Fandango (1985) on Netflix
In 1971, Gardner Barnes and his University of Texas friends skip their own graduation party. With the draft ahead, they drive toward the Mexican border for one last trip together.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.7/109,867 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes63%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1971, Gardner Barnes and the friends in his University of Texas clique, the Groovers, gather at a fraternity house in Austin for a graduation party. Kenneth Waggener, who is engaged, tells them his student deferment has ended and that he will be drafted into the Vietnam War; Gardner received his own notice weeks earlier. Kenneth decides to break off his engagement. The Groovers leave town for a final trip, aiming to stop at a notorious roadhouse and to dig up something called Dom by the Rio Grande. They drive through the night. At a rest stop some of them, Phil Hicks among them, want to turn back, while Gardner pushes them to keep going.
Cast
- Brian Cesakas Lester Griffin
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fandango (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Fandango began as Proof, a student film Kevin Reynolds made at the University of Southern California that parodied Greek life at his own alma mater, Baylor University. Because of his father's presidency at Baylor, he moved the setting to the University of Texas rather than portray the Baptist institution unfavourably.
- Steven Spielberg was said to be disappointed with the finished film and admitted that it "wasn't really released", but would not say more. Asked about that reluctance, director Kevin Reynolds' agent replied only: "He's tired of talking about Steven Spielberg, and he's busy."
- The skydiving sequence in Fandango was not shot for it: the footage is taken shot-for-shot from Proof, the University of Southern California thesis film that Kevin Reynolds made in 1980.
- The supposed backdrop of downtown Dallas that Truman Sparks flies to is actually Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1984, and the aerial sequence was filmed with the assistance of the Commemorative Air Force, then known as the Confederate Air Force.
- Fandango is credited as Kevin Costner's first starring role, although an earlier film in which he had been the lead actor, The Gunrunner, had actually wrapped in 1983 and was not released until 1989.
