A Christmas Story

A Christmas Story (1983)

Timing: 1:33 (93 min)

7.218/10
1381

6.895/10
3888

7.9/10
181000

All about film

Video 15

Photo 51

Actors and characters

Release date

1983-11-18

Country

United States, Canada

Production

United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Christmas Tree Films, MGM

Genre

Comedy, Family

Budget

$3 300 000

Revenue

$19 294 144

Website

http://warnerbros.com/movies/christmas-story

Director

Bob Clark

Actors

Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, Peter Billingsley, Jean Shepherd, Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Tedde Moore, Yano Anaya, Zack Ward
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Bob Clark, René Dupont

Operator

Reginald H. Morris

Composer

Paul Zaza

Artist

Carmi Gallo

Audition

Jane Feinberg, Mike Fenton, Marci Liroff

Editing

Stan Cole
All team (45)

• In the scene where Flick's tongue supposedly freezes to metal, a hidden suction tube was used.
• This film is now considered a Christmas classic, however, according to the lead actor Peter Billingsley, not many major studios at the time (early 1980s) were interested in a project about a boy dreaming of a Red Ryder BB gun during a time when the Great Depression had only recently ended. Billingsley revealed in an interview that in exchange for permission to film a Christmas movie, director Bob Clark had to promise the studio he would later make a horror film.
• The film is set in a small town in Indiana, but filming took place in Cleveland, Ohio. Before settling on Cleveland, Bob Clark sent his representatives to 20 American cities in search of one that most resembled a town in 1940s Indiana.
• The residents of Cleveland turned out to be surprisingly welcoming and provided a lot of help with the filming. For example, old cars were brought to the set from all over the city – whatever people had available. These cars were then used in the filming, helping to recreate the atmosphere of the first half of the 20th century. In particular, cars from a local vintage car club were used in the film. Their owners were given a route around Public Square in the business district of the city to follow during filming and were asked to periodically drive this route until further notice.
• When filming took place in a Chinese restaurant, Melinda Dillon was deliberately given the wrong pages of the script, and everyone was aware of this except the actress herself. For example, Dillon had no idea that the duck she had ordered would be brought in with its head still attached. The actress's reaction was completely genuine and involuntary, which is what Bob Clark was aiming for.
• Teddy Moore was nine months pregnant during filming. Since showing an unmarried pregnant woman in the 1940s was unthinkable, the filmmakers had to resort to various tricks, such as padding, to make Moore's character look simply full-figured, but not pregnant.
• Some scenes of the film, including the episode with Santa in the store, were filmed in Toronto, in the Canadian province of Ontario.
• The Parkers' car is a 1937 four-door Oldsmobile sedan with Indiana license plates.
• Scenes near the school were filmed at a school in the Canadian city of St. Catharines.