A Christmas Story (the movie)

[Bee Gees Fan]

Has anyone see this movie? I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago when I was in America at Christmas time (I was over at my grandparents house, and my cousins were over there, and they had the TV on and gathered around the TV to watch this movie called "A Christmas Story", which according to one of my cousins is "an American classic."

Anyway, I enjoyed it and I got it this last Christmas.

It's a simple story; a nice family movie...it's based on some stories from a book by Jean Shepherd (who was a male) called "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash." The plot is of a nine-year-old boy called Ralphie who desperately wants to get a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas, but is constantly told by everyone that, "You'll shoot your eye out."

This isn't the only plot, though...it's set in the 1940s, and it's a really pleasant-looking film, with some funny (well, I find them funny) scenes.

Such as:

There's a scene where one of Ralphie's friends (Flick) sticks his tongue to a flagpole because he was triple-dog-dared to. It's winter time...his tongue sticks there...Flick starts to scream in horror...

Ralphie's Dad (referred to as "the Old Man" wins a "major award" in the form of a hideous leg lamp and displays it in the middle of the front room window, to Ralphie's Mother's chagrin.

The scene where Ralph accidentally swears in front of his father...followed up by punishment at home, with a bar of soap in his mouth. When asked by his mother where he learned that word, instead of telling her that he learned it from his father, he tells her that he learned it from his friend Schwartz. His mother gives Mrs. Schwartz a call, who flips out. We hear her screaming down the phone, screaming at her son, and then belting the living daylights out of him.

The scene where Ralphie goes to see the store Santa. That was one scary Santa! The guy was horrible! After telling Ralphie he'd "shoot his eye out" when he asked for a Red Ryder BB Gun, Santa then drew back his boot and kicked Ralphie down the side! Horrible Santa! Poor Ralphie was disillusioned.

Anyway, I feel it's a very nice, very good family film showing life in 1940s Indiana. It doesn't seem to have been shown much in Britain; it's more popular in America (and even over there, it was apparently not a huge success when it was first released, but has become so since.) Has anyone else seen it (or heard of it?)