yells at him again when he hesitates to come down, and when he does, she absolutely gushes

about how he looks, even though she should know that no nine-year old boy would ever want to wear something like that. Like I said before, I think it's part of her not being willing to accept that Ralphie is growing up, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. And though she allows him to take it off when the Old Man insists, she still intends for him to wear it when Aunt Clara comes to visit. Regardless, though, I like how cool she is when she learns that the Old Man got Ralphie his gun, despite still thinking it's dangerous, and even though he tricks her when he does injure himself, making up the story about the icicle, she still runs to his aid and cleans his wound, telling him he can go get his gun from outside later.

I have no mixed feelings whatsoever about Darren McGavin as the Old Man, as this guy is awesome. He effortlessly manages to come across as fairly stern, a tad hot-headed, and often befuddled, but never unlovable. He spends most of his screentime either fighting with and cursing at his furnace, elatedly fixing mishaps such as blowouts and blown fuses, bartering over the best Christmas tree, dealing with the Bumpus hounds, and absolutely doting on the leg lamp after he wins it in a newspaper contest, much to his wife's chagrin. He can also put the boot in with the kids, warning Randy to stop whining about his food, "Or I'll give you something to cry about," potentially become very angry over Ralphie's fight with Scut Farkus, to the point where both Ralphie and Randy think he's going to kill him, and angrily yelling at Ralphie to shut up when he keeps complaining about wanting to go see Santa at Higbee's during the Christmas parade, but beneath it all, he's actually a real softy when it comes to the kids. That's especially true of Ralphie, as he's more than happy to allow him to help change the tire, even if he is horrified when he says "fudge." And while Christmas morning is where Mrs. Parker is at his lowest, it's where the Old Man shines, as he surprises Ralphie with the very BB-gun that he wanted (ironically, he's the only one who Ralphie didn't ask about it). I love how delighted he is when Ralphie unwraps it and pours the BBs into it, and when he tells his wife that he had one when he was eight and nothing ever happened to him. Thus, he's quite concerned when she brings Ralphie in after he's injured himself, though she tells him not to worry about it. We also see that he's quite obsessed with turkey, sneaking in bites every chance he gets, even before it's been cooked. Of course, the Bumpus hounds take care of that, forcing them to go out and have "Chinese turkey."

Ralphie's younger brother, Randy (Ian Petrella), is a rather whiny little kid, often moaning and grumbling about the food he's given and constantly refusing to eat, as well as crying and throwing a fit at times. Notably, he's not at all happy when his mother bundles him up to the point where he can't lower his arms, keep up with Ralphie and the others when they walk to school, or get up by himself when he falls in the snow. As funny as that stuff is to me, though, I can't say the same for the grosser moments of humor with Randy, like when Mrs. Parker gets him to eat by acting like a pig and stuffing his face into his place, getting food all over him (I have the same reaction as both Ralphie and the Old Man there). Unlike Ralphie, Randy still has the childhood wonder and enthusiasm that allows him to enjoy the Christmas parade, and like most other kids, screams his head off when he ends up on Santa's lap, as well as when he's pushed down the slide. He and Ralphie also tend to argue and fight a bit, but still, after Ralphie beats up Scut Farkus, Randy is just as distraught over what their dad is going to do to him as Ralphie himself.

While they're not in the movie much, Ralphie's friends, Flick (Scott Schwartz) and Schwartz (R.D. Robb), are both definitely memorable. Flick especially leaves an impression, as he makes the mistake of taking up Schwartz's challenge and putting his tongue to the flagpole, with the fire department and police having to be called to help him get loose. Despite getting the skin ripped off his tongue, Flick refuses to rat out Schwartz, or Ralphie for abandoning him, and denies that he

panicked and bawled his eyes out about it. As for Schwartz, he's memorable for just being a loudmouthed smartass, as well as the scene where Ralphie names him as the person he learned the f-word from, leading to him getting a major offscreen beating from his mother. Both Flick and Schwartz get physically attacked by Scut Farkus, with him wrenching their hands behind their back and pulling, forcing them to cry uncle. They're also both quite ecstatic when Ralphie explodes and attacks Scut, only to be horrified by the stuff he yells as he does. Still, they, like the other onlookers, are very satisfied after Scut proved himself to be a big baby. (Because all of their memorable scenes happen outside, when they're bundled up, I tend not to recognize Flick and Schwartz when they're inside and not wearing their hats and scarfs.)

