If you are looking for a family film that should please all ages, look no farther than A Plumm Summer. Set in 1968 and based on a true story, this film explores all manner of emotional attachments, while investigating the story of a missing local television star, a puppet named Froggy Doo.
The scenery alone should make you watch this film. Beautiful outdoor vistas of mountains and rivers and fields with crops and grasses brighten the screen and invoke that summer vacation feeling as the audience watches the characters move through the scene.
Mostly children, and kids of the age and time when The Hardy Boys or Trixie Belden mysteries were everyone’s favorite summertime reading, the cast is believable and charming. Little Rocky (Owen Pearce) is a blonde haired moppet, fierce in his love for Froggy Doo and for his family, but not so adorable as to be nauseatingly sweet. He’s a scrapper and a joker, but adores his older brother.
His older brother Eliot (Chris J. Kelly) is very interested in photography, and is aware that for all the love, his family has some serious problems, mostly centered around his father (William Baldwin) a onetime Olympic possible in boxing who has never moved on. In spite of problems, the story is well told, beautifully filmed and acted, and is enjoyable to watch.
Overtones of the Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden style of detective work permeate the action, and it should appeal to modern children as well as bring back memories for those who read the stories and wished to solve a mystery on their own.
Adult actors Henry Winkler as Froggy Doo’s handler Henry and Peter Scolari and Rick Overton as FBI agents add their expert performances to the mix, and Jeff Daniels narrates as the adult Eliot.
A Plumm Summer is presented on single disc, wide screen format with a running time of 101 minutes. Bonus features include an audio commentary for the film with director/writer Caroline Zelder and writer/producer Frank Antonelli. There is a Gag Reel which will have everyone laughing, deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer for the film, a Behind-the Scenes Music Video which shows some of the filming and production qualities. The Behind-the-scenes on the Red Carpet at the film’s opening gives cast and crew the opportunity to express what making this film has meant to them.
Everyone loved the story, and that care shows in both acting and production quality. This is a good movie for those 6 to 106!
A Plumm Summer is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
Your Talkback on this Story