Barry Levinson – Baltimore Magazine

The ’80s and ’90s Were a Golden Era of Filmmaking in Baltimore. Can it Happen Again?

Aaron Hope — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:00:44 +0000

Arts & Culture

The ’80s and ’90s were a golden era of filmmaking in Baltimore. Can it happen again?

BY MAX WEISS

EDITED BY RON CASSIE

Illustration by Ryan Olbrysh

January 2026

JACK GERBES, then the location and project manager of the Maryland Film Office, was driving in a van with Jodie Foster. The Academy Award-winning actress was in her director mode that day, scouting locations for her upcoming film, Home for the Holidays, that would be filmed in Baltimore and star Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr.

She admired the classic, American-style homes in north Baltimore and knew she wanted to use one of the exteriors for her movie.

She landed on a house with a big porch that she really liked in Homeland and sent Gerbes to inquire about its availability. He knocked on the door and an elderly man answered.

“Hi, I’m Jack Gerbes and I . . .”

“Not interested,” the man said, gruffly.

“No, I’m not selling anything,” Gerbes demurred, quickly. “I’m from the Maryland Film Office and . . .”

“We don’t want it,” the man said.

Sensing that things were going south, Gerbes motioned for Foster, who emerged from the car and joined Gerbes on the porch.

The man looked at her, blinked, then turned back toward the house:

“Honey, Jodie Foster is here.”

Such was life in the ’80s and ’90s—all the way through the early aughts—in Baltimore. Hollywood films and network television shows were shot here regularly. It wasn’t all that unusual to see film sets, with trailers and a busy crew. You might see Julia Roberts in Hampden or Al Pacino or Eddie Murphy at City Hall. Maybe you’d spot Meg Ryan in Fells Point or Kevin Bacon downtown on Charles Street. You were liable to catch mop-topped actor Steve Guttenberg literally anywhere—he appeared in no less than three Baltimoremade films (Diner, Bedroom Window, and Home for the Holidays).

Friends took the day off from work to be extras—or maybe you did—and came back with tales of how excruciatingly boring film work can be. TV stars became regulars at local coffee houses and restaurants.

Sometimes Baltimore played itself. More often, it was used as a stand-in for other cities.

“We were Paris in Washington Square,” says Debbie Dorsey, former head of the Baltimore Film Office and chair of the Maryland Film Industry Coalition (MFIC), referring to the 1997 film starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and based on the Henry James novel. “We used the Peabody library. And we were a lot of places for My One and Only, a road trip film starring Renée Zellweger. We had to be St. Louis, Boston, and several other cities for that one. We were also London in Washington Square—we filmed on Bethel Street in Fells Point—Fells Point’s a perfect London.”

That “America in Miniature” nickname proved to be prescient. Maryland really did have any terrain you needed—mountains, beaches, urban, rural—and an incredibly wide variety of architecture.

And, of course, countless times Baltimore has stood in for Washington, D.C., largely because it was cheaper and more convenient than D.C.—and way easier to get permits—and our townhouses could mimic theirs.

It was Mayor—and later Governor—William Donald Schaefer who fell for the idea of turning Baltimore into “Hollywood East” (a lofty designation that John Waters gently mocked in Cecil B. Demented). A natural showman himself, Schaefer liked the idea of mingling with stars, of making Baltimore a glamorous destination.

For decades, the Maryland Film Office would host an annual schmoozefest in L.A., an attempt to woo filmmakers and studios to produce their movies in Baltimore. Schaefer loved those. Jack Gerbes, who would go on to become the director of the Maryland Film Office until retiring last year, has a signed picture of Schaefer posing with an Academy Award in his office. Jed Dietz, the former director of the Maryland Film Festival, remembers Schaefer chatting up Jodie Foster at one of those parties.

“He had no idea who she was at first,” says Dietz with a chuckle. “He kept calling her ‘young lady.’” Once Schaefer found out she was looking to make a film, he laid on the charm: “If you come to Baltimore, we’ll get you whatever you need,” he said. “If you need a mountain, we’ll get you a mountain.”

ABOVE: JODIE FOSTER DIRECTING ANNE BANCROFT AND CHARLES DURNING IN 'HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS'; EDDIE MURPHY, THE STAR OF THE 1992 FILM, 'THE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN'.—FOSTER: PARAMOUNT PICTURES/PHOTOFEST; MURPHY:BUENA VISTA PICTURES/PHOTOFEST.

ONE OF THE FIRST MAJOR FILMS to come to town was 1979’s ...And Justice for All, starring Al Pacino as a renegade lawyer fighting corruption. The film is particularly famous for Pacino’s quotable catch phrase: “You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!” Much of it was filmed at the Baltimore courthouse. Al Pacino stayed at the Belvedere Hotel during the shoot.

Artist Harper Burke was a 17-year-old aspiring actress and a student at Bryn Mawr when ...And Justice for All came to town. She was particularly interested in the acting “method” and knew that Lee Strasberg, considered to be the father of method acting in America, was in the film. She decided to check it out for herself.

'THE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN.'—EVERETT COLLECTION, INC./ALAMY

“They were filming in an assisted living center in Mt. Washington,” says Burke, now 64.

She mustered up all of her own method chops and moseyed onto the set like she belonged there.

Strasberg and Al Pacino were both in the scene, which was set in a hospital room. Strasberg’s wife, Anna, also an acting coach, was observing. Burke stood behind the camera, looking thoughtful.

Nobody stopped her.

“I was out of my mind nervous,” she laughs. But she didn’t show it. “I guess the method worked.”

She was able to chat up Anna Strasberg and ask for advice. “I’m an actress who wants to move to New York,” she said. “What should I do?” “Read. Read everything you can,” Anna replied. After the scene, Burke followed Al Pacino to his trailer, peppering him with questions about his relaxation techniques before a scene. “I saw you do a neck roll,” she said. He laughed: “There’s a lot more to it than that.” He even put his arm around her (in a paternal sort of way). Of course, like every other 17-year-old at the time, she had a major crush on him. But she did notice one disappointing thing: “He was short.”

Longtime O’s broadcaster Tom Davis also had a brush with cinematic fame on the ...And Justice for All set. He signed up to be an extra for a house party scene shot in Ruxton and was surprised when the director, Norman Jewison, asked him to stand behind the bar, directly in the frame. “I had blond hair then,” he says. “It’s white now.” His job during the scene was to eavesdrop on a conversation between Al Pacino and Jeffrey Tambor while popping a maraschino cherry in his mouth. He knew there was a chance that his scene would be cut from the film, so he was thrilled when he went to a theater and saw his own face staring back at him.

“There were 18 takes,” he says, adding he never liked the candied fruit, but was willing to suffer for his art, such as it was. “So that’s 18 maraschino cherries.”

