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    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
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      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
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      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
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      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
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      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
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      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
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      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
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      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
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        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
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      • The April Fools (1969)
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      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
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      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
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      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
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      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
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      • Mank (2020)
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      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
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A Christmas Story (1983)

A Christmas Story (1983) Introduction

Director:  Bob Clark
Starring:  Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin & Melinda Dillon
Studio:  MGM
​IMDB Rating:  7
Click here for a video Version of the introduction
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.
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​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.
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​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. 
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​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.
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  • Home
  • Top 10 Lists
    • My Top 10 Favorite Movies
    • Top 10 Heist Movies
    • Top 10 Neo-Noir Films
    • The Top 10 Films of the Troubles (1969-1998) >
      • The Troubles Selected Timeline
    • Top 10 Films from 2001
    • Director Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Film Noir Directors
      • Top 10 Coen Brothers Films
      • Top 10 John Ford Films
      • Top 10 Samuel Fuller Films
      • Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films
      • Top 10 John Huston Films
      • Top 10 Fritz Lang Films (American)
      • Val Lewton Top 10
      • Top 10 Ernst Lubitsch Films
      • Top 10 Jean-Pierre Melville Films
      • Top 10 Nicholas Ray Films
      • Top 10 Preston Sturges Films
      • Top 10 Robert Siodmak Films
      • Top 10 William Wellman Films
      • Top 10 Billy Wilder Films
    • Actor/Actress Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies
      • Top 10 Clark Gable Movies
      • Top 10 Ava Gardner Films
      • Top 10 Gloria Grahame Films
      • Top 10 Jean Harlow Movies
      • Top 10 Miriam Hopkins Films
      • Top 10 Grace Kelly Films
      • Top 10 Burt Lancaster Films
      • Top 10 Carole Lombard Movies
      • Top 10 Myrna Loy Films
      • Top 10 Marilyn Monroe Films
      • Top 10 Robert Mitchum Noir Movies
      • Top 10 Paul Newman Films
      • Top 10 Robert Ryan Movies
      • Top 10 Norma Shearer Movies
      • Top 10 Barbara Stanwyck Films
    • Top 10 Noir Films (Classic Era)
    • Top 10 Pre-Code Films
    • Top 10 Actresses of the 1930's
  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
      • Jean Harlow Bio
      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
      • Joan Harrison-Producer/Writer
      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
      • Actor Bios
      • Film Noir
      • Director Bios
      • Studio Head Bios
      • Hollywood History
    • Studio
  • Resources
    • Sight & Sound Top 100 2022
    • NOTES >
      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
      • Breakfast Club Notes
      • Citizen Kane Notes
      • It's A Wonderful Life Notes
      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
      • Singin' in the Rain Notes
    • CMBA Interview/Profile
    • Bay Cinema Society Press
    • Hollywood History >
      • Production Code
      • Film Noir
  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
  • Last Picture Show Notes
  • Paul Verhoeven