Swingers 25th Anniversary
With apologies to our resident retroactive film reviewer, Flyin’, I thought I would dip my toe in the waters of the realm of feature films to discuss one of my favorites. This is not a 20/20 Hindsight Review of a film. No, this is just the story, my story, of why I love a film so very much.
That film is the motion picture, Swingers. Released in 1996, written by Jon Favreau (who would go on to become quite the prolific director in the Marvel Universe), and starring a then very unknown Vince Vaughn, along with Favreau. Costarring some more now known, then unknowns, such as Heather Graham and Ron Livingston, among others.
Favreau and Vaughn would meet while working on the motion picture, Rudy. Favreau cast in the role of Rudy’s friend, D-Bob; Vaughn as Wide Receiver Jamie O’Hara. Most of Vaughn’s scenes would end up on the cutting room floor. Favreau and Vaughn would become friends and start working on the script for Swingers. It would be an independent film, shot in and around the swing music clubs around Los Angeles. In the late 1990’s, swing music would have a revival, thanks in large part to an advertisement for Gap Khakis, featuring Louis Prima singing Jump Jive and Wail. Soon The Brian Setzer Orchestra followed. But that tipping point of swing music coolness was first primed at the pump by the motion picture, Swingers. An independent, cult motion picture, filmed in those not quite yet, but soon to be trendy swing and lounge music spots in and around Los Angeles. There are plenty great articles that can be found discussing the making of the film. The difficulties of filming in those nightspots, the difficulty of even affording and procuring the actual, literal film with which to make the picture. Dealing with cops on the side of a freeway while trying to film a scene without a permit. Lighting a shot with the help of an interior refrigerator light. Lots of great stories, but those articles do a better job of telling those stories. What I can talk about is my love affair with this movie.
Just a mere 2297 miles from the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, the home base of Swingers, about a day and a half of nonstop driving away, is the northern suburbs of Detroit, location of yours truly. As an early subscriber to Entertainment Weekly (I believe my subscription started on issue #9), reading EW was a weekly occurrence for me. In addition to EW, I was a longtime subscriber to Sports Illustrated, and the short-lived Sport Detroit magazine. In the days before the internet became so prevalent, I loved my magazines! (Teenage me even had a letter published in EW, discussing Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and Arsenio Hall.) But I digress, where was I? Oh yes, I was perusing EW, the usual weekly wrap-up of Movies, TV, Books, and Home Videos, when what should I see? An advertisement, a movie poster. A completely unknown to me, Vince Vaughn, holding a martini glass. With the tagline of “cocktails first, questions later”.
cocktails first, questions later
To say my interest was piqued is an understatement. I loved Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. Swing music, lounge music. I used to overhear my dad play Frank Sinatra, and I loved it! I was hooked. I’ve overheard many different musical artists through the years from my family members, not sure why this category of music resonated so strongly with me, but it did. I was really digging this old sound.
I had grown up in the grunge era. And I do very much enjoy certain songs and certain bands from that era. But it never was my thing. I was a junior high kid at the music store, walking past the Nirvana display, to find The Very Best of Frank Sinatra Reprise Years on cassette. Now I could listen on my Sony Walkman to the theme song from Married With Children while I did my paper route! In this grunge era, I most certainly was never very cool and cutting edge when it came to my musical stylings at that time. And that is quite alright, as this is not a woe is me tale. No, I was perfectly content being the happy oddball with my musical preferences.
Back to that Entertainment Weekly and that movie poster, I decided that I simply must see this movie when it arrives. Based solely on the one picture I saw of the advertisement. This guy holding this martini glass, I must see this film! Eventually the day arrived, released on October 18, 1996. It was only showing at one theater in the Detroit area, the Birmingham 8 in Birmingham, MI. My high school friend and I ventured off to Birmingham, which is a west side suburb, from our east side suburb. It was not that far at all really, but in those days, still relatively new to driving, it felt like it was rather distant. Birmingham has a nice, little downtown, and people have to parallel park on Main Street or a side street, and put some coins in the meter. Or perhaps park at one of those pricey garages (at least it was to a teenager) and spend five whole bucks. We walked over to the old Birmingham 8, its marquee brightly lighting up the dark, autumnal night sky. Bought our tickets, and waited in line for the previous showing to let out. As the doors opened, the early show emptied out. The faces on the crowd were very happy faces, still laughing, still smiling. I could overhear comments about how funny it was. One comment I remember was a woman saying, “that is such a guy movie, but a guy movie that a girl can like”.