ABOVE: AL PACINO ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS IN BALTIMORE; MICKEY ROURKE, ELLEN BARKIN, AND BARRY LEVINSON BEHIND THE SCENES OF 'DINER'. —PACINO: ©COLUMBIA PICTURES/PHOTOFEST; LEVINSON: ©MGM/PHOTOFEST.

Arts & Culture

Once Upon a Time in Baltimore: The Quiz

Think you can name all the films and stars on our cover and opening spread? Give it your best shot, here.

OF COURSE, ANY DISCUSSION of Baltimore film has to begin and end with Barry Levinson and John Waters, the yin and yang of local moviemaking.

Levinson, the mensch auteur, grew up in the middle-class Jewish neighborhood Forest Park. He had an interest in comedy writing and acting so he moved to L.A. after graduating from American University in Washington, D.C.

'...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.' —EVERETT COLLECTION, INC./ALAMY.

And he experienced success, especially as a writer, working with comedy legends—first writing for TV variety shows like The Carol Burnett Show and eventually working with Mel Brooks on the screenplays for Silent Movie and High Anxiety.

It was ...And Justice for All, which Levinson co-wrote with his then-wife Valerie Curtin, that brought him back to Baltimore. He says the concept came from discussions he had with friends here, who had become lawyers and told him, “The legal system is much more chaotic than it’s portrayed in film and television,” he recalls.

In Levinson’s mind, it just made sense to film it in Baltimore, since that’s what he knew. He asked director Jewison to scout the area, and he agreed that the city had the right stuff.

“And that’s how it happened,” Levinson says.

Next, of course, was the film that would change Levinson’s life, and the course of Baltimore film: Diner, about a bunch of male friends on the cusp of adulthood, who would hang out at a local diner and yap about women, the Colts, the relative talents of Frank Sinatra vs. Johnny Mathis—anything but their fears and hopes for an uncertain future. (The film used a real, albeit out-of-service diner for the shoot, which later became something of a landmark when it was relocated to Holliday and Saratoga streets and renamed the Hollywood Diner.)

A PROMOTION FROM THE MARYLAND FILM OFFICE.—COURTESY OF JACK GERBES

Again, Levinson didn’t see himself as some sort of savior who heroically brought film production to his hometown.

“Originally MGM wanted to film it in Chicago,” he says. “And I said, no, no. That’s not right. It takes place in Baltimore. Everything I wrote about is from Baltimore. Chicago doesn’t feel like the city I know.”

So the studio caved.

The film went on to launch the careers of several young actors, including Mickey Rourke and Kevin Bacon, and earned Levinson an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. In 2012, Vanity Fair named it the most influential film of the last 30 years.

It was the first of Levinson’s critically acclaimed Baltimore series, which focused on Baltimore life from an historical, often autobiographical lens. The others were Tin Men (1987), about dueling aluminum siding salesmen played by Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito (fun fact: they were initially supposed to be Formstone salesmen but the studio thought no one outside of Baltimore would get the reference); Avalon (1990), about the Baltimore Jewish immigrant experience; and Liberty Heights (1999), another coming-of-age film set in the 1950s, focusing on race relations.

Beyond that, Levinson worked out of Hollywood, where he’d been living since graduation. His incredible run in the ’80s and ’90s as a director included The Natural, Bugsy, Wag the Dog, and Rain Man, which earned him his first Oscar.

FORMER MAYOR WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER.—COURTESY OF JACK GERBES

Not long after Levinson had made his way to Hollywood, a young punk named John Waters, raised Catholic and the product of, it turned out, preternaturally patient parents, started making films with a group of misfit friends, nicknamed The Dreamlanders. The films, like Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, and Female Trouble, were low-budget and intentionally outrageous, even profane—but they always had a core of sweetness because, well, Waters himself was sweet. Now that Waters has become something of a treasured elder statesman, it’s hard to remember that he once was considered a pariah to some of Baltimore’s most decorous people, an example of everything wrong with kids these days. (Waters, true to form, relished the characterization.) For years, his films were scruffy, DIY affairs—sometimes filmed at his parents’ Lutherville house, turning their backyard into his backlot. But the budgets kept getting bigger and bigger—and eventually he was filming on soundstages and locations with large crews. He finally broke through to a mainstream audience with Hairspray, now considered a family classic. (Sorry, John.)

DIVINE (GLENN MILSTEAD) AND JERRY STILLER ON THE SET OF 'HAIRSPRAY'. —PICTURELUX/THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE/ALAMY.

BY THE EARLY ’80S, Baltimore had acquired a reputation for being accommodating to film crews—helping with permits and location scouting and with plenty of experienced and willing crew members in town. More movies were filmed or partially filmed here—Accidental Tourist (based on Anne Tyler’s acclaimed novel), Her Alibi, Men Don’t Leave, Bedroom Window, Major League II, Runaway Bride, and the list goes on. Movie website IMDb lists 69 films that were at least partially shot in Baltimore between the years 1979 and 2000.

'THE BEDROOM WINDOW.' —ALBUM/ALAMY.

Emmy-nominated Baltimore makeup artist Debi Young, who has worked on films such as Shirley, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, and Jackie, got her start in film on the 1993 superhero comedy The Meteor Man, whose ensemble cast included writer-director-actor Robert Townsend, James Earl Jones, Bill Cosby, Luther Vandross, Sinbad, Marla Gibbs, and Robert Guillaume.

“My friends Janice Kinigopoulos and Lydia Benaim worked in the hair department, and we just talked about this recently, it was six days a week,” says Young with a laugh. “Six nights week, I should say, because the entire movie was shot at night, except for maybe three days shooting. But we were so excited to be there, we didn’t even want to go home. We loved it so much.”

Townsend, she continues, wanted to shoot in Black neighborhoods and among other locations, filmed in Reservoir Hill, making sure even the extras were taken care of, receiving hot meals each day. Naturally, the whole community came out to see the stars.

“I remember one local little girl whose birthday fell during the shooting,” recalls Young, whose Baltimore-associated credits include The Wire, Homicide, and Serial Mom, among many others. “She lived in the neighborhood and Robert [Towsend] found out it was her birthday and he gave her $50. I remember that child running over saying, ‘Mr. Robert is rich! He just gave me $50 for my birthday!’”

Not quite everything went as planned, notes Lashelle Bynum, a Baltimore Heritage board member who interviewed Lenny Clay, the former owner of Lenny’s House of Naturals, about The Meteor Man shoot.

“They had started to film in his shop, which was famous for cutting the hair of Earl ‘the Pearl’ Monroe, all kinds of politicians and TV personalities of the day,” Bynum says, shaking her head and smiling. “And then they broke his ceiling with their equipment and he put them right out. That was the end of that. Oh, Lenny was a character himself. Later, Homicide wanted to use his shop as a location and he told them, ‘Hell no.’”