Like some of the film's other memorable characters, Scut Farkus (Zack Ward) and his crony, Grover Dill (Yano Anaya), have fairly little screentime but manage to leave an impact. In fact, Scut was once ranked really high among Christmas villains, even higher than the Grinch, which especially shocked Ward himself. He's definitely a nasty piece of work, that's for sure, with his red hair, freckles, braces, leather jacket, and coonskin hat, as well as the absolute delight he takes in

tormenting Ralphie and his friends. However, there's a sign in his first appearance, after the kids have run off, that Scut can dish it out but can't take it, in how Dill gives him a friendly punch to the shoulder as they laugh, only for them to exchange harder blows until Scut hits Dill hard enough to make him stop and is satisfied when he does. As for Dill, he's clearly someone who would rather be Scut's sidekick than one of his victims, as he's too small to be truly intimidating. Thus, he puts up an even more obvious facade of toughness than Scut himself, but when Ralphie attacks Scut, Dill drops the act almost immediately and runs off after Ralphie punches him, threatening to tell his dad. Speaking of which, that beatdown proves that Scut is really a big baby and coward, with how he does little to fight back and cries like a wimp as he gets pummeled. When Ralphie is taken home, Scut tries to retain that air of toughness with the expression on his face when he sits up, but it's clear that nobody will be scared of him ever again.

Ralphie's teacher, Miss Shields (Tedde Moore), is a memorably no-nonsense type of person, as she makes the class give up the goofy teeth they're all wearing when they greet her at the beginning (though, you can see her trying to suppress a grin when she collects them). Horrified when she learns what's happened to Flick, she tries to guilt-trip those who put him up to it, which doesn't work, though it's clear she has a sneaking suspicion it's Ralphie and Schwartz. And while Ralphie expects

to do really well on his "What I Want for Christmas" theme, ensuring he'd get the BB-gun, Miss Shields, not falling for the bribery he attempts with the basket of fruit, gives him a C+, mostly because his theme, even for a nine-year old, was pretty lame. Plus, just like his mother, she warns him that he'll shoot his eye out. The same goes for the Santa Claus (Jeff Gillen) at Higbee's, who's like a less vulgar version of an unenthusiastic Santa in Black Christmas. He's no less cynical, though. This guy is clearly doing it for a paycheck, as he can't get the kids off his lap and down the slide fast enough, telling the one elf, "If Higbee thinks I'm working one minute past 9:00, he can kiss my foot." Not surprisingly, he has no patience for Ralphie forgetting what he wanted for Christmas, and after suggesting a football, sends him down the slide. But then, when Ralphie snaps out of his daze, climbs back up, and tells him what he actually wants, Santa tells him, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid," and pushes him back down with his boot. As cruel as that may seem, at least he didn't just say, "Whatever," or pushed him back down without a second thought, but instead, warned him of the gun's potential danger.

Even though he's not a significant character, I have to briefly mention the salesman who sells the Parkers their Christmas tree, mainly because he's played by Les Carlson. Being such a horror fan, I recognize him not just from Black Christmas but also several of David Cronenberg's films, most notably Videodrome, released the same year as A Christmas Story, where he played the villainous Barry Convex and died an absolutely gruesome death. Here, he plays the typical salesman, desperate to get the Parkers to buy the tree, going through one lousy excuse for one after another, while the Old Man barters with him, making him think they're going to go for an artificial tree at one point. He seals the deal when he tells him, "I'll thrown in some rope and tie it to your car for you."

