Maybe you don’t have a relative who has forced you to watch endlessly looping broadcasts of A Christmas Story so many times every year that you feel like your tongue is stuck to the TV.
Maybe you still enjoy this 1983 movie for the magical spell that it casts.
Maybe, just maybe, you want to know a little bit more.
If so, point your reindeer to the Morristown & Township Library on 7 pm on Dec. 18, 2014.
Caseen Gaines, author of A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic, will take you… behind the scenes with Ralphie, Randy, Schwartz and yes, the epitome of evil, Scut Farkus!!!
Here’s more…
FROM THE MORRISTOWN & TOWNSHIP LIBRARY:
A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic
A book talk featuring author Caseen Gaines
MORRISTOWN, NJ—Many people are certainly gearing up, not only for Christmas, but invariably for the annual marathon showing of the Peter Billingsley classic: A Christmas Story, which often is airing for about 24 hours straight over the Christmas holidays.
The movie has become a perennial holiday favorite since its release in 1983. While millions watch the movie every year on television, few know the story behind the film’s production, release, and unlikely ascent.
Ralphie Parker’s quest for “a Red Ryder carbine action, 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time” didn’t begin or end with the release of Bob Clark’s sleeper hit.
Adapted from Jean Shepherd’s radio broadcasts and short stories, A Christmas Story has inspired a mountain of merchandise, sequels, a stage adaptation, and a big-budget Broadway musical.
There’s also a tourist attraction in Cleveland and annual conventions. Not bad for a movie that was only a modest hit during its original theatrical run.
On Thursday, December 18 at 7:00 p.m., author Caseen Gaines will be on hand at The Morristown & Morris Township Library to discuss the story of the making of the film (which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year) and what happened afterwards.
For the anniversary, Mr. Gaines published the book: A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic that included rare and previously unreleased photographs and original interviews with cast and crew.
If anything else, Mr. Gaines’s talk will convince you not to stick your tongue on a frozen metal pole and invariably to be sure you don’t shoot your eye out!
Refreshments will be served. Funding for this program was made possible by the Friends of the Morristown & Morris Township Library.
Bio
Caseen Gaines is the author of We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future trilogy, which will be published by Plume in 2015. He is also the author of A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic, which was released last year by ECW Press. His first book, Inside Pee-wee’s Playhouse, was the 2012 recipient of Independent Publisher Book Award’s silver medal in the popular culture category. His writing has received praise and recognition of journalists from Esquire, Ain’t It Cool News, The Advocate, The Village Voice, In Touch Weekly, VH1, TV Guide Network, and a host of other publications and media outlets. Caseen is a high school English teacher and the co-founder of Hackensack Theatre Company, a non-profit in New Jersey.
