Yeah. I’m too young to have read his short stories in their original form, but I do have a copy of In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. The first time I read it, it really stood out how a lot of his stories were unambiguously set during the worst of the Depression.
Parts of the movie were filmed in Toronto including this scene at the Christmas tree lot. Hard to tell from this photo what is going on with this streetcar.
https://torontoist.com/2012/08/reel_toronto_a_christmas_story/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/locations
Ralphie is 9 and in second grade.
Supposedly, Jean Shepherd was in second grade in the 1928-1929 school year.
According to the audio commentary the movie was intended to be set just before the great depression, but there was difficulty in finding props and locations, and the generic late 30s to early 40s time seemed more suited to the theme of childhood innocence.
There are tons of details in the movie that did not exist until after WW2, but you need to really go onto full-tilt-geek-out to worry about such insignificant anachronisms.
Also, most of the gifts Randy received for Chistmas were more appropriate for the early 1930s.
-Kevin
Thanks, Stix. With Robert’s input I now understand where you are coming from.
Yes, the ACS house was fixed up and is open to tours, as well as overnight stays. It’s located in the Tremont area of Cleveland, overlooking The Flats.
Tom
Did they mention what the air-rifle trope that forms much of both the story and the movie was supposed to be in that context? As I noted, Red Ryder wasn’t around at all until nearly 1939, and the famous gun not until well into 1940. While I’m sure there is some comparable thing available at the end of the New Era… Red Ryder it certainly wouldn’t have been.
Not quite the anachronism of Ray Charles driving under a stack train, but a whole decade is nontrivial.
They do not go into any detail about the original story, and I have not read the original source material.
They did add characters for the movie, and most of the vignettes were not in the original story, or heavily modified for the film. Some of the “memories” were taken from Shepherd’s other stories about different times.
Supposedly Jean Shepherd stepped aside and let the movie makers make the movie. He does the narration as “Adult Ralphie”, and has a cameo in Higbees.
I have not seen it, and have not found it anywhere, but there was a version of A Christmas Story that aired on TBS one year where they had a crawl across the bottom of the screen that pointed out details and differences from the original story.
My copy of the movie is an earlier DVD version. There has since been a two-disc special edition DVD and a Blu-Ray version.
I think I need an upgrade.
-Kevin
A few years ago, TBS or it’s sister network TNT would have movies with commentary about items concerning the film.
It’s somewhat fitting as to the timing of this discussion about “A Christmas Story.” Jean Shepard’s 100th birthday would’ve been July 26, a few days away.
Jeff
I was aware of some of the St. Catharines locations, but not of those shot in Toronto (or as it’s known locally Trawna).
Wayne
The Christmas Story discussion reminds me of choosing a time frame for a model railroad…for some of us, modelling say “the fifties” and using equipment that existed in that decade - even if it means having a steam engine retired in 1953 sitting next to a diesel bought new in 1958 - is perfectly acceptable. Others would say if you’re modelling “the fifties”, it means you’re really modelling the last day of 1959 - and doing it badly. To them, you have pick a specific year (or even month or day) and everything on your layout has to be correct for that year or month.
One is kinda like a history textbook, the other like a historical novel.
The great thing about this discussion is that A Christmas Story never specifies the year it takes place. We can look for all kinds of clues, but in the end, it is just a discussion that we cannot ever fully resolve.
I wonder how many model railroaders just build something that looks good to them without specifying a year, and then just let the viewers/visitors draw their own conclusions.
It just occured to me that in all the times I have visited people’s home layouts, I don’t think I have ever asked someone what year they model.
-Kevin
Something Shep used to say was that these were ‘stories’ not ‘histories’ – these were good tales, not thinly-disguised factual remembrances or experiences in life.
He also did make the point at least once that the filmmakers had done a great deal of careful research in making the film that he wouldn’t have. Stories, like radio, can leave a great deal to the imagination that movies need to depict… and it is usually in those ‘other depicted details’ that we nitpickers find the little, ah, non-Eastery eggs. I deeply respect those filmmakers who try to get details right, and respect even more those who are able to make me believe I’m in that era and place… even with the occasional ‘compromise’.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching the film, any more than I’ll ever get tired of reading Shep’s stories… or better, hearing him read them on the magic of radio.
Well, and one could spend a lifetime recording all of the anachronisms in movies and TV shows that are set in a specific year…IIRC the movie “Hard Times” (set in 1933) starts with Charles Bronson arriving in a passenger train hauled by I think a GE 70-ton switcher. Gary Busey playing a 1978 Fender Stratocaster guitar when playing Buddy Holly, who died in 1959. Etc. Etc. Sometimes it’s better to be a litte ‘vague’.
Just to get totally geeked on this subject… and since this is a train forum.
In the film Enemy At The Gates, they did a remarkable job with making sure that all the military equipment was as accurate as possible. Sure, there is some nit-picking out there about grip styles on pistols, tread patterns on tires, and even some impossible to understand musings about scope diameters. Overall, it is a remarkable film.
HOWEVER… In a huge glaring error, right at the beginning of the movie, when the A/A gun car is attached to the Soviet troop train, it is being pulled by a German steam locomotive.
This would not have happened. No captured German locomotives were used on Soviet trains that operated near the front line until very late in the war.
They ruined a near-perfect movie with a train error.
-Kevin
Well, what the heck, this thread is so far from a train forum topic that I will join in to say, Yes, the film is very good. But, for anyone who wants to understand the Battle of Stalingrad, read the book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad by William Craig.
Rich
BTW with all this talk about Jean Shepherd, I forgot that there was an episode of his “Jean Shepherd’s America” 1970s PBS show that was about Trains…
As I recall, there is a Baldwin visible at the beginning of “Phantom of the Open Hearth”.
I watched “A Christmas Story” once. It never did much for me.
But I really enjoyed both “The Phantom of the Open Hearth” and also “The Star-Crossed Love of Josephine Cosnowsky”.
Both of the above can be watched on YouTube, I believe.
Noooooooooooooooo!
How can you say such a thing?
-Kevin
Re “A Christmas Story” and other stories of Shep, remember it’s easier to keep history straight if you’re going by a history book you read rather than from memory. Our memories tend to blend things together and mix them up, like “those Frankie and Annette ‘beach movies’ of the fifties” that were made 1963-66; or Meredith Wilson including a reference to “Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang” in the Music Man’s song about the pool hall, even though the story is set in 1912 and the humor magazine didn’t start until the 1920s.