After seven years at college, Thomas R. "Tommy" Callahan III barely graduates from Marquette University and returns to his hometown of Sandusky, Ohio. His father, industrialist and widower Thomas R. "Big Tom" Callahan, Jr., gives him an executive job at the family's auto parts plant, Callahan Auto. In addition to the new job and office, Big Tom reveals that he plans to marry Beverly Barrish-Burns, a woman he had met at a fat farm, and that her son Paul will become Tommy's new stepbrother, much to Tommy's delight. At the wedding, however, Big Tom suddenly dies of a heart attack.