Sheptalk

Forum Topic
A Christmas Story

Subject	Message	Replies
One of Life's Happy Accidents Date: 09-03-2005 By: lump516	I wound up going to see A CHRISTMAS STORY because a showing of CROSS CREEK at the same theater was sold out (day after Thanksgiving, 1983). The latter was one of the big oscar-bait releases for that year (it's an OK movie, but Marjorie Kinian Rawling's book is better). When I saw that Shepherd was involved, I decided to take a chance; I'd loved GREAT AMERICAN 4TH OF JULY and JOSEPHINE COZNOWSKI(?) on PBS. The theater was half empty, but I never heard such laughter from an audience at a comedy as I did that afternoon. By the end of the weekend, it was ACS that was selling out at the theater, in spite of the fact that advertising for the film was very spotty. Although the film became something of an institution once it hit television, it certainly acheived the status of a cult classic (at least in my neck of the woods) in about two days . . .	7

Replies

Date	Member	Message
09-11-2005 ( Reply#: 74 )	fudge	This was the rare case of me predicting correctly that a film would become a classic as soon as i saw it. Used to watch ALOT of movies back then-and very few struck me as worthwhile-think i saw ACS a couple times in the theatre, and dozens of times since on tv-love that 24 hour marathon they do every xmas...would love to see the pbs shows...
10-22-2005 ( Reply#: 153 )	Bill Bucko	In my Guestbook comments, when I said the school used in the movie looked nothing like the original Harding, I was thinking of the exterior. The original Harding that Shep attended was a one-story "portable" made of wood, not brick. The interior, though, certainly did look the same. Warren G. Harding Class of '63
12-30-2005 ( Reply#: 252 )	momcat2000	i agree'cross creek' the book is better than the movie
04-14-2007 ( Reply#: 1189 )	svea3	I think that the Harding in ACS was Morton. Except, in Morton the 1stfloor was the Elementary, the 2nd was the Junior High and the HS was primarily there on the3rd floor. Remember we had up and down staircases. One could get a detention for going up the down staircase.[8)]I can remember the additional HS rooms put on next to Miss Blount's Suxth Grade room.
04-14-2007 ( Reply#: 1224 )	Bill Bucko	Except that the kids in A CHRISTMAS STORY are in elementary, not junior high. Shep went to Harding for elementary, then Morton for a while before going to Hammond High across town. (Though it is kind of odd that in the movie Miss Shields had "Silas Marner" written on the blackboard -- educational standards have deteriorated drastically, but still, "Silas Marner" is high school fare, not elementary. Most likely this was an error on the part of the set decorator reponsible for that scene.) Since Morton had more than a thousand students, all moving at the same time when "the bell rang" * that one way rule on the staircases was needed, for safety. * Flick's buddies abandoning him at the flagpole because "the ball rang" was a classic touch, rivalling anything in Mark Twain. Bill Warren G. Harding Class of '63
04-18-2007 ( Reply#: 1259 )	Dave	"Silas Marner" was a joke! (Made me laugh, anyway.)
04-18-2007 ( Reply#: 1260 )	svea3	Silas was relevant to the operations of Miss Shields' class. [My mentioning of Morton was because of the physical structure, not the inclusion of age of students. Miss S's class was on the 2nd floor.] [:o)]