Date of Scene
Saturday, August 10, 1963
Daytime
Scene Description
The credits continue into this scene, but the introductory music fades.
The Houseman family is driving through the country-side, toward the resort where they will spend the next three weeks on a vacation. The father, Jake, is driving, and the mother, Marge, is riding in the passenger seat. The two daughters, Baby and Lisa, are sitting in the rear seat.
Baby, sitting behind the father, is reading a textbook titled The Plight of the Peasant. Lisa, sitting behind the mother, is grooming herself.
The radio plays the song "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Dialogue
Radio Disk Jockey
Hi, everybody. This is your cousin Brucie. Whoa! Our summer romances are in full bloom, and everybody's in love! So cousins, here's a great song from The Four Seasons.
Baby
(Narrating)
That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me "Baby" and it didn't occur to me to mind.
That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad.
That was the summer we went to Kellerman's.
Song Lyrics
Big girls don’t cry
Big girls don’t cry
Big girls don’t cry-yi-yi (they don’t cry)
Big girls don’t cry (who said they don’t cry?)
My girl said goodbye-yi-yi (my oh my)
My girl didn’t cry (I wonder why)
(Silly boy) [I] told my girl we had to break up
(Silly boy) [I] hoped that she would call my bluff
(Silly boy) Then she said to my surprise
“Big girls don’t cry?"
Big girls don’t cry-yi-yi (they don’t cry)
Big girls don’t cry (who said they don’t cry?)
(Maybe) I was cru-u-uel (I was cruel)
Baby I’m a fool (I’m such a fool)
(Silly girl) “Shame on you?" your mama said.
(Silly girl) “Shame on you, you’re crying in bed? (Silly girl)
“Shame on you, you told me lies? Big girls do cry
Big girls don’t cry-yi-yi (they don’t cry)
Big girls don’t cry (that’s just an alibi)
Big girls don’t cry
Big girls don’t cry
Big girls don’t cry
Big girls don’t cry
Big girls don’t cry
Remarks
A highway sign indicates New York State Thruway, which leads directly north from New York City.
An advertising sign along the highway indicates Kellerman's Mountain Home.
The DJ's words indicate that the movie will be about a summer romance.
The song "Big Girls Don't Cry" is a "clean-teen" song, not a "dirty-dancing" song. The song's title and lyrics indicate that this movie will have a coming-of-age theme.
The daughters' positions in the car -- Baby behind Dad, Lisa behind Mom -- indicate their respective role models. Baby emulates her father, whereas Lisa emulates her mother.
In her narration, Baby says explicitly that she would prefer to marry a man like her father. In the subsequent events, however, she will fall in love with someone very different from her father.
Baby does not say anything along the lines that she wants to become a wife as great as her mother.
Baby's words indicate that the author Eleanor Bergstein considers the assassination of President Kennedy and the arrival of the Beatles to mark a cultural watershed in American culture. This movie takes place near the end of one cultural era and right before the beginning of another social era. In her DVD commentary, Bergstein called this time "the last summer of liberalism."
Although Baby has just graduated from high school and still has not begun attending college, she is reading a college textbook during her summer vacation. Her reading choice indicates her intelligence and idealism.
There is no such book titled The Plight of the Peasant. The book is merely a prop.
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