This is Shepherd's first full length American Playhouse film, and all the stops are pulled. The great James Broderick establishes the original Old Man, a performance to which the other Old Men strive to hit.
I saw PHANTOM when first broadcast and many times since. For my money it tops all adaptations of Shep's stories, including A Christmas Story.
This satirical, funny, but also rueful PBS film looks at teenage life in middle America in the 1950s and is well adapted by humorist Jean Shepherd from his own writings. Really a series of episodes, without much of a plot, but lovely details, and pretty strong acting all around -- although the adults seem a touch exaggerated and the teens a touch underplayed in a way that makes me think the intent is to look at the adult world through the slight distortion of teenage eyes.
Yes, this was written and narrated by Jean Shepard years before he did A Christmas Story, yes, it has many of the same characters in a time a few years later than that classic, and yes, it even has a first draft of the leg lamp story that plays such a prominent part in the more famous movie. But this is nowhere near as good as A Christmas Story.
I've seen this once, way back in the winter of '76.... but it still remains as my favorite comedy...
One of America's finest humorists Jean Shephard narrates his awesomely hilarious memory of prom night in The Phantom of the Open Hearth. With a wonderful cast playing hapless everydays he provides comic blow by blow of the hopes, dreams and disappointments permeating their mundane existence.
Everyone loves little Ralphie in A Christmas Story, wouldn't you like to see what he went through in high school? Wouldn't you like to see what his prom was like?
By the same creative genius who wrote Christmas Story, this is a hysterical sendup of Ralphie's life as a teenager.James Broderick plays "the old man" in this episode.