I've always liked the look of the film that Bob Clark managed to create with his frequent cinematographer, Reginald H. Morris, as it has a very old-timey feel to it. Despite being shot in color, the palette ranges from sometimes very vibrant, mostly when the characters are wearing really bright clothes or in scenes with Christmas lights, to being fairly or almost completely muted, especially in the scenes outside in the snow. Speaking of which, in those scenes, you really feel how cold it was when they were shooting, while

the interiors of the Parker house look and feel very warm and cozy. Clark and company also employ a number of memorable visual and editing tricks, often to really give you a glimpse inside Ralphie's mind. His daydreams and fantasies always have a noticeable white or transparent filter around the edges of the frame, which mesh nicely with the over-the-top acting, music, and situations he cooks up. Right before he beats up Scut Farkus, you can feel his rage beginning to boil through the cutting back and forth from zoom-ins on Scut's laughing,

mocking face, to close-ups of Ralphie, as his initial tears turn into an angry glare. Similarly, you feel his disorientation and nervousness when he makes it up to Santa Claus and the film cuts to his POV, which whirls around dizzily when he's put on Santa's lap, before coming back around to Santa, who's ho-ho-hoing right in his face, with the wide angle and deepening of his voice getting across how frazzled Ralphie is. Earlier, when he's decoding the secret message in the bathroom, the

quick editing and close-ups of his hands, pencil, and mouth, combined with his mother and Randy pounding on the door for him to come out and the music, establish how sincerely tense and important the situation is for him. Similarly, when he messes up while helping to change the tire and drops the f-bomb in front of his dad, the movie goes into dramatic slow-mo and zooms in on both him saying it and the Old Man reacting, as if they're both witnessing a car accident in progress and can

do nothing to stop it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, after Scut and Grover Dill are established, we get many sped-up shots of the two of them chasing Ralphie, Flick, and Schwartz to and from school, with Randy always lagging behind, a trick that had already been used in Ralphie's first fantasy. And transitions between scenes are often done with either good old-fashioned irises in and out or wipes.

Another reason why the movie works so well is because of how authentic and timeless the setting is. Although the interiors of the Parker house were done on a soundstage in Ontario, the film was otherwise shot entirely on location in Cleveland, Ohio, and miscellaneous places in Ontario, mostly in the Toronto area, and it gives off the feeling that the characters live, work, and go to school in a typical, lower-class suburb near a fairly large town. Not only do all the houses and the school come off as places you've seen thousands of times in real

life, but so do the actual town square and Higbee's department store, with its Christmas window display and interiors, the latter of which the filmmakers sparingly added onto, notably with the addition of the Santa slide. And even though they were a set, the Parker house interiors also come off as a real, everyday home (the leg lamp notwithstanding). Interestingly, those scenes are the only times where I remember that the movie is taking place in the 40's (though when exactly is

open to debate, as there are so many elements that throw off the exact date), with how old-fashioned the small kitchen and dining room look, not to mention the toilet and family car, the way in which the lamp is delivered to the house and the Old Man signs for it, the dynamic of Mrs. Parker clearly being a classic housewife, and how the kids only have a radio to entertain themselves instead of a television. There are other things do so, to be sure, like the Red Ryder BB-gun itself, the occasional old-style vehicles on the road, and the incorporation of certain characters, specifically those from The Wizard of Oz, but otherwise, the setting is pretty timeless and nondescript.

This a prime example of a Christmas movie that absolutely bathes in the iconography and feeling of the holiday, from the constant snow and cold weather, to Christmas trees, colorful lights and decorations, Santa Claus and elves, lots of Christmas songs on both the soundtrack and in the background, and, of course, toys and gifts. One of my favorite moments is at the end, when Mr. and Mrs. Parker watch the snow come down outside, lit only by the Christmas tree, followed by the lovely shot of the Parker house as the snow comes down

behind the ending credits. Another is when Ralphie wakes up on Christmas morning and looks out the window, amazed at the snowfall that covered the neighborhood during the night, as well as all of the icicles. But another thing I really like is how the movie mixes cynicism in with the whimsy, capturing both the good and not so good aspects of Christmas. Besides Ralphie's desire for his BB-gun being seemingly unfairly thwarted at every turn, you have the hassle that can come from putting up Christmas decorations; Ralphie being the

