Worlds Movies

Buick is a pretty old brand and it is not surprise that cars by GM subbrand appear in various movies. One of them is Revolutionary Road with Leonardo Dicaprio & Kate Winslet. There is a lot of jittery cigarette smoking and sloshed-down booze in “Revolutionary Road,” a waxworks edition of the corrosive, furiously unsentimental novel by Richard Yates about an unhappy marriage. Fantasies about what Frank calls his “own exceptional merit” haunt the couple, a delusion they cling to like a lifeline and that registers as mutual neurosis and a symptom of some vague, larger social ill. This gorgeous young pair has all the trappings of the 1950s American dream – two smiley-toothed children, smart Connecticut house with trimmed lawn and the 1954 Buick Super parked out front.

The Buick Super enjoyed two short production periods, from 1940 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1958 and for these fleeting spells was considered a top vehicle for a top brand, Buick being the luxury name at General Motors. There were quirky features that stood it apart from the competition, such as automatic transmission that didn’t require gear changing, a split rear windshield and a radio antenna controlled from within the car, but by 1959 it was the end for this front engine rear wheel drive beauty, replaced by the Electra.

Buick has popped up in a number of films over the years in old school classics like House M.D., Spider Man, The Maltese Falcon and Sunset Boulevard and more modern fare like Pearl Harbor and Back to the Future; however the 1954 model is less visible, with just the odd big screen outing including Ed Wood. Making its appearance in Revolutionary Road all the more special for vintage car lovers.