This was the first theatrically released film directed by Winkler, who had previously directed the TV movie A Smoky Mountain Christmas. Much of it was filmed inside the MGM Studios in Culver City, California, only a few miles from Hollywood.
Plot
Abbie Polin, a New York heart surgeon, has a heart attack in the middle of surgery. An expert, he is able to instruct his colleagues on exactly what to give him and do to minimize the damage.
Abbie is later placed in a room and put on monitors. Fighting off sleep triggers a childhood memory in which he also resisted sleeping with his unsympathetic dad.
Watching old home movies with Lisa, the romantic interest in Abbie's life and pediatrician in the hospital, she asks about his family. His parents divorced when he was seven, and she is shocked when he admits his father is still living, as he´d talked as if he wasn't. His mother lives in Vermont.
Abbie goes to Los Angeles to see his father, Abe, who works in Hollywood as the "king of the extras." Their relationship has been strained for several years. Immediately upon arrival, Abbie accompanies him to a job where he is acting as a patient in a hospital.
Afterwards, they go to a bar where extras go, and Abe proves to be popular. He asks about Abbie's mom then asks why he's there. When told he had a heart attack, Abe disappears, calling Abbie with the bar's pay phone to avoid too intimate of an interaction.
Abe insists Abbie stay in his apartment, but he won't take time off from work while he's there. While he's shooting, Lisa comes for a surprise visit. She and Abe bond well, just as he gets along famously with everyone but his son. Abe begins having memory loss which Abbie and Lisa observe while he's shooting.
The couple plans to head back to NYC, but Abe reroutes them to Mexican LA. He continues to show signs of confusion, so Abbie takes him to a medical facility. After running some tests he eventually diagnoses him with an inoperable brain aneurysm.
Father and son grow closer in time, doing things together they hadn't before, like riding ponies, fishing... and, before it's too late, Abbie helps Abe get a speaking role in a film.