complaining kid who's unimpressed with the annual Christmas parade; everything involving the mall Santa at Higbee's, from how rough the elves are with the kids (the one who puts the kids on the slide seems to sadistically enjoy their screaming) and how genuinely uninterested Santa himself is with the job, to some of the kids freaking out when they're put on Santa's lap and sent down the slide; and, above all else, the sheer avarice that comes with the holiday. Let's face it, as nice as it can be to

see relatives you don't see that often, as good as the food often is, and the overall spirit of good will and all that jazz, Christmas, especially to young kids, means one thing above all else: presents, and the movie doesn't shy away from that. It could've easily gone for something more predictable and saccharine, like Ralphie learning that his family is more important than any gift he could get, or getting rid of his gun after he hurts himself because he realizes his mother was right all along, but with Bob Clark and Jean Shepherd behind it, it stays the course, with even the tagline declaring, "Sometimes Christmas is about getting what you really want."

If you've seen the reviews I've done on other childhood-centric movies, like Stand By Me or The Sandlot, you know that I'm a real sucker for those that manage to capture the essence of it, and A Christmas Story is among those, especially when it comes to being a kid during Christmastime. Like I said when talking about Ralphie's character, many of us can relate to wanting a specific gift above all else and trying to drop subtle, or not so subtle, hints to our parents. Similarly, even though I grew up in the 90's, I can remember seeing my fair share

of impressive Christmas window displays in mall department stores in Chattanooga, Tullahoma, and Murfreesboro. And Ralphie looking at the advertisement for the Red Ryder gun in that magazine makes me think of when I would look through those Sears catalog books as a kid. Those scenes at the school, especially the next-to-last one, where everyone is bringing Miss Shields some little gifts before they go off on Christmas break, makes me think of how exciting the build-up to it was and how I couldn't wait to get out and go home

just a few days before Christmas. There's also that late childhood skepticism about Santa Claus that Ralphie has, where he goes to Higbee's to ask him for the BB-gun, even though his adult self admits he didn't exactly believe but adds, "Moments before zero hour, it did not pay to take chances." (I personally managed to hold onto my belief in Santa almost to the end of elementary school; even though, by the time I was eleven, I had seen evidence that blew the lid off it for me, I

desperately wanted to still believe but eventually had to face reality.) More than anything else, though, I think the movie nicely captures everything a child experiences on Christmas morning, both good and bad: the excitement of waking up and realizing that Christmas is finally here, the zeal of digging through everything under the tree and marveling at what you get, as well as not at all caring for stuff like clothes or really embarrassing gifts, and the disappointment of not getting everything that you wanted.

So much else about childhood is nicely captured here, as well. For one, the scene with Flick at the flagpole really gets into peer pressure, as well as how downright cruel kids can be, even among friends. The build-up to it also centers around a strange but very serious type of etiquette that kids have about dares, with adult Ralphie telling us, "The exact exchange of nuance and phrase in this ritual is very important," as Schwartz goes from a simple double-dare to a double-dog-dare, which everyone is shocked to hear him say. "Now it was

serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was left but a 'triple dare you?' And finally, the coup de grace of all dares: the sinister triple-dog-dare." Schwartz then immediately goes for the latter, horrifying everybody, as it's a breach of etiquette, but he knows that there's no way ol' tough-talking Flick will back down now. That's when Flick does it, gets stuck, and then the bell rings, and everyone, including Ralphie, leaves him out there, crying and begging for help. And even after the fire

department and the police are called to pry him loose, Flick refuses to rat out Schwartz or Ralphie. Miss Shields has a feeling it's one or both of them, and tries to lay a major guilt-trip on them, but as adult Ralphie tells us, "Adults loved to say things like that, but kids knew better. We knew darn well it was always better not to get caught." This comes back around when Ralphie, both out of fear of admitting the truth, and also maybe to get some payback on Schwartz, tells his mother that he  

heard the f-word from him. And then later, both Ralphie and Schwartz leave Flick to be tormented by Scut Farkus and Grover Dill, and at the end of the movie, when he's forced to wear those bunny pajamas, Ralphie comments how Schwartz would spread it all over school and it an utter hell if he ever saw him.