Young also has fond memories of working on the Chris Rock/Bernie Mac 2003 film, Head of State, shot in Baltimore.

“Chris Rock played his younger brother, and they were so funny together,” Young says. “Tracy Morgan was in that, too. People loved it when we were shooting on the street or at Penn Station, especially. Fans would want to walk up and ask for autographs, and if they weren’t busy right at that moment, if it didn’t affect their work, they were gracious.”

But by 2005 or so that film work had largely dried up. Specialized crew members who had been able to make a living in town—gaffers, grips, camera operators, and the like—were forced to chase jobs out of state. The phones rang a lot less often at the Maryland and Baltimore film offices. A few productions still came, but it was more of a drip-drip-drip than a steady flow.

So, what caused this? There were many factors—a shifting film landscape, for one, as studios produced fewer movies, moving away from mid-budget films to megabudget Marvel and DC Comics tentpoles; the introduction and rise of streaming television; a declining audience for theatrical film—but mostly it had to do with money.

“A lot of films were going to Canada and other countries because the exchange rate was better and the labor was cheaper,” says Debbie Dorsey, who stepped down from her role as director of the Baltimore Film Office after BOPA temporarily lost its contract with the city. (BOPA has since rebranded as Create Baltimore.)

And those films that were made in the U.S.? Increasingly, they went to cities that offered better “incentives,” like Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts, which have no cap on the amount of tax credits a film can receive. (There’s a reason why that “Made in Georgia” jingle is probably stuck in your head.) By comparison, Maryland has a $12-million annual cap.

'SERIAL MOM.' —EVERETT COLLECTION, INC./ALAMY

Levinson, for his part, remained steadfast, long championing more film production in Baltimore—which he says can be an economic boom. In 2009, he even went to Annapolis to advocate for an updated film incentive program.

“I’ll never forget an article I read in the 1980s. The premise was that Hollywood studios are picking the pockets of people in Maryland,” says Levinson, still bristling at the memory. “The writer got it all wrong, because, in fact, the economics are very beneficial to the state. You have a whole crew coming in; that’s a lot of people. We’re hiring local people, too. We’re spending money on things like food, gasoline, hotels. Often, we’re renting properties. Georgia right now is making not thousands but millions.”

DIRECTOR JOHN WATERS, SEATED BETWEEN SAM WATERSTON AND KATHLEEN TURNER, ON THE SET OF HIS 1994 BLACK COMEDY, 'SERIAL MOM.' —©SAVOY PICTURES/PHOTOFEST

And, of course, when the right film hits, it can drive tourism to the region, not to mention boost civic pride. Which leads us to The Wire.

Baltimore has had an uneasy relationship with the David Simon oeuvre set and filmed here—including Homicide: Life on the Street (which Levinson produced), The Corner, The Wire, and We Own This City. All were excellent works of art—indeed, in many a critical circle The Wire is considered to be the best television series of all time. But they painted a dark picture of a city that was riddled with crime and drug abuse. The other big shows filmed in Baltimore— House of Cards and Veep—weren’t set in Baltimore, so they had no reputational value (and Veep’s production moved to Los Angeles for its final three seasons when they received better tax credits from California). To this day, Baltimore is mostly known by out-of-towners as the city of The Wire. (Levinson, for his part, was a fan of The Wire, thought it was “good for Baltimore,” and doesn’t understand why anyone would think otherwise.)

'THE METEOR MAN.' —©MGM/PHOTOFEST

Then came a series of unfortunate events: the pandemic and the writer’s strike, the retiring of Gerbes, the dissolution of the Baltimore Film Office—none of which improved Maryland’s already anemic filmmaking landscape.

But in 2025, there was one particularly bright light: Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, a love letter to Baltimore co-written by and starring Michael Strassner, a Baltimore native with deep ties to his hometown.

The film was made on a shoestring budget and greatly aided by the connections that Strassner and producer David Bonnett, also from Baltimore, were able to tap into.

“It was a lot of, who has a house we can use? Whose car would look good in this scene?” recalls Bonnett. When they needed a dentist’s office for the film, they went to Strassner’s real childhood dentist, who leaped at the chance. (Never before has a dentist’s office received such a raucous round of applause at a screening—the dentist and his staff were invited to the film’s local premiere at The Senator Theatre.)

ABOVE:ROBERT TOWNSEND, WRITER, DIRECTOR, AND STAR OF THE 1993 FILM, 'THE METEOR MAN', SHOOTING ON LOCATION IN WEST BALTIMORE; CHRIS ROCK AND BERNIE MAC, WHO CO-STARRED AS BROTHERS IN THE 2003 POLITICAL COMEDY 'HEAD OF STATE', WHICH WAS SHOT ON LOCATION IN BALTIMORE. —THE METEOR MAN:©MGM/PHOTOFEST & CINEMATIC/ALAMY;ROCK/MAC: PHOTOFEST.

As Strassner told Baltimore in August: “The city is filled with so many people who are willing to help. I had so many extras that were my family and friends. People just took time out to help and it was the most beautiful thing. Places like Rocket to Venus and Dylan’s [Oyster Cellar]. We were like, ‘Can we use these locations?’ And they were like, ‘Of course!’”

'HEAD OF STATE'. —AJ PICS/ALAMY.

Bonnett and his friend Jonathan Bregel, another Baltimore native who was the cinematographer for The Baltimorons, recently went to a networking event thrown by Baltimore Homecoming, an organization devoted to reconnecting notable Baltimore alumni with their hometown. They made their pitch about making films in Baltimore to a well-heeled crowd who received them with unexpected enthusiasm.

“People just wanted to give us money,” Bregel says with a chuckle.

“I hadn’t had that many people come up to me in a while,” says Bonnett. “I’ve been booked with meetings and Zoom calls since. But it’s still in the conversation stage.”

Nonetheless, Bregel remains optimistic. “The next golden age [of local cinema] won’t necessarily be about a few breakout names. It’s more about building an ecosystem where more [film] voices can thrive.”

Albert Birney, the micro-budget director of such indie darlings as Sylvio, Strawberry Mansion, and his latest, OBEX, says it’s possible to make a film for $11 grand, which was his budget for OBEX.

“People are shocked when you tell them that,” says Birney. “They have it in their heads that you need a lot of money to make a movie. And sure, that’s true of some types of movies, but there’s always other ways, you know.”

Small, largely self-funded indie films, like Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill and Hamilton or Angel Kristi Williams’ Really Love, are not going away and are very much in keeping with Baltimore’s resilient, do-it-yourself DNA.

And if someone handed Birney $5 million to make a film?

