Peter Billingsley plays Ralphie, the Depression-era kid who wants nothing more than a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, even though a beleagured department store Santa (Jeff Gillen) is among those who warns that he'll shoot his eye out. A Christmas Story (1983) is now a bona fide holiday film classic

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CLEVELAND -- Ralph Clark was ecstatic.

"There's the old stove, just like in the movie," he said.

"The sink. And the Oxydol detergent. And the Royal tapioca pudding ..."

They're all here, in a modest house in the Cleveland suburb of Tremont.

All looking exactly as they did in the movie 'A Christmas Story', which since its release in 1983 has become a holiday cult favourite on a par with 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

Clark had driven from Detroit to see the house, the exterior of which was used as nine-year-old Ralphie Parker's home in the movie.

The interiors were filmed on a Toronto soundstage, but now the inside of the house has been recreated to look just like in the film, which was set in the early 1940s.

Says owner Brian Jones: "I studied the film frame by frame to get the look right."

That look, of course, includes the famous "leg lamp," a table lamp in the shape of a woman's leg, clad in a fishnet stocking.

Fans remember how Ralphie's father, played by the late Darren McGavin, was enchanted by the lamp, while his mother (Melinda Dillon) was mortified when he put it in the front window for all the neighbours to see.

Clark, the visitor from Detroit, says he grew up viewing the movie every Christmas. So did Jones, 31, a San Diego entrepreneur.

He loved it so much that when the house came on the market two years ago he bought it for US$150,000, then spent as much again gutting the inside and rebuilding it as it had looked on the Toronto soundstage.

He prowled eBay to buy period artifacts from all over the U.S. His latest acquisition is the 1937 Oldsmobile that McGavin drove -- the car that had a flat resulting in Ralphie swearing -- you don't hear the word, but the narrator calls it "the Queen Mother of dirty words.''

"Look at that," a visitor says, pointing to a bar of red Lifebuoy soap in the bathroom, just like the soap used to wash out Ralphie's (actor, now producer, Peter Billingsly's) mouth.

Jones says 37,000 visitors from all over the continent have toured the house since it opened in November 2006.

Most wander out into the back yard, recalling how Ralphie, in a daydream, saves his family from attack by using his "official Red Ryder 200-shot carbine," the BB gun, with a compass in the stock, that's all he wants for Christmas.

The movie is built around his wish for this coveted gun and his parents' refusal to buy it.

"You'll shoot your eye out," his mother says, as every mom has ever said about a BB gun.

Across the street is a gift shop and museum. In the store, you can buy every imaginable doodad connected with A Christmas Story.

The museum showcases stills from the film, behind-the-scenes pictures, and artifacts such as Ralphie's little brother's snowsuit -- the one that got Randy so muffled up that he couldn't move his arms -- and the chalk board from the school sequences.

Cleveland is about 480 km from Toronto, via Buffalo and I-90 west. A Christmas Story House is at 3159 W. 11 St. (at Rowley) in Tremont, a few kilometres west of downtown Cleveland.

Admission is $7 (less for seniors and children). For informaton, call 216-298-4919 or visit AChristmasStoryHouse.com.