A Christmas Story

During this time of year I love getting out our favorite holiday films to watch and enjoy. This year I need a little extra help getting into the spirit so we are trying to watch as many as we can this week. Last night we pulled out A Christmas Story!
Made in 1983, this movie is based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by the late Bob Clark. Not a critical hit when it was released, the film has since taken on a life of it's own & become a holiday classic. It is shown numerous times on television during the Christmas season, and even in a 24 hour marathon on TBS each Christmas Eve/Christmas Day!
Set during a snowy Christmas season in 1940′s Indiana, nine-year-old Ralphie longs for the ideal Christmas gift, a 200-Shot, Range-Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” But when his gruff dad and doting mom, and even a stressed-out Santa, quote the usual BB gun warning, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” Ralphie mounts a full-scale, hint dropping campaign that is a sly combination of innocence and calculation. The movie is not only about Christmas and BB guns, but also about childhood & real family life.

Click here for a post I did about our 2010 visit to the film house and museum of movie memorabilia! http://rabbitruncottage.blogspot.com/2010/03/youll-shoot-your-eye-out.html

If you have yet to see this sweet, oh so fun movie, give it a try! I bet you smile...betcha!

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

On Saturday we headed to 3159 W 11th St., just five minutes from downtown Cleveland in the Tremont neighborhood. We were on a quest, of sorts, to pay our respects to Ralphie and family. Uh huh...none other than THE house next door to the Bumpus family, home to the Old Man and his family, yes,

the "A Christmas Story" house.

My guess is that you know this abode well...

Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie!

The heavenly aroma still hung heavy in the house, but it was gone, all gone! No turkey! No turkey sandwiches, no turkey salad, no turkey gravy, turkey hash, turkey a la king, or gallons of turkey soup! Gone, all gone!

               Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. Ovaltine? A crummy commercial?

Wow Ralphie! You surely got tall!

It's a major award!

Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian.

An official Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle,

a blue-steel beauty with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.

 Across the street from Ralphie and family is a house/museum which holds many of the original costumes and artifacts from the film.

 

     

A few facts:

1. Jack Nicholson was originally offered the role of the father in the movie, which eventually went to Darren McGavin.

2. The story’s author, Jean Shepherd, has a cameo in the film as an irritable department store customer who tells Ralphie to head to the back of the line.






3. Even though the house, 3159 West 11th St., appears in the film, almost all the interiors were shot elsewhere on a soundstage. But, that said, many inside shots WERE filmed here. Several on screen moments in the living room, kitchen and Ralphie's bedroom were filmed in the house.






4. Shepherd’s Christmas stories originally appeared in Playboy magazines in 1965 and 1967.




5. Two years before directing a “A Christmas Story”, Bob Clark had a hit with “Porky’s.” (On a sad note, Clark and his son Ariel were killed in a car accident in California in 2007.) He agreed to do "Porky's 2" IF he was allowed to film "A Christmas Story" first!






6. Brian Jones bought the “A Christmas Story” house for $150,000 in 2004 and spent $250,000 to fix it up. After filming, it fell into great disrepair.
The owner's family listed the house for $99,000 (Well over what other houses were going for in the area) due to it's film history. Mr. Jones was so excited about seeing this house for sale on Ebay, and being from California where home costs soar, thought it was terribly UNDERpriced. He worried about being outbid so offered $150,000! When he and his wife first saw the sorry state it was in, well, you can imagine what they thought!






7. In 1983, the movie made a respectable $19 million at the box office.






8. The annual “A Christmas Story” marathon on TBS attracts 40 million viewers.






9. The school where Flick gets his tongue stuck to the flagpole was filmed in Ontario, Canada. That school has since been torn down but the museum has many movie artifacts including Mrs. Shield's chalkboard!






10. More than 150,000 people have been through the house in Tremont. They have come from all 50 states and more than a dozen other countries.






11. Director Clark has a cameo as clueless neighbor Swede.






12. West 11th Street has been honorarily named Cleveland Street because of the movie.






13. All the elves in the movie were Cleveland locals.






14. The filmmakers determined that the exact model of Red Ryder BB gun — Ralphie’s dream gift– never existed. A model was created for the movie.

15. The “A Christmas Story” sequel, “My Summer Story” (released as “It Runs in the Family”) was shot at the house on West 11th Street in 1994. It features an almost entirely different cast, including Charles Grodin as the Old Man, Mary Steenburgen as Ralphie’s mother and Kieran Culkin as Ralphie.







16. A Christmas Story House and Museum and gift shop employ 12 people seasonally.






17. Two marriage proposals were made in the house, and one couple was married there in 2007 wearing 1941 period clothing.






18. An eBay auction each year awards the winning bidder the opportunity to spend a night in the house on Christmas Eve.






19. A 1938 Oldsmobile touring sedan that was in the parade scene in the movie sits in the garage behind the gift shop.






20. Is that really snow on the ground in the movie? No. It’s firefighting foam. Actors and crew slipped and slid around on the stuff during filming.






