”We always got the diner.”
Now that we live in a world where, for the right price, you can watch pretty much every movie ever made on your telephone with no more effort than a few thumps of your thumb, it can be jarring to think back to when you had no control, when you watched what the television programmers chose to show you and were damned happy about it. Which is why the video cassette recorder was such a godsend.
We never owned a VCR while I still lived under my parents’ roof, and for good reason: almost no one did. The average price of a VCR was $647.44 Canadian as of July 1, 1983, or $1,752.74 today. It was a luxury item, and me and most of my friends were part of multi-kid families with parents who had seasonal employment. There were a lot of better places to put money like that.
But you could rent one for a more reasonable expenditure, and on the Canada Day weekend of July 1 to 3, 1983, my father did exactly that. With the glorious machine, he also brought home six movies. “Blade Runner” was one of them, along with “An Officer and a Gentleman” and maybe “On Golden Pond”. As good as those were – yes, even “On Golden Pond” – the one I liked best, and have watched the most times since that lost weekend, was “Diner”.
None of them were stars then, but pretty much everyone in the young cast went on to have a solid career. Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin: you could’ve made a decent ‘90s thriller with those leads. Steve Guttenberg and Daniel Stern had major parts in some very successful comedies, and Timothy Daly, Paul Reiser and even the slightly-older Michael Tucker have all had great runs on television.
Taking place over the last few days of 1959, music plays an important part in the film. It opens at a dance and ends at a wedding reception. In one scene, several characters discuss whether Johnny Mathis’ or Frank Sinatra’s music is better for making out. Shrevie (played by Stern) is obsessed with his record collection, leading to tension with his wife (Barkin), who doesn’t understand this. The soundtrack of ‘50s classics never falters: Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion and the Belmonts, Eddie Cochran, Bobby Darin, Fats Domino and, of course, Elvis Presley.
I haven’t seen it in years, but it’s the kind of movie that, were I to stumble across it while channel surfing, would absolutely end with me watching the whole thing. (It’s a programming failure that this has never happened to me.) There are so many great scenes (the football test given to a bride-to-be, a character’s unfortunate encounter with a box of popcorn) and sharp lines (“I’ll hit you so hard, I’ll kill your whole family.” “We all know most marriages depend on a firm grasp of football trivia.”), but one has always stood out for me. Eddie (Guttenberg) is so afraid of settling down that he cancels his wedding over the results of said football test. Billy (Daly) has the opposite concern: he wants to settle down with reluctant Barbara, who is pregnant with his child. They take their woes to where men have gone since time immemorial to contemplate life’s challenges: to a strip club, where the entertainment is uninspiring. And then this happens:
I’ve watched this clip over a dozen times in recent months, and it never ceases to please me. Does it move the plot forward? Not really, though it does lead to an eye opening discussion with the stripper (Billy: “Just in love.” Stripper: “Does the girl know?” Billy: “Yeah, I told her about it.” Stripper: “Told her? Didn’t you show her?”) and to Eddie deciding to get married after all. In a movie like “Diner”, the plot is besides the point: it’s all about getting to know the characters, and the scene tells us things we didn’t know about Billy (he’s really good on the piano) and Eddie (he’s, umm, a great dancer?). And then there’s a New Years Eve wedding and the bride’s bouquet lands on the table in front of the young leads. It’s an invitation to embrace uncertainty, with a new decade hours away. And, whatever may come, as Eddie and Shrevie observe, they’ve “always got the diner”, where there’ll be decent food (just ask Earl), good conversation and, of course, great music.
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