“Honestly, if someone gave me that check with no strings attached, I think I would talk to my friends and see how much they needed to do films cheaply this way, too,” he says. “It would be like, how many movies can we get out of this? And maybe I would take one million of it myself, because that would be more than I’ve ever had.”

TWENTY OF MANY

A few years after Baltimore’s original 1974 Charm City marketing campaign, Mayor William Donald Schaefer pivoted to Hollywood to rebrand Baltimore as a cultural hub. Why not? It’s a glamorous business and movies can be delightful. And the careers of native sons Johns Waters and Barry Levinson were taking off. During an era spanning the 1980s and 1990s (with spillover), the big studios shot a lot of movies here and, believe it or not, spotting a Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Hampden, while always fun, wasn’t all that unusual. Here are some of the better-known films shot here. —Ron Cassie

...And Justice for All

1979

Starring Al Pacino, Jack Warden, John Forsythe. Co-written by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson. Plot: A passionate Baltimore defense attorney is forced to represent a corrupt judge, while also battling the legal system to defend the innocent.

Critics’ Rating:

Diner

1982

Written and directed by Barry Levinson. Starring Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly, Ellen Barkin. Plot: A group of buddies in late 1950s Baltimore struggle with the transition into the responsibilities of adulthood.

Critics’ Rating:

Tin Men

1987

Written and directed by Barry Levinson. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Danny DeVito, Barbara Hershey. Plot: Rival, door-to-door aluminumsiding salesmen battle life, themselves, and each other in early 1960s Baltimore.

Critics’ Rating:

The Accidental Tourist

1988

Based on Baltimore author Anne Tyler’s novel by the same name. Starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis. Plot: A grieving Baltimore travel guide writer struggles to move forward after his son is killed and the tragedy causes his marriage to crumble.

Critics’ Rating:

Clara’s Heart

1988

Starring Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Ontkean, Kathleen Quinlan, Neil Patrick Harris. Plot: A well-to-do Baltimore family, suffering the loss of a child, hires a grounded housekeeper they’d met in Jamaica.

Critics’ Rating:

Hairspray

1988

Written and directed by John Waters. Starring Ricki Lake, Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Divine, Jerry Stiller, Debbie Harry, Mink Stole. Plot: A teenager lands on a local TV dance show and advocates for integration.

Critics’ Rating:

Avalon

1990

Written and directed by Barry Levinson. Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elizabeth Perkins, Joan Plowright, Aidan Quinn. Plot: A Polish-Jewish family builds a new life in Baltimore in the early and mid-20th century.

Critics’ Rating:

Cry-Baby

1990

Written and directed by John Waters. Starring Johnny Deep, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrrell, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, Polly Bergen. Plot: A teenage rebel with a heart of gold wins the love of a good girl, causing a scandal.

Critics’ Rating:

He Said, She Said

1991

Starring Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Perkins, Sharon Stone. Plot: Two rival Baltimore Sun journalists become co-hosts of a morning news show and a romanticcomedy drama ensues from their different perspectives.

Critics’ Rating:

The Distinguished Gentleman

1992

Starring Eddie Murphy, Lane Smith, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Joe Don Baker, Victoria Rowell, Charles Dutton. Plot: A con man believes becoming a U.S. congressman is a ticket to fast money, but then he develops a conscience.

Critics’ Rating:

The Meteor Man

1993

Starring Robert Townsend, Marla Gibbs, Eddie Griffin, Robert Guillaume, James Earl Jones, Bill Cosby, Luther Vandross. Plot: A teacher working in an urban environment discovers, after being hit by a falling meteor, that he has new superpowers.

Critics’ Rating:

Sleepless in Seattle

1993

Starring Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks. Plot: A recently widowed Seattle man’s son calls a syndicated radio talk show to help find his dad find a new companion. A Baltimore Sun reporter, who is engaged, believes she might be his soulmate.

Critics’ Rating:

Serial Mom

1994

Written and directed by John Waters; Starring Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Suzanne Somers. Plot: A picture-perfect suburban mother and homemaker will literally commit murder over the slightest offenses to keep her children content.

Critics’ Rating:

Guarding Tess

1994

Starring Shirley MacLaine, Nicolas Cage, Richard Griffiths. Plot: A dedicated Secret Service agent gets assigned to protect an eccentric former first lady, but he thinks the job is beneath him until she and her driver are kidnapped.

Critics’ Rating:

Major League II

1994

Starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernsen, Omar Epps, Dennis Haysbert, Bob Uecker. Plot: After winning the division title the previous season, success appears to have ruined the infighting Cleveland Indians, who get off to a slow start before a late-season rally.

Critics’ Rating:

12 Monkeys

1995

Starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, Christopher Plummer. Plot: In a future where most of humanity has been wiped out by disease, a convict living in an underground compound is sent back in time to learn about the man-made killer virus.

Critics’ Rating:

Enemy of the State

1998

Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Regina King. Plot: A U.S. congressman is assassinated after opposing a counter-terrorism bill in a financially motivated crime that eventually entangles an honest labor lawyer.

Critics’ Rating:

Runaway Bride

1999

Starring Julie Roberts, Richard Gere, Joan Cusack, Héctor Elizondo, Rita Wilson. Plot: A New York columnist writes about a woman who has left three fiancés standing at the altar. However, he gets the details wrong and goes to meet the woman himself.

Critics’ Rating:

The Replacements

2000

Starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Orlando Jones, Jon Favreau. Plot: During a pro football strike with four games left in the season, team owners hire substitute players, including a washed-up former college quarterback who lives on a houseboat.

Critics’ Rating:

Head of State

2003

Starring Chris Rock, Bernie Mac, Dylan Baker, Robin Givens, Lynn Whitfield. Plot: After the Democratic Party presidential and vicepresidential nominees die in a plane crash, a likable D.C. alderman is picked as the replacement.

Critics’ Rating:

COVER AND SPREAD: THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST: ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY LIMITED./ALAMY; ENEMY OF THE STATE: AJ PICS/ALAMY; RUNAWAY BRIDE: AJ PICS/ALAMY; SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE: TRISTAR PICTURES/RGR COLLECTION/ALAMY; TIN MEN: PICTURELUX/THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE/ALAMY; THE REPLACEMENTS: ZUMA PRESS, INC./ALAMY; TRACI LORDS: AJ PICS/ALAMY; JOHNNY DEPP: MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD/ALAMY; EDDIE MURPHY: MAXIMUM FILM/ALAMY; AVALON: MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD/ALAMY; KATHLEEN TURNER: ALBUM/ALAMY; BRAD PITT: PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY; BRUCE WILLIS: AJ PICS/ALAMY; THE METEOR MAN: TCD/PROD.DB/ALAMY; . . . AND JUSTICE FOR ALL: EVERETT COLLECTION, INC./ALAMY; DINER: RGR COLLECTION/ALAMY; HEAD OF STATE: ALBUM/ALAMY; HAIRSPRAY: PICTURELUX/THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE/ALAMY; BEDROOM WINDOW: ALBUM/ALAMY; HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: AJ PICS/ALAMY; HE SAID, SHE SAID: ENTERTAINMENT PICTURES/ALAMY; JOE TYNAN: MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD/ALAMY; GUARDING TESS: CINEMATIC/ALAMY; MAJOR LEAGUE II: PICTURELUX/THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE/ALAMY; WHOOPI GOLDBERG: AJ PICS/ALAMY. THIS SPREAD: CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: THE METEOR MAN: ©MGM/PHOTOFEST & CINEMATIC/ALAMY; HEAD OF STATE: AJ PICS/ALAMY; ROCK/MAC: PHOTOFEST.

