A Christmas Story

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: Just after the fight between Ralphie and Farkus starts, there is a shot of the two from the side and already there is quite a bit of blood on Farkus's face. But then in a shot from over Ralphie's shoulder, there is no blood visible on Farkus's face at all. (00:57:35)

Jeff Swanson

Continuity mistake: When Farkus grabs Schwartz and tries to make him say "uncle", the end of Schwartz's stocking cap is hanging loose in front of him. But in the following shot - showing Farkus throwing Schwartz to the ground - the end of the stocking cap is behind Schwartz's back. (00:23:00)

Jeff Swanson

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: In the scene where Ralphie's mom asks him what he wants for Christmas and he blurts out "a red rider BB gun" there's a spoon that moves from the table next to the plate, to on the plate in the next shot. (00:05:00 - 00:10:00)

dabears51907

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: 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: 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: 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: 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.

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

Dad: 'Fra-gee-lay', that must be Italian.

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 doesn't Ralphie's father realise he's the one who unintentionally taught his son how to cuss, much less buy his lame excuse?

Rob245

Answer: Because it's a funny look at real life. It's common for parents to cuss around their children, then be shocked when the kids start using the language themselves.

Exactly right. My parents cussed quite a bit when I was a child, but the first time I ever swore in front of my mother, she thought I learned it from watching The Real World with my sister.

immortal eskimo

True. I'd forgotten I learned how to cuss from my folks.

Rob245

Answer: I think he did know. When he tells Ralphie to get in the car after saying the bad word, he kinda laughs to himself. It's only after Mom razzes him about taking too long to change the tire that he decides to share that Ralphie swore.

More questions & answers from A Christmas Story

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