Movies In History: A Christmas Story

A Christmas Story.

This 1983 movie committed to film a series of stories by Jene Shepherd and has become a beloved Christmas classic. 

Shepherd was a radio and television personality and writer whose storied varied wildly in terms of topic and quality, but who built a huge East Coast fan base that ultimately lead to a television series that was of more consistent quality than his radio shows.  At his best, he was extremely funny, and that often occurred when his stories focused on his youth in the Mid West.  Much like Patrick McManus, McManus' best stories tend to surround his childhood, and in his case, his service in the Army, although unlike McManus, Shepherd's youth was urban.  His written work tended to be much more consistent than his radio work, which was hugely ad libbed.

The only full length film every made from Shepherd's work was this one, A Christmas Story, which concerns the young Ralphie, a thinly disguised Jean Shepherd.  In his written and radio work many of the same characters appear, and it is clearer from those that Ralphie is the Shepherd character.  Here too he much resembles McManus, as many of the characters that appear in his work are in fact real characters from his youth.

Shepherd was born in 1921 and therefore old enough to serve in World War Two.  This is notable here as this story is set in 1940 when Ralphie is still in grade school, so unlike his radio and written works the movie Ralphie is a bit younger than the actual Shepherd was.  This doesn't matter too much in the context of this film, but the film does have late Great Depression feel to it, although that would not be inaccurate for the year it is set in.

A Christmas Story is not normally thought of as a period piece, and it remains hugely contemporary in spite of being set in the 1940s.  None the less, viewed as a film set in time, its remarkably accurate.  The film very accurately portrays the grade school experience that generations of Americans experienced, but which really basically started in the late 1920s and which ran through, in this form, the 1980s.  Clothing and material details are very well done.  The childhood focus on certain significant toys in any one Christmas is accurate.  The focus on a Red Rider BB gun in fact portrays a common Christmas gift that boys sought well into the 1970s. 

Even odd material details are well done. The role of the radio in the home, the appearance of the interior of buildings, the lack of electrical outlets, the nature of coal burning stoves, and servicemen in uniform, are all correctly done.

This movie deserves its place as a Christmas classic, and it stands up much better than many other period pieces filmed several decades after the events portrayed.  Given the prolific nature of Shepherd's output, it is somewhat ironic however that this really stands out by far as his work that's really well remembered as it was less satiric and had much less of a sharper edge than most of his other work.  Still, it's a good work to be remembered by.