Source

Counter Culture: ‘Diner,’ Revisited

Max Weiss — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:48:06 +0000

When Barry Levinson’s Diner was first released in 1982, it was a hit with audiences and critics alike. Famously, The New Yorker critic Pauline Kael was an early champion of the film, calling it “that rare autobiographical movie that is made by someone who knows how to get the texture right.” Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars and compared it to classics like American Graffiti and Fellini’s I Vitelloni. (This was all the more extraordinary as it was Levinson’s first film.)

It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. And it launched the careers of a host of young actors, including Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin, and Steve Guttenberg.

In 2012, on the occasion of the film’s 30th anniversary, Vanity Fair wrote an article crediting Diner for creating an entire genre of comedy—the hangout comedy, where a group of people, often young men, sit around cracking wise, boasting (read: lying) about their sexual prowess, and passing the time. That genre was popularized in shows like Seinfeld and Friends and seen in the films of Quentin Tarantino (although in his case, the jocular patter is usually interrupted by a sudden spray of bullets). In 2006, it landed on AFI’s list of “100 Years…100 Laughs,” at No. 57.

But something I’ve noticed lately: People don’t talk about Diner as much as they used to. When British film publication Sight and Sound came out with its once-a-decade “Greatest Films of All Time” list in 2022, it didn’t make the cut. Notably, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos did (it was No. 211). When Diner’s 40th anniversary rolled around in 2022, there was little fanfare, save an Entertainment Weekly online interview with Levinson and a few of the film’s stars.

Somehow, the film seems to be out of critical and popular favor, perhaps seen as passe, a relic of the 20th century.

With all that in mind, I rewatched Diner last night, for the first time in about 20 years and I’m going to skip right to the headline:

Diner: Still Great.

Just in case you’ve never seen it: Diner tells the story of six young men on the cusp of adulthood, mostly refusing to grow up, in 1959 Baltimore. Of the six, only Shrevie (Daniel Stern) is married, but he’s chafing against the restrictions of wedded life. Eddie is, reluctantly, engaged. They all hang out at the Fells Point Diner, depicted in all its chrome, vinyl, and jukebox glory by the since-closed Hollywood Diner on E. Saratoga Street.

It really is a remarkable film—beautifully shot and lovingly constructed, with a palpable sense of place that doesn’t feel show-offy. (Because Levinson is from Baltimore, he presents the city with relaxed familiarity, without needing to signpost its landmarks—although keen observers will spot many of them, including the American Can Company, Little Tavern hamburgers, and the Roland Park Presbyterian Church.) The dialogue, some of which was improvised, is fresh, loose, and funny—Levinson and his cast have a remarkable ear for the rapid-fire way young men actually talk. And his insights are trenchant: Levinson documents how difficult it is for these young men to express their feelings, how they substitute the cataloguing of stuff for actual emotional connection.

So Eddie (Steve Guttenberg) obsesses over the Colts and Shrevie can proudly rattle off the B-side to any single. (He’s frustrated when his wife, played with heartbreaking yearning by Ellen Barkin, doesn’t care about the intricacies of his record collection.) They all love the movies—they have film posters hanging on their walls. One minor character runs around quoting lines of dialogue from The Sweet Smell of Success. Eddie and Modell (Paul Reiser) argue over who’s a better singer, Frank Sinatra or Johnny Mathis. (“Presley,” weighs in Mickey Rourke’s Boogie, with the sly half-grin that launched his career as a bad-boy heartthrob.) Then they argue about whether or not the argument is dumb.

The film is loaded with memorable bits that have been oft imitated. There’s a scene where the brilliant but troubled Fenwick (a baby-faced Bacon) correctly shouts the answers to The College Bowl on TV, giving the raspberry and calling the contestants “bozos” when they answer incorrectly. There’s the famous “you gonna eat that?” scene, where Paul Reiser’s Modell can’t bring himself to simply ask for half of Eddie’s sandwich. (Similarly, instead of asking for a ride home, he sheepishly sidles up to Eddie and says: “You goin’ straight home?”) Eddie’s annoyance with Modell mirrors every time Jerry was irked by George or Kramer. Hell, even Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg’s infamous “Dick in a Box” song was cribbed from Diner.

And it’s here where we get into what I suspect is the primary reason for Diner’s slight fall from favor: Its depiction of women is seriously outmoded. The women in the film have no agency. Eddie’s bride-to-be, Elyse, the one notoriously forced to take a 140-question Colts quiz before Eddie agrees to marry her, is never shown. We hear her voice, through a wall, tremulously answering arcane football trivia, and later see her back as she tosses her bouquet into the crowd (it lands on the stag table where the boys stare at it, stupefied). Other women are reduced to sexual objects. At one point, Fenwick “sells” his date to a friend for $5. The film would not pass the Bechdel test, not even close.

Of course, it’s important to make a distinction between depiction and endorsement. Diner is very explicitly about the fact that these guys are afraid of growing up—and women come to represent one of two things to them: an object of lust to be chased or a potential wife, i.e., a jail sentence to be avoided at all costs. (They view Shrevie as a bit of a cautionary tale, even though he seems to hang out with the boys as much as ever.) They cling to each other, to the diner of their teen years, to their jokes and their games and their banter, as a way to fend off the inevitable.

Indeed, this is exactly as these aging adolescents would have acted in 1959. And although today we would say that Boogie putting his dick in a box (of popcorn in this case) so that his date would inadvertently cop a feel is a kind of sexual assault, they wouldn’t have perceived it that way. “Ewww!” the victim of his prank says, running away—but later, she agrees to go out with him again.

I have no patience for the phrase “They couldn’t make this film today.” Of course, they couldn’t! Norms change. Sensibilities change. You need to put films like this in their proper historical and cultural context and stop judging old films by modern-day standards—it’s a recipe for missing out on a lot of great art.