Speaking of the cruelty of kids, Scut Farkus and Grover Dill are prime examples of how nasty and intimidating certain bullies can be. While we never get any backstory on them, we can probably guess that the two of them, particularly Scut himself, have crappy home-lives and pick on Ralphie and his friends in order to get the power back that they don't have elsewhere. Also, as I said earlier, I have a feeling that, because he's not as physically intimidating or commits any acts of violence himself, Dill is only Scut's crony because he'd be

one of his victims otherwise. Being someone who was bullied quite a bit in school (although, ironically, I didn't run into one who was physically abusive until middle school and much of high school), that's why I love the scene where Ralphie beats Scut up, because I wish I had the gumption to do that at the time. That scene also shows that you can push even the meekest person only so far before they explode, especially if they're already have a pretty crappy day. And on Ralphie's end,

when his mother finally snaps him out of that blind rage and he starts crying, it comes across like he didn't even realize what he was doing until just then, and his tears are a combination of mental exhaustion, horror over what he just did, and freaking out over being punished for both it and the profanity that spewed out of his mouth.

That's another thing: as kids, when we know we've said or done something really bad, we feel as though we're about to be executed. As adult Ralphie says when the f-bomb slips out, "It was all over. I was dead. What would it be? The guillotine? Hanging? The chair? The rack? The Chinese water torture? Huh. Mere child's play compared to what surely awaited me." Of course, he merely gets a bar of soap in his mouth, but after he beats up Scut and lets out all of those curse words, he's absolutely sure that his dad will kill

him when he hears about it. Randy is convinced of the same thing, as Mrs. Parker finds him hiding in a kitchen cabinet, crying about it. I definitely know what Ralphie is talking about when, as he's lying on his bed in his room, he says he felt "a wave of terror" rush over him when he heard his dad come home from work, as I've been there. On the flip side, when kids feel they've been undeservedly punished, they can come up with scenarios where the parents would regret it, as Ralphie does after

being sent to bed when his mother takes the soap out of his mouth; I know I did. However, I always imagined merely running away from home, rather than going blind or my parents' punishment causing me some other type of irreparable harm. But, then again, I never got my mouth washed out. While we're on the subject, like I said before, I always thought the saying, "Wash your mouth out with soap," was a figure of speech, but my mother has told me that my grandmother did actually do that to her and her siblings as kids. I don't know if it would cause blindness but that does sound like something that would endanger a kid's health.

I've got Ralphie beat on one thing: the first time I ever cursed, I couldn't have been more than five years old; in fact, I did it twice at that age, in front of my paternal grandmother, who was very opposed to any kind of swearing, even something like "damn," and my mother. And while it wasn't an f-bomb, I still said something pretty bad in front of the latter (read my review on King Kong Lives if you want that story, as it ties into it). I never got my mouth washed out, nor did I get the crap beaten out of me like Schwartz, but, like Ralphie, I knew I

was in deep trouble both times, especially when it came to what I said in front of my mother. While I didn't learn it from my dad, I did sometimes hear fairly colorful language from him and some of my other family members when I was a kid, particularly my uncles, though no one ever said "fuck" (actually, this movie, with adult Ralphie's allusion to the "f---" word, might've been the first time I ever knew there was a particularly bad swear word). Speaking of which, I love how the movie itself alludes to swearing with gibberish,

particularly from the Old Man when he's in the basement, fighting with the furnace. That first time is one of the movie's funnier moments to me, as Ralphie, Randy, and Mrs. Parker stand there in shock at what they're hearing come through the vent, while all we hear is, "Poop flirt, rattle crap, camel flirt! You blunder, frattle, beak, struckle, brat! Of a womp sack butt bottom fodder... Smick melly whop walker! Drop dumb fratten housestickle viper!" Adult Ralphie adds to it by telling us, "In the heat of battle, my father wove a tapestry of obscenity that, as far as we know, is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."

