Last night I watched The Philadelphia Experiment on DVD. Despite the presence of Michael Pare as star, I probably would not have watched this movie unless Lyle had mentioned it because sci-fi isn't my genre. I was a little surprised to find that I liked it better than I expected.
I wonder if, at the time the movie was released, anybody here in Philadelphia quibbled at it? I thought it was San Francisco Bay standing in for Philadelphia, but apparently it was Charleston, South Carolina. In any case, Philadelphia doesn't have a harbor. There was an immense naval base in far South Philadelphia on the Delaware River, which is deep enough for large ocean-going ships. The Navy Yard, as it was called, has been closed for years. I haven't been down that way in years, so for all I know there still could be lots of decommissioned naval vessels tied up down there.
Anyway, the movie reminded me of a thought about Michael Pare that crossed my mind when I was watching one of the Eddie and the Cruisers movies: I wonder if his accent had anything to do with his not becoming a bigger star when he was young and hot? He was born in Brooklyn, and the thought crossed my mind last night that maybe you can take the boy out of Brooklyn but you can't take Brooklyn out of the boy? His accent isn't a "dese" and "dose" kind of Brooklynese, but it's definitely Brooklyn, and similar to South Phiadelphia. (I've noticed that Brooklyn and South Philadelphia accents sound a lot alike.)
Pare's accent seemed perfectly appropriate for Eddie Wilson. We don't know where Eddie was born, but in one scene you can catch Sal, Eddie's oldest friend, say that South Philly was nothing like the college campus where the Cruisers were to perform. I'd say there was no reason not to think that Eddie Wilson may have been born in South Philadelphia. South Philly gave the world Frankie Avalon and Fabian--both of whom were born about the time the fictional Eddie Wilson would have been born--so why not Eddie Wilson?
But I'm digressing. Of course Michael Pare did a lot more things in the Eighties and Nineties than I've seen so far, but based on what I have seen, I've begun to wonder if his accent had some effect on limiting the roles he was offered. In The Philadelphia Experiment, he has the same accent as he has in the Eddie movies. In TPE, his character's father lived in California yet it's mentioned that they moved to California from New Jersey. Was that to account for Pare's accent?
Of course, I could be entirely wrong in my wondering, and I'm perfectly aware of that, and it doesn't mean I like Michael Pare any less.