"Son of a bitch." 4 words I still laugh at 27 years later.
Charles Grodin passed away today aged 86. He'll be missed. A master of his craft who never really got the recognition he deserved. We all knew and loved him as Jonathan Mardukis, the likable mob accountant from Midnight Run but his career encompassed a lot more than the comedies he became famous for in the 80's and 90's.
Imagine beginning your career under the tutelage of none other than Lee Strasberg and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea being your first film. Then easing your way into Broadway opposite Anthony Quinn. Then popping up in the scariest film of the 1960's, Rosemary's Baby and using the cachet earned from that role to snag parts in Catch - 22 and the lead in Elaine May's wonderful The Heartbreak Kid. After that he played the man indirectly responsible for King Kong coming to America and the husband of an Incredible Shrinking Woman. Sadly his genius went under appreciated until 1988 when Midnight Run became a favourite film for many and we all fell for his gentle charms and deadpan delivery of lines like "Have you ever had sex with an animal Jack?" from there he led films like Beethoven and stole the show in support in underappreciated gems like Dave.
That leads us to My Summer Story. The follow up to Bob Clarke's brilliant A Christmas Story. Made 11 years after the original and totally recast. Darren McGavin was out and Charles Grodin was in as Mr Parker, the grumpy but loving patriarch of the Parker family. Me and my friends lived in the video shops when we were younger. Roscrea in the 90's had little to do and if you were too young for pubs there was even less to keep you entertained. So we watched an awful lot of films. Most of them were tosh but we found the odd gem. My Summer Story was one of them and most of it was down to Charles Grodin. He was priceless in the part. I don't remember much of the film but I remember him. And one line in particular shouted at a traffic cop. Those 4 words above. Nearly 3 decades later I'm still smiling at the memory of our reaction to them. We howled. We rewound. We burst out laughing again. One of those perfect deliveries that makes a film stay with you forever.
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