The scenario that Ralphie comes up with about him going blind from "soap poisoning" leads into an aspect of his character that I can most definitely relate to: his very active and vivid imagination. I've always been like that since I was a kid and, even now, I have a bad habit of daydreaming, as I often did in school, especially elementary. I may not have ever imagined sending a bunch of stereotypical-looking criminals packing while in a cowboy getup (I'm sure my dad did when he was a kid, as he's always loved westerns), or about one of

my teachers absolutely swooning over the quality of my homework assignment, but I definitely had, and still have, my fantasies. Speaking of Ralphie's theme for Miss Shields, I can also relate to thinking I did really well on an essay or something similar, only to get it back and find I bombed badly. Granted, Ralphie's writing, even for a nine-year old, comes off as far as too rudimentary and vague, but I get his disappointment.

Finally, if you were ever part of any kind of fan-club when you were a kid, you know how it important it can make you feel, especially when it's made out to be very exclusive. This is what the movie manages to capture nicely with Ralphie becoming a member of the Little Orphan Annie Secret Circle and not only getting his long-awaited decoder ring in the mail but also an official document identifying him as a member, with all the honors and benefits, and signed by Little Orphan Annie and Pierre Andre; as adult Ralphie remarks,

"Honors and benefits, already at the age of nine." When he then gets a secret code to decipher, he feels like he's doing something very significant, as Pierre tells all those listening that this is only for members of the Secret Circle, not to tell anyone else, and that Annie is depending on him. This encourages him to lock himself in the bathroom, the only place where a kid like him can have any privacy, and puts up with the pressure of trying to decode the message while Randy and his mom are

banging down the door because the former really has to go. And then, it turns out to be nothing more than a commercial for the show's sponsor, Ovaltine, which teaches Ralphie a harsh lesson, one that's very similar to what it's like to realize Santa Claus doesn't actually exist.

As far as the movie's comedy goes, as cruel as it is, I'll admit that I do laugh at Randy's misfortune with his mother overdressing him to the point where he can't put his arms down, and him whining as she repeatedly pushes them down, only for them to pop back up. After trying this several times, Mrs. Parker tells him, "Well, put your arms down when you get to school," and puts his scarf back on him, literally wrapping it around his head, while he absolutely bawls. The same goes for how he's so

weighed down that he can't keep up with Ralphie and the others, whining and crying as he staggers along, and when he falls or gets knocked down in the snow, he becomes like a turtle flipped on its back, as he can't get up without help. Although Ralphie claims in his narration that, during their first confrontation with Scut Farkus and Grover Dill, Randy laid on the ground to defend himself, it's obvious that he, again, simply couldn't get up after Scut pushed him over. That's another thing:

either because he's so utterly defenseless that he's no challenge, or he's just never around because he can't keep up with them, the bullies totally ignore Randy. As for Flick and Schwartz, while I find Flick getting his tongue stuck to be kind of hard to watch because of how realistic it looks and because Flick is obviously in pain and crying hysterically, I do laugh when Ralphie gets some payback against Schwartz by naming him as the person he heard the f-word from. The sound of his mother freaking out over the phone and proceeding to spank him

relentlessly sounds more like somebody being murdered, with her over-the-top screaming, which sounds like squawking (the last sounds you hear before Mrs. Parker hangs up don't even sound human), and Schwartz yelling and crying. There's also a nice little postscript to that scene, where Mrs. Parker sends Ralphie to bed and, once he's gone, puts the bar of Lifebuoy she used on him into her own mouth... and then immediately gags and spits into the sink.

The whole thing with the leg lamp is one aspect of the movie that has become overexposed to the point where it's lost a lot of what originally made it funny (in fact, when I re-watched the movie recently, I laughed more when I saw that one side of the crate it's delivered in reads, "HIS END UP," instead of, "THIS END UP," which I'd never noticed before). It's a shame, too, because, when you first see it, it is hilarious in how utterly ridiculous and tacky it looks, compounded by how

