The famous scene of 'A Christmas Story,' which shows Scott Schwartz as Flick sticking his tongue to a flagpole was, in fact, shot just outside Victoria Public School situated in St. Catharines. Every Canadian child who played as a classmate or a bystander paid $1 each for being in the scene. There was an additional $3.50 which had to be paid for going to the school board. This was one of the several other scenes from the Christmas comedy shot in Canada.

The film is based on In God We Trust, authored by Jean Shepherd. While Bob Clark directed the film 30 years back, it was only in 2012 that it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The movie celebrates the 30th year of its release on Nov 18. The director of the film was, however, killed in 2007, along with his son Ariel, 22, by a drunk SUV driver.

Thirty years back, people saw little Ian Petrella as Randy, snuffling through mashed potatoes to demonstrate how 'piggies' eat. It has been 30 years since Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker made a breathless speech to a departmental store Santa Claus what he wanted on the Christmas. The Star captures Tyler Schwartz deconstructing many scenes shot in Canada in his book A Christmas Story Treasury on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the movie.

Mr Schwartz said that he was most interested to bring the Canada flavour of the film. He took the name of A Christmas Story in the breath with classics like The Wizard of Oz. He said that the film had been made with an ultra-low budget in Toronto and around. It had many Canadians who worked in the film merely because of the love they had for films.

Mr Schwartz said that the American film was 'Canadian' by and large as the interiors had been filmed in Scarborough, while the exterior scenes were shot in Toronto and around. The people of Canada should be proud of that, he said.

Video courtesy: YouTube/wichitaorpheum