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Posted on 07/25/2026 2:27:47 PM PDT by Twotone
Barry Levinson's 1982 film Diner is set in Baltimore at the end of 1959, in the final days of what had been a momentous year, and just before what would be a pivotal decade. The year had begun with the success of the Cuban revolution and its recognition by both the US and Soviet governments, and Barry Gordy's founding of Motown. Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council and Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Iowa.
Later in the year China abolished the Tibetan government and replaced the Dalai Lama, NASA introduced the first seven Mercury astronauts, Miles Davis released Kind of Blue and Hawaii was made the 50th state. Nikita Khrushchev was invited to tour the United States by President Eisenhower and, later that same month, met with Mao Zedong in Beijing. The Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City, the Clutter family were murdered by Richard Hickock and Perry Smith in Kansas, Ben Hur topped that year's box office and Bell Labs invented the MOSFET transistor.
But none of these events are mentioned in Levinson's film, which concerns itself entirely with a half dozen young men, brought together by the democratizing machinery of the American public school, barely a few years past graduation and living in a holding pattern on the threshold of real adulthood. For a period picture set during the lives of the culturally dominant baby boomer generation, it's remarkably free of nostalgia; its focus is on these six friends, and Levinson could have swapped the cars, clothes and music with that of any point in time ten or even twenty years on either side of 1959.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
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One of the favorite movies of my friends and me when we were in college. We even recreated the Diner wedding picture for our yearbook.
Really!
I actually have a family connection with this movie. My uncle was one of this group of friends. He passed in 2021 (he was living in Oregon) & I ended up being responsible for his final affairs. I mailed his cremated remains back to a couple of the guys who were still in Baltimore. I was told that they wanted to spread his ashes at their favorite haunts.
The plot of ‘Diner’ is shared with that of ‘Hollywood Knights’ starring Robert Wuhl. I am a film aficionado. I am a busy guy but I try to watch 12 to 15 hours of films a day.
The scene with the records I can totally relate to.
I would spend hours organizing my record collection.
Barry Gordy?
Marking.
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