the Old Man just dotes on it and thinks it's magnificent, while his wife hates it from the get-go. She's especially mortified when he puts it in the window, nearly blowing a fuse when he plugs it in, and then goes outside to direct its positioning, attracting attention from the neighbors. Thus begins the "Battle of the Lamp," with Mrs. Parker attempting to downplay it at every opportunity, culminating in her breaking it, much to the Old Man's anger. He accuses her of being jealous of it, while she comes out and calls it the ugliest thing

she has ever seen. For me, the funniest part of this is when the Old Man demands she get the glue, she says they're out, and he accuses her of using it all up on purpose, followed by Ralphie narrating, "The Old Man stood, quivering with fury, stammering as he tried to come up with a real crusher. All he got out was...", and the Old Man exclaims, "Not a finger!" He then tries to reassemble the lamp, and appears successful, only for it to crumble when he puts the shade on, all while his wife is sitting in the background, bursting to laugh. Ralphie tells us that the Old Man buried the lamp in the backyard, and that he thought he heard the sound of Taps playing at the time.

Unlike the lamp, the Old Man's constant battles with the Bumpus hounds are still very funny to me. Just the idea that he's the only person they annoy is great enough, but for me, the best part is when, while he's all excited about winning his major award, he opens the door and lets them chew on the back of his pants, only to accidentally shut one's ear in the door. Now, I don't condone cruelty to animals, but the sight of that quivering ear and the hound's pained howling does strike me as quite

funny (plus, it reminds me of a real incident, when my grandfather accidentally shut the door on a cat's paw and the cat let out some very angry and pained screeching; don't worry, the cat wasn't badly hurt). However, at the end of the movie, the hounds prove to be just straight up assholes, as they get into the house (I have no clue how they did, because they seem to come in from the direction of the front door), tear up the kitchen, ruin the turkey, and then run out the back, all while ignoring the Old Man, who can do nothing but yell, "You sons of bitches! Bumpuses!"

Here's an example of a bit of humor going directly over my head, though. I never understood what the joke was when, after they have a blowout on their way back from getting the Christmas tree, we watch the Old Man fetch one of his spare tires from the trunk and adult Ralphie comments, "My old man's spare tires were actually only tires in the academic sense: they were round, they had once been made of rubber." Then he stops talking and I'm thinking, "Okay?" Until recently, I never understood that the joke is that, if you look at the spare, there are no treads on it whatsoever. I'm not a vehicle guy at all, so that never once went through my mind, and even now, I look at it and think, "It's still not all that funny." But what do I know?

While not often, but also not completely unexpected, as we are talking about the director of Porky's, there are instances of humor that's either rather gross or downright raunchy. Most of it involves Randy, like when his mother gets him to act like a pig in order to get him to eat, or when, after Ralphie gets out of the bathroom, it immediately cuts from Randy pulling his pants down and opening the toilet lid, to Ralphie looking in a pot cooking on the stove to unveil some rather 

unappetizing red cabbage. But probably the most lowbrow joke in the movie comes on Christmas morning, when Mrs. Parker puts a large, round, heavy present right in the Old Man's lap, causing him to wince, and after she says, "From me to you," he responds, "Thanks a lot," in a high-pitched, Mickey Mouse-like voice. He then unwraps it to unveil a blue bowling ball, exclaiming, "Well, it's a blue ball!" And then, there are moments that are just plain odd, chief among them being that weird kid Ralphie and Randy meet

while waiting in line for Santa, who's wearing goggles, is always smiling, and randomly says, "I like Santa," "I like The Wizard of Oz," and, "I like the Tin Man," all while staring and smiling at Ralphie for an uncomfortably long time. (First few times, I thought that might've been Flick, as his hat kind of reminded me of his. I wasn't as familiar with the movie then, though.) I don't know what else to say, except that it's just freaking weird.

I doubt this would fly in this age of political correctness, but I don't care: I think the awful singing of those Chinese waiters at the end of the movie is freaking hilarious, especially the, "Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra." Yeah, it's very stereotypical, leaning all the way into "Engrish," and doesn't get any better when they try to sing Jingle Bells, but I still find it funny. Most of the humor comes from the well-spoken manager being embarrassed by this, rather than any snide remarks from the

Parkers themselves, so I really don't think it's that big of a deal (plus, since China is known for being one of the most racist countries ever, I think they should be able to take a few jabs at their own expense; they could've gone even further, and had them serve the Parker family a cooked dog or something similar). What happens with the Peking Duck is pretty funny in its own right, especially Mrs. Parker's genuine reaction to both the sight of it and the manager beheading it.

