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Green Light offering free Sunday screenings of ‘Summer Rental’
Green Light Cinema will screen the 1985 comedy Summer Rental Sunday, free, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Michael Hazlett, owner of the 80-seat downtown St. Petersburg theater known for showing independent, cult and classic movies, said the film was being screened as “a gift to the community,” a hopefully welcome, air-conditioned distraction from the ongoing process of rebuilding after Hurricane Milton.
Directed by comedy legend Carl Reiner, Summer Rental was filmed on and around Pinellas County beaches in early 1985. It stars John Candy as stressed-out Atlanta air traffic controller Jack Chester, who takes his wife and three kids to Florida for a relaxing beach vacation.
Things do not go as planned, of course, and Chester bumbles from one disaster to another – even as his wife and kids seem to be enjoying themselves.
Playing Sandy Chester, Jack’s wife, is actress Karen Austin, who was cast by Reiner after her star turns on the Los Angeles stage, and on the first season of TV’s Night Court.
As Karen Brammer, she’d grown up in Largo, attended Christ Presbyterian Church and graduated from Largo High School.
She and her siblings rarely ventured out of Largo. “St. Pete was the big city,” Austin told the Catalyst in 2021. “My mother would say ‘Don’t go as far as St. Pete.’”
The cast also includes Rip Torn, John Larroquette and Richard Crenna.
Of Candy – in his first above-the-title starring role – “We got along great,” Austin told us. “He was multi-dimensional, but above all things he was good-natured, and I mean that in the fullest sense. I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper, or not speak with kindness to someone. I mean, every now and then he’d say ‘We’ve got to clear the set, we gotta work this out,’ but it was never in a rude way.
“Sometimes we’d say ‘Man, this is not working, what are we going to do?’ And Carl and John would just clear the set and say OK, what are we doing here? And I’d say ‘Well, this flyswatter’s funny.’ John would go ‘Yeah, I can do something with this!’”
READ MORE: Vintage St. Pete: John Candy, the beach and ‘Summer Rental’
Summer Rental will screen Sunday at 1:15, 3:15 and 5:30 p.m. Green Light Cinema is located at 221 2nd Avenue N. Refreshments will be available.
The theater will resume its regular schedule Monday.
