Chiming in here, a bit late on the discussion, I agree with Allan's comments that the film was designed to evoke memories that any of us might have had when we were kids, growing up, and our own reactions to Christmas preparations. Jean Shepherd grew up in Hammond, IN, I believe, yet the movie was filmed far from there. The outside shots of the Christmas parade and the family and other people looking in the store windows were looking at Higbee's Department Store on Public Square in Cleveland. (Higbee's closed about 15 years ago but the building remains and it is now being remodeled to become a gambling casino and will be renamed the "Horseshoe Casino", maintaining lots of the original charm and class of the old Higbee's)
The house that Ralphie and Randy lived in was also located in Cleveland in the Tremont area and has been restored, on the outside, to exactly the way it looked in the movie. It is now open as a museum and is a very interesting place to visit. In the movie, the inside shots were generally made at a soundstage in Toronto, but the "A Christmas Story" house has been remodeled, inside, to look just as it did in the movie. You can recognize the kitchen sink where Randy hid because "Daddy is going to kill Ralphie". Out the back window is the same shed that Ralphie shot "Black Bart" and the other badmen with his trusty Red Ryder BB gun. And the two twin beds look out over the street, just as when Ralphie and Randy slept in them.
I would recommend a visit to the house on your next trip to Cleveland. Well worth the visit. It's open to the public for a small fee.
Incidentally, the trains in the movie were provided by Don Spiedel, a former TCA National President, and Bill Cus, another Cleveland TCA pal who passed away last year. The movie's director and others in charge were not fussy about historical accuracy. The steam engines and trains are post war and would not have been made when the setting of the movie took place in 1940. The purpose of the movie was to entertain; not be a historical piece on Lionel trains.
Paul Fischer
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