A Christmas Story (1983) Introduction

Director:  Bob Clark
Starring:  Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin & Melinda Dillon
Studio:  MGM
​IMDB Rating:  7
Today I’ll be introducing A Christmas Story by telling the story of how the movie Porky’s begat the holiday tradition that is A Christmas Story.
A few months ago, I asked a group of friends to share the first R rated movie that you had seen in a theater.  Because we are all of the right age, several answered Porky’s.  For those of you who don’t remember, Porky’s it’s a raunchy teen comedy from 1981, complete with locker room peeps holes, teenage high jinks, plenty of nudity & a fateful trip to a redneck brothel, owned by the eponymous Porky.  At the time of its release writer/director Bob Clark was a journeyman director with 7 mediocre films to his credit, including the cult film Black Christmas from (1974). As Clark drove around one night on his way to pick up a date, he came across the radio personality Jean Shepherd recounting stories, either real or imagined, from his childhood in northern Indiana.  After an hour or so of listening, Clark realized the stories, which would later be published in a short story collection called the “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash”, would make a great movie.  At the time, Clark was unsuccessfully shopping a screenplay in Hollywood, with little prospect of getting it produced.  He contacted Shepherd, obtained the rights to his stories, & started on the screenplay that would eventually become A Christmas Story.
​Meanwhile, he was also able to secure financing from a Canadian company for the other screenplay he had completed. With $5 million in hand and a boatload of Canadian tax credits he set about making Porky’s, a film that would go on to gross almost $200 million in global BO receipts.  When Porky’s 2 followed in 1983 & grossed $105 million, Clarke was officially on a roll.  When he pitched his finished script for A Christmas Story, however, he was again met with disinterest from all the major studios.  Fortunately, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, MGM, the once venerable Hollywood studio, had fallen on hard times & was reduced to producing cheap schlock in an effort to stay one step ahead of creditors or a hostel take over.  They happily agreed to give Clark $4.4 million dollars to produce his screenplay, noting that without Porky’s on his calling card, he wouldn’t even have been given that much.
​The screenplay, most of which remained intact throughout production, had piqued the interest of academy award winning actor Jack Nicholson, who wanted to play old man Parker, but studio brass bristled at Nicholson’s $2 million dollar asking price & he talks broke down.  Darren McGavin, who had been working in Hollywood for more than 30 years, but known primarily for his work in TV, most notably as Kolcheck: The Nightstalker, was then given the part.  Clark tested 1,000’s of child actors to play Ralphie, but returned to the actor he read first, the relatively unknown Peter Billingsley, for the part.  Billingsley was a staple in TV commercials & Clark initially rejected his as too obvious a choice.  Melinda Dillon, best known for her Academy Award nominated role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was cast as Ralphie’s mom & given top billing in the credits.  Unfortunately, her name is spelled incorrectly in those credits. The child actors who play Ralphie’s classmates, on the other hand, were paid just $1 per day of shooting.
Sadly, this was the pinnacle of Clark’s directing career.  Within a year he would direct Dolly Parton & Sly Stallone in Rhinestone & receive the first of his 2 lifetime Razzie Award nominations. 
​The film was shot in Toronto & Cleveland & the Parker’s home was sold on ebay in 2005 for $150,000, with the new owner restoring it to look just as it did in the film & opening it as a museum & giftshop.  The home is also open for overnight stays, with prices ranging from $400 on weeknights to almost $3,000 for Christmas eve.
A Christmas Story opened on Thanksgiving weekend 1982 & took in $2.2M.  In all it generated just over $20M in its initial theatrical run before fading into obscurity.  Only after it began to air on cable TV during the early days of VHS & home recording did it start to establish its word of mouth place as a holiday classic.  When MGM sold its entire film library to Ted Turner in 1986, A Christmas Story became a holiday staple on Turner’s networks & is now shown in a 24-hour marathon beginning every Christmas eve, a tradition that has lasted more than 25 years.  So far, no announcement has been made for this year’s marathon.