This film is a good example of how not to make a sequel. That Bob Clark who did such a perfect casting "A Christmas Story" should have blown this vital aspect of the film is beyond understanding. Charles Grodin is just terrible as the Old Man. Kieran Culkin who plays Ralphie is not quite as horrid,but is still a sad comparison with Billingsly in the original.One wonders if he was not cast because he was the brother of another kid actor who had a huge Christmas hit. Only Mary Steenburgen as Mom does a decent job,and even she is not quite as good as Melinda Dillon did in the original. In addition to the casting mistakes,but other wrong decisions were made.Showing the Bumpasses for no good reason is a prime example.They were so much funnier left to the imagination (except for he dogs) in the original. All in all,Bob CLark should have known better.

"A Christmas Story" is one of many people's all-time most beloved films. ACS was able to take the viewer to a time and a place in such a way that very few films ever have. It had a sweetness and goodwill to it that is rare.So I awaited (and awaited) its sequel, "It Runs In The Family" . The film was almost released a couple of times, only to be pulled at the last minute. When it finally came out, IRITF was (and is, I guess) a total failure.The sets and cinematography were just fine, but the directing totally, completely missed the mark. The film was nothing more than a cash-flow formula of lazy casting, lazy writing, and disconnected acting.The narrator, Jean Shepard, who was one of America's great humorists and story-tellers, forced upon us a false reprise of the warm wit he used in ACS. He over-emoted, and why he did that I'll never know. He somehow managed to become an annoying, overwrought parody of himself.The writing and acting in IRITF is inauthentic and forced. The actors may have seen ACS, but whatever wit and nuance that was in ACS mustn't have registered at all on any of them. The acting was embarrassingly slapstick and bereft of any of Shepard's dry humor.ACS will always be a real treasure, but to call IRITF a sequel is to insult all of the fans of Jean Shepard and ACS.

The prequel -A Christmas Story- will live on as a classic. But this follow up wasn't too bad. I thought it was cute. The dish give-away, the property taxes, the gypsy tent....it's worth seeing. Charles Grodin wouldn't have been my first choice to play the 'old man' but it works, I suppose. The scenes with the next door neighbors will have you laughing for a LONG time. It may be a little hard to watch at first, especially considering most of us are used to the original cast. But it's a memorable movie. Hard to find on VHS or DVD, but I'm still looking. I don't think my collection will be complete until I have it. Anyone who remembers their mother collecting stamps for gravy boats will have a few nostalgic moments here, too.

Of the two sequels to "A Christmas Story," (the other being Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss released in 1987), It Runs in the Family (aka My Summer Story) is the better one.Kieran Culkin portrays second-grader Ralphie Parker. Though Parker was supposed to be 14 years-old in the second movie, the writers might've felt it to be more entertaining to once again write a story from a young kid's perspective. Not only is it something younger children can relate to, but they don't have to stick to such strict guidelines of reality, allowing room to delve into fanatasies and imaginations of our narrating protagonist, Ralphie. That is what made the first movie so enjoyable, this kid getting all psyched out about Christmas and dreaming about his Red Ryder BB gun. Then, he'd have his little day dreams about how his mom got together and plotted to give him a bad grade on his essay about the gun, marking it with large letters that "he'd shoot his eye out." Or how, when his parents often rebuffed his requests for the Christmas present, he daydreamed how he was blind and returns home and his parents grieve about how they should've been nicer to him. There's a bit of that going on here, and makes it a better comedy. So, little Ralphie Parker is engaged in a battle with a new foe, Lug Ditka, who challenges Ralphie to a tops war. The tops battles are apparently symbolic of strength and more appropriate in a family film than physically fighting. While Ralphie's classmates have failed to beat Lug, the reigning champion, Ralphie is going to prove is worth. And the feat becomes very intimidating.The movie is pretty much a string of subplots, one not really dominating the other. Meanwhile, we have three other subplots. The funniest and most interesting one involves Ralphie's mother (Mary Steenburgen) and the other local Indiana housewives going to this theater each week, lured by a salesman's promise of getting a full set of autographed celebrity dinnerware. Each week, they return with the same gravy boat. The funny part is seeing Ralphie's mother getting annoyed when her husband asks her the stupid question of where all the other celebrity autographed plates were when he was standing in a kitchen full of gravy boats. Like a scene from Citizen Kane, the women eventually get together and stage a revolt. The other subplot involves Ralphie's father (aka The Old Man) and greater insight to their boorish hick neighbors, the Bumpus's. Recall in the first movie, it was their dogs who often stormed the Parkers kitchen and spoiled the Christmas turkey. Once again, there is a feud between Old Man Parker and the Bumpus's concerning a territorial dispute. And, yet another subplot concerns Ralphie and his dad, and their skilled fishing expedition. As you'll notice, there's not much going on with Randy Parker (played by Kieran's brother, Christian). It turned out to be a better family comedy than Ollie Hopnoodle's, and one that fans of "A Christmas Story," would probably enjoy.