Monday, February 13, 2012

Diner Football Quiz



There is a great piece in Vanity Fair this month about the making of one of my favorite movies: "Diner." In late Fall 1982,my wife(then girlfriend) and I saw it at the Sam Eric theatre on Chestnut street when it was released for a "sneak preview." The characters and dialogue really resonated with me. I was talking about the film for weeks. No one had heard of it and looked at me like I was nuts."Diner" then received a wider release and all my buddies saw it and held a similar high opinion.
Since then, it has become a well known film and was a launching pad for the careers of some fine actors...Stern,Rourke,Barkin, Reiser. Kevin Bacon had already had roles such as Chip in "Animal House" and Rourke was being noticed after his role in "Body Heat." The other central cast was relatively unknown and all went on to T.V. and big-screen success. Levinson went on to direct "Avalon" and "Tin Men" and "Liberty Heights" to complete his Baltimore tour de force.
The scene here is Eddie giving his fiance' a "football quiz." If Alyse does not pass....the marriage is OFF.

2 comments:

JMW said...

This is one of my husband's all-time favorite films. I'll have to share this with him. (Of course, when I watch it now, I always think, "Oh, Mickey Rourke, what went wrong along the way??")

Yankee-Whisky-Papa said...

I have a relative identical in manner to Bacon's character... kind of obnoxious and over-funded.