A Christmas Story

Continuity mistake: When they set up the lamp for the first time, you can see the mom turn away from the window and put her hands on Ralphie's shoulders from the dad's point of view, outside. Then when the camera shifts inside, she does it again.

Continuity mistake: When Randy shows Mommy "how the piggies eat", the shots are obviously out of sequence. There are times when the amount of mashed potatoes on the plate greatly increases from the shot before. And watch the meat loaf a couple shots just before the scene ends. Three large pieces of meat loaf lie scattered on Randy's place mat, but they instantly disappear in the next wide shot.

Continuity mistake: In Ralph's dream sequence of being blind by "soap poisoning", the lenses of his shades go from opaque with a reflective finish, to a matte finish and back.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie and the boys first meet Scut Farkas and Grover Dill, Grover Dill's zipper jacket is up all the way and then, it's halfway down. It keeps changing from up to down.

Continuity mistake: When the delivery men are wheeling the "major award" into the doorway, it has a rope tied around it. As the camera angle moves inside the house, the rope is gone.

Continuity mistake: On Christmas morning when they open presents, the sleeves on the mother's robe move back and forth between rolled up and rolled down.

Continuity mistake: During the first breakfast scene, Ralphie's bacon is on his left on the plate, he takes one bite of it and now the camera angle changes to show the bacon on his right and a large empty space on the left, where the bacon was moments before.

MovieFan612

Continuity mistake: As Ms. Shields lectures the children on what happened to Flick, the phrase "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is written on the blackboard behind her. But when she is done lecturing them, she turns around to reveal "A Theme: What I Want for Christmas" written there instead.

MovieFan612

Continuity mistake: In the Chinese restaurant scene, the opening shot through the window shows the worker directing the music with Ralphie to his right and he is facing the singers. In the next shot, the same worker is behind Ralphie and the singers are to his right.

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie is re-reading his theme to himself, there is a closeup shot of the notebook and his handwriting. In that shot Ralphie has his left hand flat but in the following shot Ralphie has his left hand in a fist.

Continuity mistake: When the dogs steal the turkey and wreck the kitchen, there's a scene of the table broken and no pot holder is on the table. In the next scene, there is a pot holder sitting on the broken table.

Continuity mistake: When Randy is getting dressed for school, his mittens keep appearing and disappearing from his hands.

Continuity mistake: When Ralphie's dad comes in after finding his Oldsmobile has frozen overnight, he tosses his hat onto the dining room table. It tumbles onto a chair next to the table. The next time you see the table, the hat has made its way to the table top.

Continuity mistake: In the school classroom scene, the teacher writes "Silas" in cursive on the blackboard and very emphatically dots the "i" in Silas with her chalk. The dot is visible then and even in the long shot from the back of the classroom, however, in the next, more close-up shot, as the students are filing past her desk and handing in their fake buck teeth, there is no dot above the "i". (00:15:20)

Continuity mistake: In the second kitchen scene after Ralphie sits, the camera looks at the cellar door, where you hear the old man cussing up a "cloud of profanity that still hangs over Lake Michigan." The damper controls are sitting top to the left, bottom to the right. After the "accident" with the lamp, dad comes upstairs. The controls are now reversed, top to the right, bottom to the left.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: In the living room scenes, on the mantel in front of the clock, lighted candles appear and disappear during the movie.

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: When Melinda Dillon breaks the lamp, it is broken into many pieces, but when Darren McGavin is gluing it back together it is now in much fewer and bigger broken pieces. Obviously different broken lamps were used.

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: Melinda Dillon was given the wrong script on purpose when they filmed the Chinese restaurant scene. She had no idea that when they brought the duck out it would have its head still attached. All of her reactions, including when she first sees the duck and when the server cuts the head off, were completely genuine.

dewinela

More trivia for A Christmas Story

Question: Why do the parents have two twin beds in their bedroom, instead of one double bed? I thought that was just a TV gimmick from the old days when they weren't allowed to show a man and woman in bed together. Did people really sleep like that, or was it just a production design decision for the film? The movie was made in the '80's after all.

Krista

Answer: It's most likely a reference to the twin-bed movie standards from the time in which the movie takes place (late '30s to early '40s).

Chosen answer: Many married couples did (and still do) sleep like this. For example, one may be a restless sleeper and not wish to disturb their partner. Or they may just prefer to sleep alone. It's all down to personal choice, I don't think there's a rule that says couples have to share a bed.

umathegreatstationarybear

The original poster has never been married. It is seldom that husbands and wives continue sleeping in the same bed after the first couple years of marriage.

Charles Austin Miller

Very interesting... I know of only one couple that sleeps in different beds. That is because they are on different sleep schedules. I know many couples and we all sleep with our spouses. Don't get me wrong, if we get a hotel room that has 2 full or queen beds, we are sleeping in individual beds. But other then that, we sleep in our bed together.

"Seldom" is a bit of an overstatement - studies seem to suggest about 15-25% of couples sleep separately.

Studies? Could you provide a link to such studies? I speak from decades of knowing many, many happily-married couples, the overwhelming majority of whom sleep in separate beds and even separate rooms.

Charles Austin Miller

15 per cent of Britons said if cost and space were not an issue, they would sleep in a different bed to their partner: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/uk-couples-sleep-separate-beds-partner-yougov-survey-a8504716.html. A 2005 National Sleep Foundation poll found that nearly one in four American couples sleeps in separate beds or separate rooms: https://sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/subscription/sub003.txt. Clearly many couples do, but many don't. Certainly the vast majority of couples I know share a bed, regardless of how long they've been together. "Seldom" is I think overstating it. The majority of people you know may sleep separately, and more power to them! No right or wrong, but that doesn't appear to reflect the broader picture.

Answer: Very common, especially back in the first half of the 20th century, for couples to sleep in separate beds.

More questions & answers from A Christmas Story

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