A Christmas Story
1983  PG  COMEDY  1h 33min
CAST— Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, Tedde Moore
MUSIC— Paul Zaza, Carl Zittrer  DIRECTOR— Bob Clark  BASED ON— In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash (novel), by Jean Shepherd

     You’ll shoot your eye out! You’ll shoot your eye out! Enough already! That’s how Ralphie feels. All he wants for Christmas is an official Red Rider carbine-action 200-shot long-range model air-rifle. But the only response he gets from his mother is the opening line of this review, so he writes an essay for school expressing his wish. His teacher gives the same response. The only response he gets from his father is to ask a department store Santa Clause. Santa’s response is pretty much in the same ballpark as his mother’s and teacher’s. Yes, Ralphie’s quest for a BB gun is full of misery and woe for him, full of smiles and laughs for us (aren’t we wicked?). Don’t get the wrong idea about this movie. Just because it’s called A Christmas Story and it’s about a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas, that doesn’t mean it’s primarily about Christmas. It can truly be enjoyed by anyone and everyone, any time of year and every time of year, because this movie is at heart a good ol’ fashioned comedy with nonstop laughs kept afloat by a day-dreaming little boy named Ralphie who dreams of nothing more than riding the range with his trusty gun Ol’ Blue right by his side. Deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.
OUR RATING— ****
FOLLOWED BY— It Runs in My Family (1994), A Christmas Story 2 (2012)