There were four movies in 1987/1988 featuring kids in adult bodies. Aside from Big, all of them were body-swapping stories and the people switching were men and their male direct descendants. The two of those three I just reviewed were parent/child, a formula obviously done with females in all the Freaky Friday versions. This is the only movie I’ve heard of with a grandparent and grandchild switching.
Hard to think of a better person to play the grandparent than George Burns.
Unfortunately, this movie made so little money that you can’t even find the box office gross on Wikipedia, and apparently one critic said it wasn’t a good idea to have a George Burns movie where he was in a coma most of the time.
I disagree. The plot concerns an elderly, womanizing, wealthy party animal (essentially Burns playing himself) who, despite having been a hard-nosed father to his middle-aged son, loves that son’s own college freshman kid and wishes his grandson were more like grandpa and less timid and insecure. Grandpa and the grandson (ha, I’m not referencing a different Fred Savage movie than the one I just reviewed when referring to characters by those titles) are in a car accident, though, and when they wake up their consciousnesses are swapped. Actually, only grandpa wakes up, in the grandson’s body. While Jack feels bad that David got the worse end of the deal, being in the comatose body, Jack can’t resist the opportunity to lead life as an 18-year-old again. In the process, going through that life with his usual swagger, Jack lays the foundation for David to be much happier when the latter gets back into his own body.
Regarding why he ends up back in his own body, Jack realizes it’s essential when the older, comatose body is about to expire. As much fun as Jack’s having, he of course will not keep living at his grandson’s expense. Moreover, unless Jack can find a way to come back to life and communicate properly in his own body before it’s too late, his fortune will go to the mistress he now realizes is a gold-digger and a philanderer, instead of to the son he’s hurt and the grandson he cherishes.
That makes for some moving drama, and that’s on top of the awesome comedy the movie provides. I disagree with that critic, as we get laughs from Charlie Schlatter doing an awesome George Burns impersonation the whole movie. Although Schlatter didn’t go on to major stardom by any means, he was a regular on the long-running show Diagnosis Murder, and he has consistently found good work as a voiceover artist. I’m not surprised; you would expect someone skilled at impersonations to pull off a wide variety of voices.
Also, Burns does get a ton of great one-liners, as Jack narrates from inside David’s head.
Furthermore, there is an awesome scene where Jack (in David’s body) attends David’s figure drawing class and the hot blonde model shows everything of hers to the audience. Charlie Schlatter’s impersonation of how George Burns would react to an unexpected moment like that is priceless!
Unjustly overlooked movie that’s at least on Tubi! You want proof life isn’t fair: Like Father, Like Son made several times more than the two vastly similar and vastly superior movies combined!
Bottom Line: Hidden gem.
Up Next: We talked about Big already so it’s back to a Freaky Friday.
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