A Homage to Penny Serenade, American Graffiti and Christine

There were two movies and a book that came out in the 20th century that are all had one thing in common. They linked by one thing-music as the soundtrack of one's life. The scenes for the 70s movie, American Graffitti, grew out the music that writer/director George Lucas was listening as he wrote them. This is true of the novel Christine. Stephen King went so far as to use song titles for this novel. These titles were the titles of the songs that he listened to as he wrote the story and that had evoked personal memories for him. Penny Serenade told the story of a man and a woman through the records that they played. A maudlin movie to be sure, with its death of the little girl and "make up to break up" tension between Cary Grant and Irene Dunne but it was novel for its time, which was about 1944.