Scenes from my adolescence;
Filmed on Van Nuys Boulevard, circa 1978.

These seem to be mostly from two movies that were shot in '78 or '79, Corvette Summer and Van Nuys Blvd. For a few decades, Van Nuys Boulevard was the notorious 'cruise strip' of the San Fernando Valley. When those films were being shot (as with another 'd' grade pic. a couple years before that called 'Aloha, Bobby and Rose'), they'd cruise the boulevard in their camera trucks on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights (the summer cruise nights, Wednesday being the biggest and year round) and try to get us to whoop it up a bit for the camera.

Us 'Valleys' were rather jaded to Hollywood stuff, going to school with actors and such, so what they really got was more in the way of candid 'home movies' of us just being us and of the typical rolling car show and babe emporium that was cruise night. I noticed they didn't use any footage of us 'toasting' them with various intoxicants, shooting the moon, girls dropping tops... we must have burned a lot of their film. A year or so ago, I bought a DVD of 'Van Nuys Blvd' and it was interesting to listen to the director's commentary and hear that from the other side.

I remember Mark Hamill (Corvette Summer) sitting on the hood of that gaudy, over customized (as was the style just then) Corvette acting like some sort of ho-dad (Star Wars was just taking off) and none of us could give a squat. We just wanted him to move so we could check out the car. I was born at Van Nuys and Sherman Way (Valley Hospital), this was 'home turf.

I'm still not entirely certain whether or not I'm in a couple of these scenes.
Cruisin'