A Film Trip Back to the 1950s

The Scene: Monday’s screening at the Beverly Connection of “Diner” as part of the American Film Institute’s Third Decade Council’s Favorite Film Series. The evening was hosted by Turner Pictures Worldwide. It included the screening, a panel discussion by the filmmakers and a magnitude 4.5 earthquake about 30 minutes into the movie.

Who Was There: The film’s stars, Daniel Stern, Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly and Paul Reiser; director Barry Levinson, and executive producer Mark Johnson. Levinson said he made the 1982 film to “de-myth the ‘50s. There had been ‘Grease’ and ‘Gidget.’ I wanted to depict it more closely to what I remembered.” The actors mostly recall being confused at the end of the filming. Said Stern: “When it was over, I remember saying, ‘Is that a movie?”’

The Organization: The Third Decade Council is a youngish support group for AFI. Its name comes from the generations of patrons who have supported the film institute over its 26 years. The first decade were AFI’s founders. The second decade were the affluent donors who maintained it. And the third decade, one member joked, “are people who want to be wealthy like the ones in the second decade.”

Observed: This is how a film crowd handles quakes. Some walk quickly to the lobby, then call home on cell phones and speak amateur Spanish into the phones. The rest of the audience stays seated because, as Reiser noted, “Why am I going to run outside? Why is it better to be hit by glass than a lighting fixture?”

Handling Disaster: When the quake hit and dozens of guests streamed toward the exits, one of the organizers said, “It reminded me of those monster movies where the creature breaks into a theater and the patrons flee. I wanted to stand in the back and shout, ‘No! Stop! We have food afterward!’ ”

The Food Afterward: The Daily Grill served a ‘50s Baltimore-style menu of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and chili. This plus an artery-clogging Maryland delicacy featured in the film--French fries with gravy. “It seems to be one of those perverse pleasures you usually eat by yourself,” said one of the servers about the fries.