Much of the film's music score and soundtrack are made up of classic Christmas songs, both as incidental music and on the radio in numerous scenes. The instrumental versions of those songs that are specific to the movie, which I think are some of the original work by composers Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer, are quite lovely in their way. For instance, it starts out with some festive bells, before transitioning into a nice version of Deck the Halls and then, a brief, soft smattering of Jingle Bells, which gives way to a band playing both songs when we get our first look at downtown and Higbee's. Similarly, the movie closes out with a very beautiful rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas over the ending credits, with the last thing you hear being more of those bells that opened it. Aside from that, the most memorable original music include this piece that sounds both melancholic and yet silly, which you hear most notably during the flagpole scene and the aftermath, and a dreamy, twinkling piece, which you hear when Ralphie and his friends look through the Higbee's Christmas window, when he imagines Miss Shields as the Wicked Witch, and when he wakes up on Christmas morning. The latter moment is followed by a very nice, harpsichord bit when he looks out at the snow and ice-covered neighborhood, making it feel all the more magical. I'm also not sure if the very melodramatic moment that plays during Ralphie's fantasy about going blind is original or not, but it also nicely fits with the nature of that scene and the actors' performances. Going back to Christmas songs, you hear Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters' renditions of Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town playing on the radio, Go Tell It on the Mountain by some carolers at the beginning, and Silent Night during the scene at the end, where Mr. and Mrs. Parker watch the snow come down, among many others. 

A lot of the music in the movie, though, is from other sources. Some of them are pretty obvious, like the use of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture when Ralphie fantasizes about Miss Shields fawning over his theme, Taps when the Old Man goes to bury his destroyed leg lamp, and Chicken Reel for some scenes involving the Bumpus Hounds, but others are a bit more obscure. For instance, another Tchaikovsky piece, the opening to Hamlet, plays after Ralphie says "fudge," when the Old Man fails to fix his broken lamp, and when Ralphie steps on his glasses, adding a melodramatic flair to those moments. The Phillip Morris Cigarette jingle plays at the beginning of Ralphie's fantasy about saving his family from bad guys with his Red Ryder BB, while the rest of it is scored with the Grand Canyon Suite's song, On the Trail. Footsteps of Horror by W. Merrick Farran plays when Ralphie is trying to decode his secret message, giving a feeling of building tension and suspense to the scene as it progresses. A piece of music from Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf serves as Scut Farkus' leitmotif, a sad piece from a radio program called Air Mail Mystery plays when Ralphie is depressed about his theme and frightened about his dad coming home following his fight with Scut, and the music that plays during the bits where Scut and Grover Dill are chasing the boys is based around the theme to Jean Shepherd's own radio show, and also has a bit of a William Tell Overture feel to it. There are probably others that I'm not thinking of at the moment but those are all the major ones that come to mind.

It may be a tad overexposed nowadays, and I would never count it as one of my personal favorite Christmas movies, or movies, period, but A Christmas Story is still a very well-made, nicely-acted, funny, and charming little flick. The characters are all extremely memorable, even the minor ones, and the same goes for so many scenes and setpieces; Bob Clark's direction is very unique and on point; the cinematography has an appealing, old-timey feel to it; the setting is authentic and yet, despite the movie taking place some time in the 40's, quite timeless; the movie is filled to the brim with Christmas song, both as part of the score itself and on the soundtrack, as well as some other memorable pieces and themes; there's all kinds of humor to be found here as well; the movie absolutely bathes in Christmas, both the good and the bad of it; and above all else, it makes for a wonderful depiction of childhood, both during this time of year and in general. You may be sick of it, and I wouldn't blame you if you are, but there's no denying that it has had an impact in the decades since its release. Still, I'm more inclined to watch either the first two Home Alones or the first two Die Hards to celebrate the season.