I settled into my seat, sat through the previews, and finally, it started. It was a Miramax film! Back in the days before Harvey Weinstein was revealed to be the horrible person he was, the Miramax name was a big deal. It meant, cutting edge… Quentin Tarantino’s company.
Dean Martin sang You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You as the opening credits showed all the hip nightspots in LA. Vince Vaughn was a tour-de-force of energy and comedy. Favreau was perfectly painful as he tried to get over the breakup of his previous girlfriend. Ron Livingston (who would be phenomenal a few years later in Office Space) was awesome as the relatively nondescript friend, trying to lead his friend through his troubles. Patrick Van Horn was the perfect jerk of a friend. Alex Desert rounded out the group as the guy that let us know “this place is dead anyhow”. And, of course, Heather Graham (hey, who remembers her as Mercedes in the film License to Drive), as the cute little bunny rabbit to Favreau’s big bear, with claws, like a big bear, man. The end credits rolled, Bobby Darin singing I’m Beginning To See The Light. (In between there was Tony Bennett, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Marty & Elayne, among others.)
this place is dead anyhow
I don’t pretend Swingers is the greatest movie of all time. But it spoke to me at that moment in my life. I really was quite content listening to my Frank Sinatra cassette. But it was such an epiphany, an unexpected surprise to find other people like me. That there were other people that dug this music. Music that my older brothers would certainly have found terribly uncool as they listened to Led Zeppelin for the 80th straight time. There were these really funny young guys in Hollywood, among the glitz and glamour, being funny, and dancing to swing music?!?!? Drinking martinis?!?!?
Swingers would eventually expand to one more theater in the Detroit area. A little closer to my home, this one being the AMC Abbey near the Oakland Mall. I would see the film two more times there. I bought the script, in book form, at Borders Bookstore in Utica, MI. I bought the soundtrack (which is great). I bought 2nd soundtrack (also great). I bought the movie poster and had it framed. I even tore out the full-page advertisement from the Detroit weekly newspaper, The Metro Times. I still have that advertisement! That piece of paper is 25 years old! Anyone connected to the movie, I will watch their later films and TV shows, just because they came from Swingers. Vaughn and Favreau are the most well-known, of course. I love Vince Vaughn. I love Dodge Ball, Wedding Crashers, and everything else he does. I could watch him read the phone book and laugh. Favreau seems to mostly stay behind the scenes now, directing and writing. He still acts occasionally though. His film, Chef, was excellent. He even has some great cameo roles in things like Friends and The Sopranos. Doug Liman, the director of Swingers, directed another great film, Go. You should go watch Go, right now! Heck, I went and saw Big Bad Voodoo Daddy perform about five years ago. Go Daddy-O!
Somebody once told me I reminded them of the character of Berger in Sex and the City. I knew nothing about the show nor the character, and once I looked into it and discovered that Ron Livingston had portrayed Berger, I was ecstatic at the comparison. Van Horn does not do much, but if he ever does, I will be first in line for the movie. Desert was on Becker. Heather Graham was in Boogie Nights and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
you’re so money and you don’t even know it
Once the swing music revival kicked into high gear in the late 90’s, it was kind of strange to be so knowledgeable about the fad. I knew all the old artists, knew all the new artists. I knew the old movies, knew the cocktails, knew the old fashion. I already owned a fedora. Two of them, actually.
I bought the entirety of the Ultra-Lounge Collection, which Capitol Records released in the late 1990’s. All great record collections should come with cocktail recipes in the liner notes, like Ultra-Lounge did. Swing dancing started occurring in various bars and nightclubs all around the Detroit area. Velvet Lounge in Pontiac (I still have a matchbook from there), Token Lounge in Westland, Motor Lounge in Hamtramck. Even inside the bars in bowling alleys, the Atomic Dog in Warren, swing music could be found. Ann Arbor had a bunch of locations as well. Swing was the thing!
Of course, like all fads, it eventually fizzled out. And that’s fine, but it sure was fun to be in the epicenter of it for a while. It was a cool thing for a brief moment, and most of the people that were into it, probably were not really into it. Just like any cool thing of the moment, it was embraced until the next cool thing came along. For me though, it was different, because I genuinely liked it. The martinis, the music, the fedoras. I still like it!
And I still like Swingers. It makes me laugh. Once in a while a theater might show it as a midnight movie. A cult hit. I still go and see it when I can. I still laugh. It’s still money.
-MTR