21. After the scene in which Ralphie drops his f-bombs, his mom washes out his mouth with soap. Lifebuoy soap to be exact. And yes, they sell the soap imported from England in the gift shop.






22. After the movie was shot, the house became a rental, and many different people lived there until it was bought and restored by Brian Jones.






23. According to locals, before the shooting of the movie, the house’s basement was home to many an illegal cockfight.






24. Author Shepherd is the movie’s narrator.






25. Jim Moralevitz, who played the role of the deliveryman who brings the leg lamp crate to the house, was a local extra who still lives on the street.

We had a lot of fun visiting this place and talking with all the other visitors and employees. If you find yourself in Cleveland, stop on in and say hello!

For more information:

A Christmas Story House and Museum

Tomorrow? Our dinner at Cleveland's Geraci's Restaurant...thank you Guy Fieri!

 

A Christmas Story

Any American unfamiliar with “A Christmas Story” is certainly in the minority! Directed by the late Bob Clark and released on Thanksgiving day in 1983, the film relates the tale of Ralphie Parker, a 9 year-old boy living in 1940’s era suburban Indiana who wants nothing more than a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas.

2008 is the 25th anniversary of A Christmas Story's theatrical release. Did you know the critics widely panned the film? It was, for lack of better words, a box office dud. But, thanks in great part to the first television airings years ago, it's popularity grew and grew. Today it is considered to be one of the best loved of all holiday movies.

The film takes place in fictional Hohman, Indiana, the setting of writer Jean Shepherd's stories, based on his actual hometown of Hammond, Indiana. For the film adaptation of these stories, director Bob Clark reportedly sent scouts to twenty cities before selecting Cleveland for exterior filming. Cleveland was chosen because of Higbee Department Store. Scouts had been unsuccessful in finding a department store that was willing to be part of the film. Higbee's vice president Bruce Campbell agreed to take on the project on the condition he be allowed to edit the script for cursing. Appropriately, the fictional boyhood home of Ralphie Parker is on Cleveland Street, the name of the actual street where Shepherd grew up. In addition to the house exteriors, Cleveland was the location used for the scenes involving Higbee's department store, despite the fact that there were no Higbee's stores in Shepherd's hometown.

However, Cleveland was only one of several locations used. The school scenes were shot at the Victoria School in

St. Catharine's, Ontario, Canada. The Christmas tree purchasing scene was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, as was the sound stage filming of interior shots of the Parker home. The exterior shots of the house and neighborhood where Ralphie lived were filmed in the Tremont section of Cleveland's West Side. The "...only I didn't say fudge" scene was filmed at the foot of Cherry Street in Toronto. In December 2004, Brian Jones, fan of the film since childhood, bought the house on ebay for $150,000. Jones used revenue from his business, The Red Rider Leg Lamp Company, which manufactures replicas of the "major award" Ralphie's father won in the film, for the down payment. The previous owners had reconfigured the building into a

duplex, installed modern windows, and covered the original wood siding with blue vinyl. Watching the movie frame by frame, Jones drew detailed plans of the interiors and spent $240,000 to gut the structure, restore it to a single-family dwelling, transform it into a near-replica of the movie set, and restore the exterior to its appearance in the film.

Jones then borrowed $129,000 to purchase the house across the street and converted it into a gift shop and museum which contains some of the props from the movie, including Randy's snow suit and the leg lamp (although the lamp is broken in the film, alternates survived). The house and museum opened to the public on November 25, 2006, with original cast members attending the grand opening, and the site drew 4,300 visitors during its first weekend. The house as it looks in 2008

Indoor shots as the house looks today, meticulously

restored to appear just as it did in the film.

I spy the Red Ryder all wrapped up for Ralphie! Mmmm....just smell that red cabbage, the meatloaf and those mashed potatoes cooking.

There sits Ralphie furiously working at his Little Orphan Annie Decoder!

Is that a bar of Lifebuoy Soap I see?

For the last few years, a convention is held in the Cleveland area and seems to be very well attended with folks having a rousing good time!

Ian Petrella (Randy) and Scotty Schwartz (Flick) checking out the living room of A Christmas Story House

Ian Petrella (Randy) once again hiding under the sink in A Christmas Story House

A bully and his toadie. Zack Ward (Scut Farkus) and Yano Anaya (Gover Dill)

Ian Petrella (Randy) and Jim Morelavitz (Freight Man) reunite after 23 years. Jim took care of Ian on set during the filming and delivered the crate that held the leg lamp during the movie.

Patty Lafontaine and Drew Hocevar (The Evil Elves at Higbee's) at the Renaissance Hotel meet and greet.

Scotty Schwartz (Flick) and Tedde Morre (Miss Shield) inside the front door of the house.

The former cast mates (with Yano's young son) stand inside the Parker's living room. Ah yes...the infamous window and leg lamp!

For more information on the house, tours, gift shop and future conventions:

A Christmas Story House

“It is unbelievable that this little movie has touched the lives of millions of families," Phil Gillen, son of late actor Jeff Gillen who played the film’s irritable

old Santa Claus recently

told a reporter. And so it touched mine.

Love and Hugs,

Susie Q