Still, to watch this scene with fresh 21st-century eyes is admittedly tough. And I understand that not everyone is able to turn off their contemporary values and enjoy art for art’s sake. So some might be triggered or flat-out offended by the popcorn box scene and others might wonder why Elyse is never given a face. (I believe Levinson was making a point about the solipsistic nature of the friendship of these young men but still—harsh) The “selling” of Fenwick’s girl is a throwaway joke, as is a scene where the boys watch in awe as an overweight man attempts to consume the entire menu of the Fells Point Diner—essentially a fat joke that was as unfunny then as it is today.

Admittedly, there are tiny attempts to flesh out the female characters here—Billy (Tim Daly) has a girlfriend who wants to focus on her career, not him. (An unwanted pregnancy puts a crimp in her plans.) And Barkin’s Beth is lonely in her marriage and confused by why Shrevie’s precious record collection is so important to him. She comes on to Boogie, seeking the kind of male validation she got before she was married, which is sadly how she measures her own worth. (Notably, it’s Boogie, not Beth, who stops things from going too far.)

There was a time when making a movie strictly about the interior lives of young men was not just acceptable—it was expected. Then society noticed that there were way too many films like that—and very few similar depictions of women, POC, members of the LGBTQ community, etc.—and there was a bit a backlash. Sometimes, the backlash is needed to move the cultural needle—and it has worked. We’re seeing a much more diverse landscape of films, and the filmgoing experience is all the better for it (even if we still have a ways to go).

Still, I think it’s time to forgive Diner for being a product of its time and embrace it as the coming-of-age masterpiece it truly is.

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Diner: An Oral History

Jess Mayhugh — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 08:30:00 +0000

Earlier this year, when Vanity Fair marked the 30th anniversary of Diner by proclaiming the Baltimore-set movie, written and directed by native son Barry Levinson, “the most influential movie of the last 30 years,” it led to lots of head-scratching: “Not E.T., not Reservoir Dogs, not Titanic, but . . . Diner?”

Well, yes. By using pop-culture-driven small talk to create rich characters rather than advance the plot, this little 1982 film about nothing paved the way for everything from Seinfeld and The Office to Pulp Fiction and Superbad. Filmmakers and authors from Judd Apatow to Nick Hornby have lined up to declare their adoration.

And while Baltimore, portrayed so lovingly in the film, would like to say it always knew Diner’s greatness, local test audiences hated it and The Baltimore Sun gave it a terrible review. Thanks to Baltimore, Diner almost didn’t make it into theaters.

We talked to Levinson, producer Mark Johnson, cast members Kevin Bacon, Steve Guttenberg, and Paul Reiser, and others, to compile a definitive history of the film, its origins, its secrets, and its legacy, including plans for a Broadway musical with music by Sheryl Crow. (Yes, really!)

Barry Levinson, director: Diner happened by accident. I worked with Mel Brooks on his movie High Anxiety. I used to tell Mel some Diner-esque stories, and he said, “You should write that as a screenplay,” but I never really followed up on it because I couldn’t figure out what the hell it was about.

I wrote And Justice for All . . . with [ex-wife] Valerie Curtin, and then we did another couple movies together. She was also an actress, and she went off to be in some film. I had some time, and I sat down, and suddenly I wrote “Diner” at the top of the page, and three weeks later, I finished it. When Valerie went away, I thought, “Oh, it’s all about male-female relationships, lack of relationships, lack of communication.”

Mark Johnson, executive producer: I met Barry when I was the assistant director trainee on High Anxiety and Barry was one of the four writers. We struck up a friendship. I didn’t know anything would ever come of it.

Barry was immediately likeable. Not a big, outgoing person, but he clearly liked to laugh and was friendly. It’s not easy to work with Mel Brooks—because he’s hard to compete with—and Barry somehow stood out. There seemed to be a lot more going on with him than you were first led to believe.

Levinson: I was always at the [Hilltop Diner in Northwest Baltimore]. Some of those conversations in the movie came right out of conversations I had at the diner. The argument about Sinatra and Mathis and who you make out to, and the influence of Presley used to come up.

The big fallacy is that the guys in the movie were really the guys in the diner. I put people together, mixed them up. I took things from my cousin, Eddie, from other friends, and they became composites for the characters. Boogie might’ve been the closest in that he was a hairdresser, he did get involved in bets, he dressed differently. Eddie and Shrevie and Billy and Modell are all put together from different people.

“The studio didn’t like it. They wanted it to be one of those screw-around movies. they wanted it to be Porky’s.” -Mark Johnson

Johnson: I started working for Jerry Weintraub at MGM, and Barry was writing Diner. I loved Diner when I read it. And that’s why it’s so universal: I didn’t know these characters. I hadn’t grown up in Baltimore. I’m not Jewish, and yet I understood these characters. I understood them as guys hanging out, but I understood, more importantly, what they were all sort of hungry for.

As soon as he had a script, I gave it to Weintraub, and he set it up almost immediately at MGM. We were very low-budget. The good news was that MGM had a lot of higher-profile movies at the time, and they kind of left us alone. At $5 million, they weren’t worried about it.

For casting, we used Ellen Chenoweth, who was just starting her career. Now she’s a big deal: She casts the Coen brothers movies and several Clint Eastwood movies.

Levinson: I think I saw about 600 guys. And that was before you taped people, so you just met them. You know what you want to get, to a degree, but you want to be open enough to see what some actors bring to it.

Kevin Bacon, Fenwick: I had been on Guiding Light for a year, and I had just been offered another year, and that’s tempting when you’ve been out of work or working as a waiter for so much of your life. But it just didn’t feel right to me, and, even though I had no prospects, I quit the show. A week later, I got a call to audition for Diner, and it was like a message from the gods.

It was a massive call. They said I could read for any part, so I chose Billy because he was romantic and got the girls, and Boogie ’cause he was cool. Barry said go back out and read for Fenwick. It wasn’t something I related to, but I did it, and I got a call back.

In the callback, I was really sick, like 103 fever, but I had to go in—I’m sorry if I made anybody else ill. I had a slowed down, out-of-it quality, just based on the illness, that sorta worked for the character, and, in a funny way, I held onto that for the movie.

Levinson: Paul Reiser came with a friend, not there to audition—not even an actor—but Ellen saw him and started talking to him and said, “You oughta see this guy.” He came in, and I met him, and I cast him.

Paul Reiser, Modell: It was a very serendipitous accident that I happened to walk in with a buddy. They actually came to New York to look at comics, and, even then, I wasn’t included in the group. But, for some reason, they flagged me.

The thing that always amuses me is that it was so in the wheelhouse of what my comedy was. I had just started taking acting classes, and I was eager to show my great depth and range, and Barry kept saying, “You don’t have to work that hard.” I said, “Well, if I don’t, it just sounds like guys having coffee in a diner.” And he said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

Levinson: Mickey [Rourke] came in, and I liked him. It just took some time to sort it out in my head, because, of course, he’s going to be different than the real Boogie—you’re not trying to do the real Boogie, you’re just trying to find the essence of a character that you respond to. It was very key, because he becomes a real dominant character, and you want an actor that can step up to that.

