Friday, October 24, 2008

Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story

Oh my, this is a funny and touching movie, with many scenes in it that are seared into my memory.

Some are quite horrible, in fact. The boy whose tongue freezes to the flagpole, Ralphie with the bar of soap in his mouth, the younger brother so swaddled in his snowsuit that when he falls down he can not get up on his own.

Amazing scenes, and then Ralphie's desperate craving, nay need, to own a Red Ryder carbine action BB gun, and Ralphie hearing "you'll shoot your eye out" so often from every responsible adult.

The dad is called The Old Man and he has a whacky pride in the bizarre lamp that he won.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of the zaniness herein.
Sit back and enjoy.

3 comments:

Eugene B. Bergmann said...

Jean Shepherd co-wrote the script and he narrates the entire movie. He first told the stories upon which the movie is based, on his radio programs, then they were published in Playboy, then in his best-selling books. He appears in a cameo role as the man in the department store who tells the kids that the end of the line is much further away! Every year the movie is watched, at lest in part, by over 50 million people when it's shown all through the night on Turner cable from Christmas Eve, through Christmas day.

Terra said...

Hi Eugene,
Thanks for the added info on Jean Shepherd. I will look for him in the cameo role.
Since the movie is SO funny I bought one of his books "The Ferrari in the Bedroom" years ago, with 21 stories and essays in it.
Terra

Lynette Sowell said...

I love this movie! I noticed that Wal-Mart is carrying a bunch of cute decorations based on A Christmas Story. Including "the" lamp and Ralphie in the bunny costume. :)