Some Enchanted Evening

Steyn On-line ^ | April 7.\, 2019 | Mark Steyn

[Fiji Hill]

Some Enchanted Evening--Jo Stafford(1949)

[rightwingintelligentsia]

He does regular guest gigs on Tucker Carlson’s show.

[Fiji Hill]

I saw American Graffiti in Los Angeles just days after it was released. Most of the audience were teens and twenty-somethings. For years, American Graffiti and Star Wars I were my all-time favorite films.

[sparklite2]

That’s good. At least he’s on the team.

[Fiji Hill]

A later release of American Graffiti that I saw on TV included a performance of Louie, Louie using Richard Berry's original arrangement, but for some reason, it was cut from the original release.

[sparklite2]

We listened to Wolfman broadcasting from Mexico at about a zillion watts, dragged Main Street downtown, and Mel’s Diner was called Twings. My romantic life, sadly, didn’t rise to the level of Toad’s. LOL

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

Cindy Williams was in one of the many Perry Mason TV movies.

Spoil alert.....she turned out to be the killer.

I can’t think offhand of anything else she has been in, aside from “American Graffiti” and of course “Laverne and Shirley.”

[AnotherUnixGeek]

there's a scene where young Harrison Ford and young Cindy Williams are sitting sullenly in his '55 Chevy during a rather awkward moment in their relationship.

I still remember that movie - they had no relationship. The Cindy Williams character met him that night and they cruised around for an hour or two before the Harrison Ford character rolled his car in a drag race.

[Richard Kimball]

I can’t think offhand of anything else she has been in, aside from “American Graffiti” and of course “Laverne and Shirley.”

Laverne and Shirley was a Garry Marshall production. Marshall was big on having a small "family" in his shows. Cindy Williams had a falling out with Penny Marshall, who was Gary Marshall's sister. She got cut out of the series and that pretty much killed her career.

She was cute rather than hot, didn't age well, and was an okay comedic actress, but nothing special, so her exit from Laverne and Shirley was pretty much it.

American Graffiti was popular, but it never got the recognition it deserved. It was a major influence in storytelling and editing.

[Richard Kimball]

Offhand note on the movie, Cindy Williams and Ron Howard.

Cindy Williams was born in 1947, and was 26 when American Graffiti came out. Ron Howard was born in 1954, and was 19, about the actual age of a high school graduate when the movie came out. Williams said it was tough playing a high school junior, about ten years younger than her actual age, and pretending she was younger than the nineteen year old Howard.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I was in 6th grade in ‘62 and all I remember was my cousins listening to Doo-Wop. Then the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and others hit the scene and I was hooked. I never got into the Doo-Wop era. Missed it by inches.

“The Little Old Lady from Pasadena,” “Little Deuce Coop,” “Good Vibrations,” and “Help Me Rhonda” probably sent me to California (from upstate NY) more than anything else. Well, the West and good weather beckoned, too.

[Fiji Hill]

“The Little Old Lady from Pasadena,” “Little Deuce Coop,” “Good Vibrations,” and “Help Me Rhonda” probably sent me to California (from upstate NY) more than anything else.

Some Californians who went the other direction wound up unhappy. They found that there's no surfing in New York--and no KRLA!

New York's a Lonely Town--The Trade Winds (1965)

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

One of the reasons Cindy Williams left the show was because she was pregnant.

She married an Army medic (on the show), they taped the wedding in a hospital ward set, where her fiancé was wrapped up from head to toe in gauze, like an Egyptian mummy. He supposedly had a rash. The viewers never heard him speak. It was a ridiculous story line.

Then, for a number of episodes, they showed a very pregnant Shirley (Cindy).

Then Shirley went off to join her Army medic husband on a military base, and from that point on, it was the “Laverne and Company” Show, minus Shirley. Kinda jumped the shark at that point.

I didn’t know about Penny and Cindy having a falling out.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I just finished reading the entire Steyn essay about “Some Enchanted Evening.”

Just reading that piece made this a different sort of enchanted evening. What a wordsmith! It was so much fun reading that bit of musical history and learning all about the song.

Near the end, the parts about Frank Sinatra singing the terrible H B Barnum arrangement is absolutely hilarious!

Thanks for posting.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

We had a kid move into our Ithaca neighborhood from California. We thought he was weird. I’m sure he really felt like a fish out of water moving to the cold north.

[alexander_busek]

I still remember that movie - they had no relationship. The Cindy Williams character met him that night and they cruised around for an hour or two before the Harrison Ford character rolled his car in a drag race.

You are correct that Harrison Ford had no significant scenes with Cindy Williams in the film. But the girl and the guy who met that night and cruised around were Mackenzie Phillips and the junkyard guy.

Regards,