My Summer Story (theatrically released as It Runs in the Family) is a family/comedy film based on In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash and A Christmas Story. It is the second in the series and it has two sequels, A Christmas Story 2 and A Christmas Story Live!, ordered respectively.
The opening makes a direct reference to A Christmas Story, and the ending narration parallels it. Due to production delays, most of the characters had to be recast. The late Charles Grodin stars as The Old Man (Mr. Parker), Mary Steenburgen plays Mrs. Parker and Kieran Culkin as Ralphie. Shepherd provides the narration, just as he had done for A Christmas Story.
Plot Synopsis
The film takes place in the summer of 1941, after the events of A Christmas Story, which took place in December 1940. It has several plot lines, one each for 10-year-old Ralphie, his father, and his mother, followed by a recurring subplot involving him and his dad on a fishing trip, that proves frequently fruitless until a single night when all fish are caught. This also feeds a needless obsession in Ralphie's 7-year-old brother Randy, much to Mrs. Parker's nerve.
Ralphie's plotedit[]
Ralphie's plot for most of the film is to find a toptough enough to knock that of a bully's out of a chalk circle in a game of "Kill". Scut Farkus, the 13-year-old main bully, was demoted following the events of A Christmas Story, with a new head bully, Lug Ditka, taking his place and ruling over the school. Despite his firm standing, Ralphie's tops are always defeated by Lug's top Mariah, prompting Ralphie to look for outside sources that also backfire, such as a top bought from an Eastern shop that is painted with roses, giving Lug all the mocking material. During the Parker family's visit to the world fair, Ralphie gets a top from a gypsy stand called "Wolf" just as powerful as Mariah, allowing Ralphie to challenge him again. However, at the climax of the challenge, both Mariah and Wolf end up disappearing into the sewer, never to be seen again; as a result, the game ends on a lose-lose draw.
Mrs. Parker's plotedit[]
Mrs. Parker's plot revolves around attempting to start a collection of celebrity dishes, one per each dish night, at the Orpheum Theatre run by Leopold Doppler. She acquires the first dish, a Ronald Colman gravy boat, though she accumulates more as Doppler announces the other dishes are unavailable due to 'misshipment'. The frustration of accumulating the gravy boats combined with the events throughout the film get Mrs. Parker over the edge, resulting her in throwing the gravy boat she won at the theater in Doppler's head. All other housewives, encouraged by Mrs. Parker's act, also start raining down the surplus gravy boats towards Doppler, enraged at the frustration and the apparent fraudulent scheme. Mrs. Parker is arrested for the act, though with a relieved smile on her face.
Mr. Parker's plotedit[]
Mr. Parker's plot revolves around his odds with the Parker's hillbilly neighbors, the Bumpuses (or Bumpi, as the Parkers tend to refer them in plural), especially due to their loud overplaying of hillbilly music, obnoxious behavior and the constant harassment on Mr. Parker by the Bumpuses' forty-three Bloodhounds named Big Red. The escalation turns into war when the Bumpuses inaugurate an outhouse bathroom, which Parker clearly perceives as a health code violation. When Mr. Parker attempts forcing the Bumpuses to demolish the outhouse, they respond by having Big Dickie, the largest of the Bumpus family, destroy their house's porch as a show of force. Parker attempts unsuccessfully to torment the Bumpuses with music, which they mistake for Parker calling a night party, prompting him to hurriedly escape to the fishing trip with Ralphie. Mr. Parker does a second attempt, this time with a sound effects record disk simulating a federal bust, but by the time he unleashes the sound disk, the Bumpuses have long moved away. Mr. Parker interprets this as a defeat, and the act earns the ire of the woken-up neighborhood, who strongly suggest to bring the Bumpuses back and be rid of Parker.
Cast
- Charles Grodin as Mr. Parker, the Old Man
- Mary Steenburgen as Mrs. Parker
- Kieran Culkin as Ralph "Ralphie" Parker
- Jean Shepherd as Ralph Parker/the Narrator
- Christian Culkin as Randy Parker
- Whit Hertford as "Lug"
- Chris Owen as "Scut" Farkus
- Geoffrey Wigdor as Flick
- David Zahorsky as Schwartz
- Tedde Moore as Miss Shields
- T.J. McInturff as Grover Dill
- Glenn Shadix as Leopold Doppler, Manager of the Orpheum Theater
- Roy Brocksmith as Mr. Winchell, The Assessor
Gallery[]
