From: "Pat Quadlander"
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Date: 12/19/2004 10:29 AM Central Standard Time
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Every John Irving movie features a Volvo. Garp has already been mentioned,
with Robin Williams, in which the Volvo plays a grizzly part in a terrible
accident. Another is the grown adult part of one of the main child
characters in "Simon Burch", adapted from the book "A Prayer for Owen
Meany". The adult part is played by Jim Carrey, and he drives a Volvo.
The Robert Redford character in "woodstein" (All the Presidents Men
drives a 120 sedan, sky blue i think.
Probably, Henry Fonda, playing the old, stiff New Englander father to his
daughter Jane, in "On Golden Pond", probably drove a volvo wagon.
In the Hugh Grant movie where he has trouble committing to others, and finds
a catharsis with a somewhat wimpy young boy, shows a few frames with a Volvo
1800 parked on his street outside his flat.
Almost anytime a movie has a role with a suburban mother, you guessed it,
look for a volvo wagon.
In Hunter Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing, he includes a few stream of
consciousness descriptions of settling into the very comfortable seat in his
140, cruising the campaign trail, with a glass of Southern Comfort sloshing
between his legs on the car seat.
The original "The Saint" series featured a 1800. When shooting the pilot,
the director asked for a sporty Jaguar XKE, more or less to liken the role
to James Bond with his famous Aston Martin. However, Jag Corp. did not have
an extra XKE to loan him at that moment, so he grabbed the volvo instead,
assuming that the pilot would not get picked up by the network. But, when
it did, they had to keep the volvo throughout the series for continuity. I
haven't seen this in a while, but I use to frequently see ads on ebay for
early year 1800's with unsubstantiated claims that the car was the one used
in the TV series (buyer beware
.
The re-make movie of The Saint, with Val Kilmer, has a Volvo, 850 I think.
A catchy soft drink ad, Dr. Pepper I think, shows some famous salsa singers,
like maybe Celia Cruz?, and a Volvo 444 or 544 sitting in the background.
Gives the scene a somewhat Cuban flavor, where they have kept many old '50s
cars running due to the trade embargo.
Some action thriller movie includes a seen with a huge explosion or a
missile blast, I forget the unimportant details (like the movie name).
Anyway, in the big bang scene, a projectile is caught on tape screaming down
a freeway, or an airport runway, or a huge parking lot, at such a high speed
that everything else in the foreground and the background of the film frames
is a continuous blur. The other objects are mostly other cars and trucks.
One of the objects looked familiar: black trim around the door window
frames, and black outlined chrome trim "spears", those decorative chrome
strips that run horizontally the length of the car on both sides about
halfway up the door panel. I was watching this on a rented video, so I
paused the tape, and in slow motion reversed the tape until i could clearly
see a 240 being hurled through the frames at high speed.
I can't help myself, the Volvo body designs are so distinctive, I always see
them in movies and TV. My wife has been tempted to ask me to be quiet so as
to not disturb the other viewers.
