When I started this blog I posted an article explaining the origin of my blogs name. At the time I had about three readers, so with Hollywood’s current obsession with origin stories I thought I would re-post my own to celebrate my blogs first birthday.
A similar event is planned for later this year, the 25th anniversary of the movies release including a screening of the movie at a West Texas drive-in. Sadly fanatical constraints prevent me from attending this time. Anyway back to the re-posting:
It’s the 20th July 2008 despite being scared of heights I am stood on a rock on a cliff overlooking the Rio Grande on the Mexican border with a bottle of Dom Pérignon in my hand. This is the exact spot Kevin Costner had stood about 25 years before, but what led me to this strange location in West Texas? To say the journey began in Las Vegas a few days before is not completely untrue but doesn’t give the complete picture the journey really began nearly 20 years before back home in Birmingham (England not Alabama!).
Some time in the late 80’s I saw a film on BBC2 called Fandango. The reason I watched it was simple Kevin Costner, a Hollywood star in his ascendancy. Although he was yet to make his Oscar winning début as a director with Dances With Wolves he was still a big star I had recently seen The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and the much underrated No Way Out. He went on to make some classic films as well as a few turkeys but there is something special about Fandango. Like all cult classics it bombed at the box office before going on to achieve acclaim and popularity on Video and TV. For those who haven’t seen the film here is a brief synopsis:
Set in Texas in 1971 during the Vietnam war five collage friends calling themselves The Groovers go on one last “Fandango”, a road trip across the state to the Mexican border in a 1959 Cadillac. They all have different motivations for their actions. Two of them are facing the draft one is about to get married but they all share a bond as they celebrate the “privilege of youth”.
I won’t go into detail about the scenes in the film but will simply say it is worth seeing for the skydiving scenes alone. So back to my story fast forward a few years: Having seen the film one or two more times on TV I went away to university. Studying for a film and media degree we were all movie nuts and watched lots of films; one day Eddie; one of the group who was studying sports science and had never shown an interest in the films we watched declared that he would show us his favourite film. that’s when I saw fandango for the third or fourth time. Over the three years at university we watched it many times. To the best of my knowledge it has never been released on video or DVD in the UK (but region 1 versions are available) so I settled for a recorded off TV video that I have watched many times. So years later when Eddie called and said he was going on a “Fandango” it didn’t take me long to agree to join the trip.
So that’s how I ended up in Texas, we flew into Vegas and picked up our rented Cadillac (less the fins of the ‘59 model in the film) and headed for West Texas and met up with some other fans of the film (who Eddie had found on the internet) including Chuck Bush (who plays Dorman in the film). Over the weekend we travelled around visiting the locations from the film including the rock mentioned at the top. For more information on Fandango check out the fan site at here. And by the way it wasn’t a bottle of Dom Pérignon, it was American sparkling wine (kindly supplied by Jeff, thanks!).
Happy birthday, Fandango Groovers! Thanks for sharing your blog origin and fun adventure story, Andy, and it’s nice to be able to put a face to a name 🙂
Keep up the great work!
happy Blog-a-Versary Number Six…and count me as one of those who always wondered where the name came from and found this origin story quite enjoyable!
Much better than WOLVERINE – that’s for damned sure…
[…] To say any more would spoil it, so I’ll leave you to find it yourselves and once you have given it a watch why not pop over to FGMB and check out what happened when he followed in the Groovers’ footsteps. […]
I actually just recently read this article on your site because I was curious about the origins. I’m glad you’re bringing it to light again. It’s awesome to have such a poignant influence and inspiration when you write all the time. Happy blogbirthday and I’m sure there will be many more that we’ll be celebrating with you!
Happy B-Day Fandango Groovers! Great origin story, maybe some day, a movie will be made about it lol
Thanks for all the comments guys. I know most of you have been doing this longer than me, lets hope we are all here still blogging in another years time.
Count me as well amongst the curious that was in the dark, and also as one that’s now curious to see the movie that spawned the blog about movies.
[…] fandangogroovers A few of you will have read how my blog got its name, those who haven’t click here to find out. This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the (criminally limited) release of […]