December 2017 8 5 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW About the Movie “A Christmas Story” By Garin Pirnia This year the beloved holiday film A Christmas Story turned three decades old, and TBS is running it on a continuous loop thru Christmas. Whether or not you were alive when it came out, everybody at least remembers the first time they watched Ralphie Parker practically shoot his eye out. Conducting interviews with the cast, crew, and others involved with the film’s history, New Jersey writer Caseen Gaines compiled a fascinating book entitled A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic, describing the film’s growing cultdom over the years (it was only a moderate success at the box office). From the unexpected merchandising (bobbleheads!) to the hit Broadway musical, A Christmas Story has made everything right with the world. Here are a few things we learned from reading Gaines’s book. 1 Most of the film was actually filmed in Canada, not Cleveland, Ohio (but it takes place in Indiana). Only two of the nine weeks of filming occurred in Ohio; the rest of the movie was filmed in Canada, where director Bob Clark received tax incentives for the production and also had a home. The Santa Claus visit inside Higbee’s; the parade that opens the film; and exteriors of Ralphie’s house were filmed in Cleveland, but the scenes at Warren G. Harding school (where Flick gets “triple-dogdared”) were shot at Victoria Public School in St. Catharines, Ontario. The children who appeared in those classroom scenes were actual students at the school and received a measly $1 each in return for donating time to the school district. 2 Much of the snow in the movie is artificial. It was a rather warm winter in Cleveland that year, so when production began the crew had to generate white stuff for the parade sequence. They used an admixture of potato flakes, shredded vinyl, firefighters’ foam, and a wind machine to make it “snow.” When production moved up north to Canada, the crew ran into a similar problem. A dearth of snow almost caused the flagpole scene to be delayed, when on the last day of filming at the school a cold front moved in and brought snow and subzero temperatures. So, it was literally cold enough for Flick to get his tongue stuck. 3 A Californian man bought the Christmas Story house sight unseen off eBay in 2004. Brian Jones was living in San Diego and encountered the house for sale on eBay. At that point, it was a duplex rented out to tenants and didn’t have any amenities featured in the movie, including a staircase. The asking price was $99,900, but Jones paid $150,000 to ensure he’d get the house. Jones didn’t know where Cleveland was, let alone what to do with the house. He decided to transform the house into a museum, replete with set pieces and details to look like the Parkers actually lived there (interiors of the house were filmed on a soundstage in Canada). After a six- figure renovation, A Christmas Story House and Museum opened to the public in 2006 and is now a year-round tourist attraction. 4 The film has a couple of noteworthy cameos. The man who berates Ralphie while waiting in line to see Santa at Higbee’s is none other than the film’s narrator and co-writer, Jean Shepherd. Director Bob Clark also makes a Hitchcockian cameo: He’s the nosy hillbilly neighbor who sees the leg lamp in the window and approaches the Old Man. “A major award? Shucks, I wouldn’t have knowed [sic] that. It looks like a lamp,” Swede says, thus drawing more attention from the neighborhood. 5Peter Billingsley, aka Ralphie, grew up to become a Hollywood big shot. As an adult, Billingsley segued from acting to producing big-budget films like Iron Man. He met an unknown actor named Vince Vaughn in 1990 and the two later would collaborate on Couples Retreat (Billingsley’s directorial debut) and The Break-Up. With the exception of attending one Christmas Story reunion on 2003, Billingsley has pretty much severed his ties with cast members, although he produces A Christmas Story: The Musical on Broadway. Jean Shepherd’s estate exclusively asked Billingsley to produce, because they knew his expertise would be beneficial for the adaptation.