A Christmas Story

Continuity mistake: The old man throws straw everywhere getting his prize out of the crate, and a lot of it goes on his back. The straw disappears when he climbs out of the crate.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: When he shoots his gun, Ralphie's glasses are shown fallen on clean snow, but when he steps on them, the broken ones are shown on snow with quite a bit of debris.

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie beats up the neighborhood bully, the chain link fence hole area where the kids look through changes multiple times between shots, for example the vertical plant vine trunk disappears.

Continuity mistake: As the old man goes out to see the infamous leg lamp from the road, Randy is behind mom. A second later, the angle changes and Randy is suddenly in the adjacent window beside the lamp.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: After Ralphie and Randy had gotten away from Farkus, Ralphie checks the mailbox for his decoder ring. After seeing that he was "skunked again", he closes the box, goes inside, and the camera pans to see Randy coming. If you look closely, the suit is totally free of any dusting of snow.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: After Ralphie's mother calls Mrs. Schwartz because of the F - - word, the narrator says, "Three blocks away, Schwartz was getting his." Yet at the beginning of the movie, when Ralphie leaves his house, he has only walked past 3-4 houses when Schwartz comes out to meet him and Flick.

Continuity mistake: In Miss Shield's class there is a roll of scotch tape that is hanging over the edge of a box. A few seconds later, it's moved further on back of the box and not hanging over the edge as much.

Continuity mistake: After seeing the dinner for tomorrow, Ralphie sits down and starts to pour some milk. The shot cuts to the cellar door, and back to Ralphie. He is just starting to pour the milk again.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie (blind from "soap poisoning" in the dream sequence) comes up to the door, in the reflection on his shades, it looks like he's facing a white door. When the camera cuts to a shot from behind him, you see a green door with the gold colored horseshoe.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie and Randy go see Santa at Higbee's, Santa's eyebrows are real bushy. And, a few seconds later, they're a lot thinner than what they were.

Continuity mistake: After the old man plugs the lamp in and starts to admire it, Ralphie is looking up at it. Cut to the other angle where we can see his face, and he is now looking down.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: In the kitchen, after the father comes in to get warm water for his car, the 2 boxes of soap powder move from the left side of the sink to a wall shelf on the right.

Continuity mistake: In the very beginning the camera is panning, showing Ralph's house next to an empty lot and continues past, showing that across the street is a corner house with hedges. So Ralph's front window would be staring up a street and a line of hedges running up the street. When his father wins the award, the neighbors have their backs to the hedges with the large white house in back of them. This would have them staring across the other street, not at Ralph's house.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This is wrong. The hedge runs both up 11th St. (Cleveland St.) and Rowley Ave. You can tell this is the correct shot, which includes the side of the house (window and porch) behind the old man.

Continuity mistake: When we see Flick stuck to the pole with our back to the school the background tree trunk has ample green growth sprouting out but later, when it's started snowing and he's being rescued, the growth is gone.

Continuity mistake: First breakfast scene, the stack of toast moves from Randy's end of the table to Mom's end.

Continuity mistake: After Grover Dill tells the boys to stop, he drops the hand he's pointing with. A second later, he drops it again.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie and Randy go to see Santa (after the parade), their parents leave them alone to wait in line. Listen carefully to Santa in the background. You can hear him mention a boy who's wet and saying to get him off his lap as Ralphie and Randy go to wait in line. This is the same boy who we don't see until Ralphie and Randy are on the stairs leading up to Santa.

Other mistake: When Ralphie and Flick are walking to school for the first time, they meet up with Schwartz, coming down the steps of his house which appears to be two houses down from Ralphie's. Later, when Ralphie is lying in bed after the soap in the mouth scene, the narrator (older Ralphie), states how "Three blocks away, Schwartz was getting his."

Rob Meears

More mistakes in A Christmas Story

Mom: Ralphie, what would you like for Christmas?
Adult Ralphie: Horrified, I heard myself blurt it out.
Ralphie: I want an official Red Ryder carbine action two hundred shot range model air rifle.
Mom: No. You'll shoot your eye out.

More quotes from A Christmas Story

Trivia: The film is set in Indiana, but was actually filmed in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the only place the directors could find that looked like a midwestern town in the 1940's.

More trivia for A Christmas Story

Question: Given Ralphie's mother said no to the gun then why would his father give him one? Surely this would start an argument between them.

Rob245

Answer: Even though she was probably still against it, it was Christmas and most likely didn't want to upset Ralphie by taking the Red Ryder BB gun away from him so she let him keep it.

Answer: This was more in the past than in today's culture, but it wasn't all that atypical for a husband to simply ignore his wife's opinions and wishes in many matters, including what would be an appropriate present for their children, particularly a boy.

raywest

More questions & answers from A Christmas Story