In search of Jean Shepherd's lost 'Ralphie' movie....

When I like a movie series, I tend to be a completist about it. So this has always irritated me - especially since it's largely slipped under the radar!

A lot of people will be aware that Ralphie Parker was the focus of three TV movies before "A Christmas Story" - "Phantom Of The Open Hearth", "The Great American Fourth of July", and "The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski." But that's the problem.

There were FOUR.

Those three movies, which are easily found both online and as fan-distributed DVD's, were all made and aired by PBS. In 1978, however, Jean made a film for ABC that seemingly never aired, starring John Shepherd (from "Friday The 13th: A New Beginning") as Ralph Parker, as well as the first appearance of Barbara Bolton, Ralphie's mom from the later two PBS movies.

Confusingly, this one was also titled "Phantom Of The Open Hearth", and even has its own IMDB page. But other than it apparently having the original "OH, FFFFFUDGE!" scene, not much is known about it - shared title aside, I'm not sure if it was a remake of the PBS movie (which was based on Jean's story about Ralph's date with Wanda Hickey). I've found *one* lone fan who claimed to have it - and even posted blurry screencaps on his Jean Shepherd fan site years back - but of course, that fan refused to show the film to anyone.

So the question remains, unlikely as it is (because it would've ended up in one of the bootleg 'complete Ralphie' boxed sets that sell online) - has anyone ACTUALLY seen this movie? Even moreso, does anyone legitimately have a copy?

 

You list 4 Jean Shepherd movie titles, and then say that the problem is that there were actually 4 of these Shepherd movies.

Then you call the 4 movies you listed 3 movies and say that two of them were actually named "Phantom Of The Open Hearth."

By this point you seem to be saying there are 3 Shepherd available movies, plus one missing Shepherd movie, but my count is up to 5 by that time.

Could you re-explain the problem more clearly?

 

What is the name of the missing movie?

 

Okay, I'll try to lay it out:

Jean made three movies for PBS. All three of these are in circulation - Phantom Of The Open Hearth (1976), The Great American Fourth of July (1982) and the Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1983).

HOWEVER, Jean also made one movie for ABC in 1978, ALSO called "Phantom Of The Open Hearth" for some reason (it may have been a remake of the PBS movie, I'm not sure). THIS movie is the one that's missing. I've seen screencaps of this movie from a person who refuses to give it out, but no footage of it is in circulation.

 

Are you talking about this unsold pilot?

flicklives

By Jay Sharbutt
The Associated Press October 1978

"Jean Shepherd-once told of a kid who got his first job in a steel mill and learned to dream the American dream -- of the beautiful future, the glorious past, and the crummy now."

That was in "Phantom of the Open Hearth," the wryly funny PBS television drama he wrote and narrated. Aired in 1976, it hailed blue-collar life in "the great inverted bowl of darkness" -- the Midwest.

Now the Chicago-born maestro of Americana is at it again with a new version of "Phantom" he's making at 20th Century-Fox Television as a movie for ABC. It could become a weekly series."​

 

And after "A Christmas Story" was "My Summer Story" another enjoyable film, at least to me.

 

Yep, that's the one. I believe the owner of that site is the fan with the only known copy (who refuses to show it - believe me, I tried).

 

Yes, "My Summer Story" is fantastic! Not sure why Jean disliked it so much.

Disney made a sequel as well ("Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven Of Bliss") I own but haven't watched so I can't comment..... and then, unfortunately, there's "A Christmas Story 2", which not only ignores the other sequels, but royally pisses all over Jean's mythology. Terrible movie.

 

A big let down for me, though, was reading "A Fistful of Fig Newtons" - a collection of stories about Ralph in college and later as an adult.

You'd never expect a character whose life was full of colorful stories to have such a dreary ending... the 'New Year's party' story was an awful, awful way to go out, and leaves you feeling like Ralph ended up a lonesome loser.

 

There is a movie about Wanda Hickey? One of the funniest stories I ever read.

 

From her Night of Golden Memories...
"Wanda wore a long turquoise taffeta gown, her milky skin and golden hair radiating in the glow of the porch fight. This was not the old Wanda. For one thing, she didn't have her glasses on, and her eyes were unnaturally large and liquid, the way the true myopia victim's always are."
Oh, that guy could write.

 

Very interesting!!!

The PBS movies are pretty good.

That's so interesting that they made an ABC pilot.

I'd say it will probably show up one of these days.

Jean Shepherd's Light Fantastic 1964 (an indie film in which he had a featured role) popped up on YouTube a couple of years ago. No one bothered to yank it down and it's only been viewed 1100 times.

Anything is possible. Id try to track down one of the young sorta known actors (John Shepherd or William Lampley) they might have a copy...or the children of director John Rich.

I mean the bootleg copy that the website has, had to come from somewhere and it definitely looks like it's a bad videotape.

 

I have a full copy of this pilot -- but only on VHS (so fairly poor quality) -- lemme transfer it to a digital format -- I read once that a fan in Australia and a full length film print of this version... wonder if 20th Century Fox would have an old original in the vault somewhere

 

meant -- "full length" copy of the pilot -- and the fan in Australia has a full length film print

 

I created an account just to come on here and say I'm looking forward to seeing the unaired pilot!
For reference this appears to be the imdb page someone created for the un-aired pilot:
The Phantom of the Open Hearth (TV Movie 1978) - IMDb

This is the imdb page for the real "The Phantom of the Open Hearth"
The Phantom of the Open Hearth (TV Movie 1976) - IMDb
Joe.

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Awesome

 

Then many years later ABC aired the Shepherd-inspired WONDER YEARS.

 

I saw all the PBS shows and loved them.

"Gobble, gobble!"
"My brother didn't know it then, but this would prove to be the high point of his entire life."