Steve Guttenberg, Eddie: I met Jerry Weintraub, Barry Levinson, and Mark Johnson at Weintraub’s offices and we had some nice discussions about the script and the character. It was thrilling because Jerry and Barry and Mark were all really, really good at what they did. Barry described Eddie as a little hard-headed and independent, liked to live with and stay close to the family and the old friends. He was a good character.

A Movable Feast: The diner used in the movie prepares to be moved to its next location.

Levinson: I only saw one person for the role of Beth and that was Ellen Barkin.

Johnson: At some point, Ellen, Barry, and I just knew we had the right cast. There was no doubt. The more we worked the cast, the more we knew we had the right people.

Reiser: It was literally my first job. I had never been in anything. Johnson still teases me, cause I didn’t know anything. I was like, “So, what, do I take a bus to the set?” “No, you idiot, we got a guy and a truck.” “Oh, I didn’t know that, that’s awfully sweet.”

Johnson: I remember we were a big deal. There had not been a lot of movies shot in Baltimore. The city couldn’t have been nicer.

Levinson: We shot mostly nights. I remember coming back, daylight is coming up, and you’re coming back to the Holiday Inn to go to sleep at. Everybody else is getting up to go to work. Baltimore is now beginning a day, and you’re finally calling it a night.

Reiser: I fondly recall the off hours—shooting and coming home at six in the morning, just being in this bizarre world that underlined the absurdity of the whole thing. We were all, for the first time, away, out of the comfort of New York, in a period piece, and you’re literally 12 hours off from the universe.

I remember waking up for the first day of production at the Holiday Inn and looking down at the parking lot, and there were all these beautiful vintage cars. And I remember thinking, “Wow, I’m in a real movie and I have a character name, and one of those cars is my car.” And I get down there and they’re like, “Uh, no, you don’t have a car.”

Johnson: We had trouble finding, of all things, the diner itself. One of my big pre-production coups was finding the perfect diner in New Jersey and trucking it down and planting it where we wanted it to be.

Levinson: We were trying to use the Double T Diner on Route 40, and we kept getting into this negotiation: They wanted more and more money, and I said, “Look, we don’t have it, it’s a cheap movie.” They said, “Yeah, but it’s an MGM movie.” I said, “It’s a cheap MGM movie.” And they just pushed us and pushed us and we couldn’t do it.

I was riding around with the cinematographer, Peter Sova, in Fells Point, and we came upon this piece of land with the Domino Sugars sign in the background across the harbor, and I said, “Wouldn’t it be great if a diner sat there?” I told Mark. We found a diner graveyard in Jersey. We went up there, found a diner, put it on a flatbed truck, brought it to Baltimore, and put it there.

The Baltimore Sun review pointed out “[the real diner guys] probably didn’t go to the ‘Fells Point Diner’.” The reason I called it ‘Fells Point’ is because we shot it in Fells Point—that looked nice! Does it matter that they were at the Hilltop Diner? This isn’t some historical piece. It looked interesting.

Johnson: Baltimore’s an amazing city. made up of these distinct neighborhoods. I remember Barry telling me it wasn’t until the sixth or seventh grade that he realized being Jewish was a minority. Where he lived, in the Northwest, everybody was Jewish.

I introduced Barry years ago to John Waters, and they each started talking about their Baltimore, and I realized neither one had been in the other’s Baltimore. Where Barry and his gang hung out had nothing to do with where John was.

The funny thing about Baltimore is, all of these people tell me they used to go the real diner and hang out. If it’s all true, it must’ve been the size of Memorial Stadium.

“We all looked different, but we were the same in a certain way.” -Steve Guttenberg

Levinson: I thought, “Why don’t I shoot all the diner stuff last, so at least they’ve gone through as much time as they can spend together to get as close as they can.”

Guttenberg: Barry had done films before and he understood that you can use a film’s schedule to your advantage, and he did.

What makes a hit movie is a cast, when everybody just connects. We all looked different, but we were the same in a certain way. When you’re acting with people like that, you really enjoy it. All those moments become not just a moment in a movie, but a moment in your life, and you remember it.

Reiser: Barry has such confidence. It’s actually astounding, looking back now, as his first film [as a director]—how clear he was on what he wanted and how to get it. He told me from the beginning, “We’re gonna make your part bigger.” I said, “Okay, whatever. I’m happy to be in a motion picture.”

Levinson: I intentionally underwrote Modell. He was the sixth guy, kind of the outsider and he was connected the closest to Eddie, so I thought, “I’ll play around. I just need a guy who can deliver, who has a motor.” When I stumbled onto Paul, I thought, “He can do that.” Between takes, I would talk to him, and he would fiddle around with it.

Reiser: I remember when we shot the “nuance” scene, me driving with Mickey. Barry said to me, “You’re bothered by the word ‘nuance.’” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “I don’t know, it’s a strange word, just play with it.”

The “roast beef” scene with Guttenberg (“Are you gonna finish that?”) was totally ad-libbed, and it’s possible we were doing it off-camera. We were just sitting there. It was late, but they would feed us what we wanted. I remember we had done the scene, and it didn’t dawn on me that it was of any value. Later that night, we were shooting the leaving-the-diner scene and Barry pulls me over and says, “Ask Eddie for a ride home, like the time you were asking him for a roast-beef sandwich.” I said, “Is he gonna give me one?” He says, “I don’t know. Let’s see.”

Barry’s brilliance was knowing there was comedy there. I certainly didn’t know it. He probably told Guttenberg, “Reiser’s gonna ask you for a ride. Make him sweat it out a little.” And that was the extent of the scene.

“You have to be incredibly close to these people incredibly quickly.” -Kevin Bacon

Levinson: Mickey and Guttenberg really got along, and they came up to me and said they wanted to do a scene together because they didn’t have one, so I wrote a little scene for them, which is the scene where Eddie’s talking about being “a virgin—technically.”

Guttenberg: I liked Mickey a lot. We became really close. We went out to clubs together, we had good times. We said to Barry, “We’re the only guys who don’t have a scene together.” He went back to his trailer and a few minutes later, he said “What do you think of this?” We said, “This is great! Let’s shoot it now!” and we did.

Mickey was brilliant, ending the scene by pouring sugar into his mouth—stole the f—ing scene. It was magic to watch that mother f—er. We’re still in touch. He’s a good boy.

Johnson: Mickey Rourke was the next big thing, he was going to be DeNiro. He had a cool about him. I found out after we did the movie that Mickey used to go to Guttenberg’s room and help him with his lines. Mickey didn’t want anybody to know because it made him seem like too much of a good guy.

