Depending on whom you ask, you’ll get two wildly different answers if you inquire about director Bob Clark’s classic Christmas movie.
Ask any one of the millions of viewers who tune in to TNT around December 25th each year, and the answer will be 1983’s A Christmas Story, the beloved tale of young Ralphie and his quest for a Red Ryder BB gun as a present under the tree. On the other hand, if you ask a cinephile in the scary movie section of a video store, the reply will likely be Black Christmas, a darkly comic 1974 horror film about a killer stalking a sorority house over the holidays.
Surprise of surprises, Clark made them both, but the two disparate films don’t represent a schizoid persona, or a twisted, subversive mind – they’re just two sides of someone who loved movies – movies of all kinds, shapes and sizes.
Sadly, this exuberant lover of movies was killed in an automobile crash near his Pacific Palisades home last week. The 67-year-old director was driving with his 22-year-old son Ariel when an oncoming SUV veered across the center line and crashed into them. The other driver, who survived, was suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Clark had enjoyed an eclectic career, and despite some recent box-office duds, such as 1999’s Baby Geniuses and its sequel, he was enjoying the beginnings of a late career boost, thanks to a revival in interest of his early horror films by a fresh batch of filmmakers eager to reimagine his works for today’s audiences, and to his recent discussion with radio talk show mogul Howard Stern to remake his other seminal classic, Porky’s.
Clark grew up in Ft. Lauderdale Fla., and later admitted that while he was a film buff, he wasn’t a film fanatic – instead, he enjoyed the normal 1950s teenage life of playing sports, horsing around with friends and chasing girls. And thanks to his early yearnings to be a writer, he remembered everything and wrote it all down. His fond memories would form the basis of the 1982 sex comedy classic way down the road.
But first, Clark went through college as an arty jock – he was a quarterback for the Hillsdale, Michigan, football team, on scholarship, and later studied theater and acted in plays at the University of Miami. He began to consider filmmaking as a career, and after college, he worked in theater, acting and directing, and sought out jobs in Florida’s small film community. Gradually, Clark gravitated toward horror films, mainly because, as he would later point out, they were the only genre, aside from porn, that was forgiving of a very low budget and no-name actors.
Clark made a handful of cheapie horror films – most, such as The Emperor’s New Clothes or She-Male would have been forgettable had they ever actually been released. His first feature was Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, whose title speaks for itself as a darkly comic low-budget horror film, and after a handful of equally cheapo scare flicks, Clark turned out 1974’s Black Christmas. The horror thriller, starring Margot Kidder in an early role, about a killer terrorizing a sorority house over the holiday, in many ways inspired the slasher movie tradition carried on by the likes of Jason, Freddie and Mike Myers.
After a handful of small, notable films, including the Sherlock Holmes mystery Murder by Decree, and the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute, Clark was in a position to put together his dream project, based on all those sun-drenched days as a Florida youth. Porky’s released in 1982, touched a nerve, in more ways than one. The tale of hi-jinks among teens coming of age in the 1950s was racier than American Graffiti and more subdued than Animal House, but held first place when it came to sex and nudity. Despite a pervasive naughtiness, however, the film maintained a sense of innocence that was nowhere to be found in the countless imitators it inspired.
Clark’s next feature, another dream project he had been working on for years before cameras finally rolled, was his masterpiece, A Christmas Story. The tale of bespectacled Ralphie Parker, played by Peter Billingsley, and his longing for that pump-action rifle, despite admonitions from non-understanding grown-ups that “he’ll shoot his eye out,” was distinguished by the wary enthusiasm of narrator of Jean Shepherd, whose short stories served as a basis for the script. With winning performances by Darren McGavin as Ralphie’s father, affectionately referred to as “the Old Man,” and Melinda Dillon as his tireless mother, the film was just a modest success in theaters, before hitting its stride in television reruns.
While it may come as a surprise that the director of a sex romp could dive right into a holiday movie told from a child’s point of view, all it takes is a closer look. From the foul-mouthed Old Man, whose expletives are appropriately mumbled and obscured, to the population of temperamental kids who squeal in pain at least as much in delight, the yuletide classic celebrates the sour with the sweet, which is all part of its appeal. Drawn from humorist Jean Shepherd’s short stories, the movie really does feel more like a series of vignettes than a coherent story with a purposeful plot, but that may also explain its appeal for television – viewers can feel comfortable just popping in mid-stream, or letting it play in the background at family gatherings.
Clark’s past successes outlasted his later misfires. He went on to direct the reviled Rhinestone, starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton, as well as Turk 182 just a few years later. At attempt at a sequel to A Christmas Story, entitled It Runs in the Family, lacked the charm of the original. Despite more narration by Shepherd, the film may have just been too unfamiliar; because of the passage of time, all the parts were recast, with Kieran Culkin as Ralphie; but despite the acting talents of Mary Steenburgen and Charles Grodin as the parents, the film just failed to connect.
After a handful of forgettable television movies, Clark directed 1999 Baby Geniuses, which was successful enough to warrant a 2004 sequel, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, but not enough to win over any but the least discerning of critics. With films like Karate Dog, Clark’s name no longer had the cache it once did.
But things were starting toward an upswing for the filmmaker, who remained upbeat and optimistic even during his artistically lean years. With horror films enjoying a new boom in popularity, there was a revival of interest in Clark’s low-budget efforts. A remake of Black Christmas hit theaters in 2006, and turned a modest profit, and Clark was in discussions with radio personality Howard Stern about a remake of Porky’s, a film for which the shock jock had openly professed a long love. Clark himself was set to direct a remake of his own first theatrical feature, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things.
It was around two o’clock in the morning when Clark was driving with his son Ariel on the Pacific Coast Highway when an oncoming car collided with theirs. It was unclear whether Clark was taking his son back to the college student’s Santa Monica apartment, or if they were out to grab a bite to eat. The night that was often a movie night with them and Clark’s other son, Michael, who was still at his father’s apartment at the time of the crash. The other driver, who was with a passenger, survived with minor injuries along with her, was suspected of drunk driving, pending an investigation by police.
It remains to be seen what would become of Clark’s projects that were still in the planning stages. But his timeless films will live on. If the network continues its tradition, this year will mark the 10th anniversary of TNT running its A Christmas Story marathon. Either way, that film warmed the hearts of a generation of moviegoers, and will likely warm the hearts of countless more.
