FILM · 1983 · USA
Christine
25 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (25)
- #001
Fifteen percent of the budget was set aside for the cars alone. By the end of filming, all but two of them had been destroyed.
- #002
In the film, Christine was evil from the day she rolled off the assembly line, injuring an inspector and killing another worker who dropped cigar ash on her seat. In the book, Christine was an ordinary '58 Plymouth Fury bought by Roland LeBay, the brother of George LeBay (Roberts Blossom), who sells Christine to Arnie in the film. It was Roland LeBay who made Christine evil; his love for her eclipsed even his love for his wife and daughter, both of whom died in the car. Roland's evil spirit thus became one with Christine. In both the film and the book, Christine could drive herself and repair any damage as long as she was in motion. When Roland died and there was no one left to love and drive her, Christine stopped "living" and began to show her age until Arnie came along. Roland's evil spirit and his love for Christine were then passed on to Arnie.
- #003
Some parts of the film, particularly Arnie's neighborhood, were shot in the South Pasadena neighborhood director John Carpenter had used in Halloween (1978).
- #004
To simulate the car renewing itself, hydraulic pumps were installed inside some of the many Plymouth Fury stunt doubles; these were models made of plastic, which looked more like metal on camera than real metal did when bent and deformed. The pumps were connected to cables attached to the cars' bodywork, and when compressed they "sucked" the panels inward. Footage of the crumpled body was then reversed to give the appearance of the car reshaping itself.
- #005
According to Bill Phillips in the DVD documentary, the film technically did not contain enough violence to justify an "R" rating. However, they feared that if the film came out with a PG rating (PG-13 did not yet exist), no one would go to see it. So they deliberately added the F word and its derivatives in order to earn the "R" rating. He recalls that they were later criticized for using the word at that time.
- #006
The film playing in the drive-in scene, Thank God It's Friday (1978), includes a running joke in which a character's prized car keeps getting damaged throughout the film, both intentionally and accidentally.
- #007
One of the Plymouth Furies from the film sold for $167,000 in 2004.
- #008
When Christine goes after the members of Buddy Repperton's gang, her windows are blacked out. This was probably done to give Christine a "sinister" look, but also, more practically, to hide the stunt driver. However, since all of these scenes were shot at night, it reportedly made it difficult for the driver to see.
- #009
The opening scene showing that Christine was "born" in Detroit was added to the film; it was used to explain the origin of Christine's evil nature, a change from the original Stephen King novel.
- #010
As a joke, Alexandra Paul's twin sister Caroline Paul stood in for her in the scene where she rides the bulldozer. According to Paul, she brought her sister to the set, and with the help of the hair, makeup and wardrobe departments she dressed like Paul's character Leigh and went to the set with John Stockwell to shoot the scene. They shot her sister Caroline helping to drive the bulldozer, and then Paul came out and jokingly asked John Carpenter whether he was going to fire her. Carpenter later admitted that he had thought something was different about her but couldn't put his finger on it.
- #011
According to the filmmakers in the DVD documentary, 28 Plymouth "Furies" (actually Belvederes or Savoys) were bought and restored for the film. Several of them were "showcase" cars used when Christine sat "looking pretty" or when Arnie drove her. There were "hot rod" versions with reinforced engines for Christine's attacks and aircraft landing lights for headlights. And there were "junk" and "shell" cars for Christine's run-down versions or for her "death" scene. There is a way to tell which cars were the showcase cars and which were the stunt cars: if you look at the lower grille beneath Christine's front bumper, the stunt cars have chrome below the grille while the showcase cars have it painted red.
- #012
After reading the book, actor Keith Gordon (Arnie) and the costume designer found a visual way to show that Arnie had been taken over by Christine. As the film progresses, Arnie begins wearing clothes that reflect Christine's era. At various points, especially when Arnie is yelling at Leigh on the phone, Arnie is seen wearing button-down shirts, black T-shirts, black pants and boots resembling the 1950s "greaser" look. When talking to Junkins (in both instances), he wears a leather vest over a button-down shirt (a nod to the western TV shows popular in the '50s) and even starts wearing a red suede jacket like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).
- #013
Among the many subplots from the book that could not be filmed or were changed: Roland LeBay sells the car to Arnie but dies shortly afterward; Will Darnell uses the garage as a front for a smuggling operation; Arnie is arrested while running cigarettes for Darnell; Darnell is arrested for income tax evasion, is implied to be about to make a deal with prosecutors to tell them what he knows about the car, and is then killed by Christine; the romance between Leigh and Dennis was almost entirely dropped; Det. Junkins is killed by Christine near the end. In the book, Christine is also destroyed at an airport. Sandy Galton, an airport worker and a friend of Buddy Repperton, serves as a lookout when Christine is destroyed. He soon leaves town and is ultimately revealed to have been run over by a car, implying that Christine is alive again.
- #014
Keith Gordon (Arnie) says in a DVD extra that he treated the car as if it were a woman, so that wherever he touched the car he imagined which part of a woman it was.
- #015
Arnie's nemesis Det. Rudolph Junkins also drives a Plymouth Fury; he is most notably seen in it while questioning Arnie in the school parking lot. Junkins's car appears to be a 1977 or 1978 Plymouth Fury, a popular police car in the late 1970s.
- #016
In the book, Arnie and Dennis worked on a construction crew over the summer. This is how Arnie saved up enough money to buy Christine, and it explains how Dennis knows how to operate a bulldozer. However, the book's finale features not a bulldozer but a pink septic truck named Petunia. Stephen King's idea for the final battle was to have two powerful "ladies" fighting each other.
- #017
According to Keith Gordon in the DVD commentary, Christine kept having trouble with her TorqueFlite automatic transmission controls. The 1958 Plymouths (along with all other Chrysler products that year) used push buttons to select "Reverse," "Neutral," "Drive," etc. (The buttons can be seen in some shots near the steering column, but they are never seen being pressed in the film.) He says that putting the transmission into gear routinely took several attempts. On a few occasions, shooting had to be postponed so a technician could repair the selector buttons, and even then it could still have problems.
- #018
The $250 he paid for the car (the film is set in 1978) comes to $979.84 in 2019.
- #019
John Stockwell, who played Dennis, had to take bulldozer driving lessons before filming.
- #020
In the book, Darnell's death is far more dramatic: Christine enters his house through a picture window, and as he tries to climb upstairs to escape, she repeatedly slams into the staircase. Darnell, who has heart and asthma conditions, can barely breathe, and his heart stops, causing him to fall down the stairs, where Christine strikes him again and again.
- #021
Oak Park High School's football team was used to film the game; because it was a small school, every boy at the school had to play on the field on both sides of the ball and on the sideline. OPHS uniforms were used for the defense, while the offense wore the uniform of league rival Carpenteria.
- #022
Dennis's car is a 1968 Dodge Charger 440.
- #023
One of the Furys used in the film's stunts (the one that runs over and kills Moochie) had a rubber front end. The car was going to be sent to a salvage yard and was restored using parts taken from other stunt vehicles. The car is now in private hands.
- #024
Darnell's scenes were shot in a large, old wire factory. Half of it was dressed to look like a body shop, and the other half was turned into a real body shop so that Christine could be kept running.
- #025
Kevin Bacon was offered the lead role but ultimately chose Footloose (1984) instead. At one point Bacon was set to star in Dolan's Cadillac, another Stephen King story about a car.
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