This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message. I'll get back to you.
In light of the sad news of James Garner's recent death, I thought I would write a few words on The Rockford Files, and how this seventies show provided me one of my first tastes of California. I believe it was this show, and others like it from the same era that instilled the fascination with California which has remained with me for all these years.
To begin with, the show was shot in such a way that it created a kind of sun drenched effect, everything was bathed in this orange glow, the sea shimmered with a gold sparkle, the beaches were pure white stretches of sand and palm trees grew everywhere. The whole show pretty much summed up the quintessential California experience. LA itself was depicted in a manner that really struck a chord with me. On the one hand it was a wash with criminals and low life hoods, but looking past these elements, as I did, I became enchanted with it from a very young age.
But a large part of the fascination with this world was derived from the cars, the trucks and the super wide highways that carried them. As a young boy, I loved pretty much anything that had wheels, be it cars, or trucks, but the American variants were my real favourites. Watching a show like the Rockford Files was a veritable car fest, Jim Rockford's gold Pontiac Firebird is every bit as as awesome now as it was then, added to which the show ostensibly revolved around a city in which car culture is unrivalled. Therefore, the street, road and highway based scenes provided a snapshot of the cars from the era, which was great then, but watching it now is akin to opening a time capsule, such is the array of cars on view.
Cars of every description are depicted in their element and in every day use, spotting even the most everyday of vehicles offers a level of excitement with every episode. In fact I am pretty certain that every such scene featured a VW Golf (Rabbit), or a Merc of some description and of course the ubiquitous Californian Beetle or Combi, invariably these were in a funky 70's colour, but always featuring the US DOT spec bumpers and lights, making them far more appealing than their British and European counterparts. Although, now I realise that these features kind of detract from the aesthetic, and people in the US go to great lengths to get such cars looking more European.
I know that James Garner had a long and successful career in film and television, he was a great actor, a truly colourful character and a real icon, these things are a given. But it was the Rockford Files that had a really profound and long lasting effect on me.
It's been a while, soI I am going to make sure that I watch at least some of the shows again, I feel it will have aged well.
To begin with, the show was shot in such a way that it created a kind of sun drenched effect, everything was bathed in this orange glow, the sea shimmered with a gold sparkle, the beaches were pure white stretches of sand and palm trees grew everywhere. The whole show pretty much summed up the quintessential California experience. LA itself was depicted in a manner that really struck a chord with me. On the one hand it was a wash with criminals and low life hoods, but looking past these elements, as I did, I became enchanted with it from a very young age.
But a large part of the fascination with this world was derived from the cars, the trucks and the super wide highways that carried them. As a young boy, I loved pretty much anything that had wheels, be it cars, or trucks, but the American variants were my real favourites. Watching a show like the Rockford Files was a veritable car fest, Jim Rockford's gold Pontiac Firebird is every bit as as awesome now as it was then, added to which the show ostensibly revolved around a city in which car culture is unrivalled. Therefore, the street, road and highway based scenes provided a snapshot of the cars from the era, which was great then, but watching it now is akin to opening a time capsule, such is the array of cars on view.
Cars of every description are depicted in their element and in every day use, spotting even the most everyday of vehicles offers a level of excitement with every episode. In fact I am pretty certain that every such scene featured a VW Golf (Rabbit), or a Merc of some description and of course the ubiquitous Californian Beetle or Combi, invariably these were in a funky 70's colour, but always featuring the US DOT spec bumpers and lights, making them far more appealing than their British and European counterparts. Although, now I realise that these features kind of detract from the aesthetic, and people in the US go to great lengths to get such cars looking more European.
I know that James Garner had a long and successful career in film and television, he was a great actor, a truly colourful character and a real icon, these things are a given. But it was the Rockford Files that had a really profound and long lasting effect on me.
It's been a while, soI I am going to make sure that I watch at least some of the shows again, I feel it will have aged well.
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