American Playhouse (TV Series) The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1985) User Reviews

Another Jean Shepherd Classic

[michaelj-9 · 8/10 · 16 January 2004]

My first impression of Jean Shepherd was The Phantom of the Open Hearth. I was 11, and my mom was about to send me to bed when it came on PBS late on a Sunday night around Christmas. We laughed ourselves silly from beginning to end, past midnight. I've been a Jean Shepherd fan ever since.

Josephine is the story of Ralph (the same Ralph from A Christmas Story) Parker's first serious romance with his new Polish neighbor. All of Shepherd's favorites are here: Randy, Flick, Schwartz, mom, The Old Man. After his initial scare that their new neighbors might be the returning Bumpus Clan, Ralph finds Josephine an exotic and mysterious Polish girl, like the ones he, Flick and Schwartz scope in East Chicago. After watching her from the shadows for some time, Ralph makes his move at the butcher shop, and finds a willing partner in Josephine.

In typical Shepherd fashion, several stories are weaved together in this narrative: it's Thanksgiving, and whiney Randy finds himself cast as a turkey in the school play, which turns out to be the highlight of his entire life. The Old Man has his eye on a sexy yellow Buick at Friendly Fred's Used Cars, which, of course, turns out to be a lemon, and from which Mom exacts her revenge. The Hohman basketball team goes against rivals Horace Mann in the game of the season, in which slippery Flick bets against the home team (and loses).

Ralph discovers almost too late that Josephine is not just a high school romance, but has her eye on him FOR KEEPS! In a dramatic escape which pits him against her Notre Dame football hero brothers Stosh and Alex, Ralph barely escapes the world of adulthood and responsibility to rejoin his pals at the basketball game in time to see Hohman High win against Horace Mann.

This is classic Jean Shepherd comedy: full of Americana past which remains accessible and hilarious because it taps into a deeper, more enduring aspect of America, one which remains impervious to political whims and popular trends.

If you can find a copy, show it to your kids. They will find it familiar and funny, too. While you're at it, make sure you see The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, as well as The Phantom of the Open Hearth. These are very tough videos to find. Failing that, get copies of Shepherd's books. At least they're still in print

It made me feel like I felt growing up in my old ethnic neighborhood

[paint4u · 8/10 · 27 July 2004]

I remember waiting for this movie to be shown on TV so I could gather family to watch with me. I thought that there weren't other people in this world that also ate, cooked and lived in their cellars like some of my relatives did! I could easily identify with the smell of cabbage infusing the air coming from the stuffed cabbage, a staple of our family especially on very special occasions. I can't wait to watch the movie again. It was so enjoyable and really gave me that sense of growing up in a small, self contained community where what was important was, what was happening right there right then and not what was bothering everyone else in the world. As in his other movies, Jean Shepard's voice provides a welcome mantra of clever comments and sarcasm.

Loved and relate to the "itching for a new car" issue with the old man

[timmaciolek · 10/10 · 6 August 2008]

I really loved this feature when I saw it rebroadcast on PBS. The stories that Mr. Shepherd tells truly are timeless. The longing for the mysterious girl, the idea of getting into a situation that is too deep and then making a narrow escape. The "Old Man's" itching every couple of years to get a new car comes to mind every time I am ready for automobile shopping! It had such an impact on me that when, sometime afterward, I gained a kitten, he ended up being named after their dog...Fuzzhead. (I shortened his name to "Fuzzy"). Even though my beloved feline has passed on after seventeen interesting years, and I had not seen this feature for even longer...I still tell the story of this little story.

This movie made me cry

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 22 December 2022]

Originally airing on February 11, 1985 on PBS' American Playhouse, the fourth feature film of the Parker family starts in a movie theater as an older Ralphie (Jean Shepherd, who wrote these stories) relates that seeing a movie by a Polish director reminds him of Josephine Cosnowski (Katherine Kamhi), the neighbor who became his first serious love.

Barbara Bolton and Jay Ine return as mom and Randy, but young Ralphie is Pete Kowanko and The Old Man is played by George Coe, a castmember of season one of SNL. Sadly, James Broderick, who played the role in The Phantom of the Open Hearth and The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters died of thyroid cancer in 1982.

The Old Man always said, "There has to be a God if there's beer. All that goodness just ain't accidental."

This made me think about my father, lost a week or so before Thanksgiving, and as Ralphie takes his little dog up the steps and he remembers, his old self weary through time, that there was no better holiday than before being an adult and when Thanksgiving really meant something, that it was something to look forward to and now, all of life is just appointments and time moves so fast as we march to our destiny. It made my eyes burn I cried so hard, my very own little dog next to me with no idea just how much I missed being a kid and knowing my father was one door away.