Reiser: Shooting those diner scenes is what I remember most, because it was last, and it was the most intense. For the last week, there was this “camaraderie camper,” where they literally shoved us in the same hamster cage when we weren’t shooting. It did what it was meant to do: We got closer, we got a little riskier with our jokes. We were cutting close to the bone, busting each other’s chops. And there was some friction of people just being a little too close to other people’s faces, which is what happens with friends.

It was in those diner scenes that it finally felt really comfortable, and it really confirmed that we were in somebody’s hands who knew what he was doing.

Bacon: You get thrown into this situation where you have to be incredibly close to these people incredibly quickly. For whatever reason, we were able to do that.

For a long time, those relationships sustained. I remained very close with Tim [Daly] and Paul for a long time. You’re talking about only 7 or 8 weeks of shooting, and we developed really strong friendships.

Johnson: We wrapped the movie after 42 days and Barry and I were on a plane back from Baltimore. We looked at each other and said, “It is what we set out to do.” We had this sense of satisfaction that two young filmmakers pulled off what we wanted to.

Levinson, wearing his lucky O’s cap, with buddies Mickey Rourke and Steve Guttenberg.

It was dispiriting when we showed it to family and friends, and got very little enthusiasm. It’s one thing if you’re not sure what you got, but we said, “Maybe we’re the only two people who like this movie.”

The studio didn’t like it. They wanted it to be one of those screw-around movies. They wanted it to be Porky’s—those crazy kids in Baltimore driving around, trying to get drunk and laid. And it wasn’t that at all.

Levinson: After we made it, the studio looked at it and had a heart attack. It wasn’t a coming-of-age movie like they thought it was.

I remember meeting with a studio executive after he saw the movie and he said, “You have a lot to learn about editing.” I said, “I’m sure I do. Give me an example.” He brought up the roast-beef sandwich scene. “Well you’re going on and on with, ‘Are you gonna eat the sandwich, not eat the sandwich,’ just cut it and get on with the story.” I said, “Well, that is the story.”

It’s a way to talk about friendship. A lot of time you see movies and people say, “How long have we been friends?” Friends don’t talk about being friends. From the nature of their conversation, you know they’re friends. That was the point. We talk about problems with girlfriends in abstract ways, we get off the point, we get into arguments that are not essential to what the argument is really about. We’re always messy. That, really, was the point of Diner.

The Baltimore Sun, in its review back then was critical, like ‘How can you like guys like these? They’re so terrible,” which was sort of to miss the point. We do things that are somewhat cruel, not necessarily with bad intentions, but we’re imperfect. Show us as we are. Our immaturity, our stupidity is part of us.

I saw Grease and thought it was great fun. When I wrote Diner, I was thinking, “How can I make it closer to what I really remembered it being?” It’s not bright and cheerful. I wanted to do a stripped-down version that was closer to what I remember.

Reiser: I remember seeing it the first time and my jaw hung open. A, that it held together, and B, that it had such a strong sensibility, the look, the darkness—which was very courageous, it had a very dark look. Other than the horse scene, I don’t think there was a daylight shot in it. That’s odd. How many movies are just nighttime?

Bacon: When I first saw it, I was worried because it wasn’t a super-commercial movie. It’s darker, and I was afraid people wouldn’t be able to tell us apart. It’s weird to think that I would be worried about commerciality at that point in my career, but I was. I was afraid it didn’t have the pizzazz that Police Academy had (laughs).

“There was a real chance it wouldn’t come out. We didn’t have a release date.” -Mark Johnson

I was at a screening and I’m standing at the urinal, literally with my dick in my hand, and the guy next to me says, “Hey, were you in that movie?” And I say, “Yeah,” and he said, “Yeah, not so much,” and he wiggled his hand. Then he said something like, “Yeah, it was a sleeper—I slept.”

Johnson: There was a real chance it wouldn’t come out. They tested it in a couple places, including Baltimore, and it didn’t test well because they set it up wrong. They cut trailers that were like, “Look at those cars zipping around Baltimore—those crazy kids!” And nobody wanted to see that movie. We didn’t have a release date. It was on the shelf.

It turns out, one of my mother’s best friends was [film critic] Pauline Kael, who was at the height of her power at The New Yorker. I literally snuck it out of the studio and showed it to her and columnist James Wolcott in a little screening room, and she loved it. She called MGM and said, “You guys are about to have egg on your face because I’m about to give this movie a rave review, and it’s not going to be available.” So they reluctantly released it in one theater in Manhattan, and it took off.

The irony is that every movie since then, I would show Pauline, and she didn’t like them. It wasn’t until Bugsy that there was another Levinson movie she liked.

Michael Sragow, film critic, The Baltimore Sun, formerly of Rolling Stone: I wrote for Rolling Stone from the L.A. office. MGM said, “We’d like you to tell us what you think of this movie.”

There were a half-dozen critics at the screening. I thought it was terrific, very fresh and unexpected. The lights came up and you could just tell everyone loved it.

The drama was when were they going to release it? I did an interview with Barry before it opened, and we were waiting for them to release it. Finally, we heard they were releasing it in one New York theater. I called and said, “We’re running this, whether it goes wider or not.” We did and we included a note: “The movie slipped into New York theaters without the benefit of an ad in the Sunday New York Times. Though it’s won several rave reviews, the movie’s fate still hangs in the balance.”

Levinson: They put it into The Festival on 57th Street for a weekend. And Pauline Kael gave it a rave. Rolling Stone was a rave. The New York Times was a rave.

We broke the house record, and we started going from there. We went to Boston and we broke a house record. We kept breaking records, but MGM still wouldn’t put us out because they didn’t think it would work to a popular audience.

We never had more than 200 prints. It played for a year throughout the country, but it never went wide because they didn’t believe it could play to a broader audience. They saw it as this obscure foreign film.

It’s always been the sorta stepchild to the studio. Even now, it’s not on Blu-ray.

Johnson: You talk to filmmakers who we admire today, and they talk about how seminal Diner was for them.

Bacon: It’s interesting to hear the people who found it influential: Nick Hornby, Judd Apatow, [West Wing producer] John Wells. Important ground got covered there.

Levinson: The fact that it’s endured is amazing. The Broadway show is exciting. Sheryl Crow wrote music that is fantastic, very compatible with the pieces. It’s a good reflection of what Diner is. The storyline is the same. I didn’t reinvent it.

Johnson: Barry was neither one of the Diner guys nor one of the Tin Men. He was always looking in the window, watching. You see it in his writing. He’s a great observer. He taught me that it has to be about character. No matter how plot driven a movie is, if there’s no characters, there’s no point. If you like the characters, nothing can happen and you’re still happy.

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