But scary monsters are not the only cinematic inspiration for Pat’s song writing. His influences include the genres of drama, westerns, and comedy, as well. Celluloid heroes have also played an inspirational part in the Smithereens’ album covers, liner notes and music videos.

The Smithereens early film involvement was with the teen gore/monster B-films. "Class Of Nuke ‘Em High" from 1986 is one of those silly comedy-horror films, this time about a New Jersey high school near a nuclear waste spill that creates monsters. The Smithereens played the live band in a disco scene, and performed "Much Too Much."

"Dangerously Close," also from 1986, is another B-film about high school-ers. The central theme focuses on a group of fascists who bully members of the "wrong element." Although the Smithereens played no role in this film, it did play an important role in their musical career. Cannon Films, the producer of this thriller, employed a lawyer who just happened to have an advance copy of ESPECIALLY FOR YOU. He took it home, his wife listened to it and decided that the gloomy "Blood And Roses would be the song for the film. Despite the film’s poor showing at the box office, its soundtrack did a great deal to promote the band. Cannon financed a video shoot to promote the song and the film, and MTV put the video into rotation for 20 weeks. The musicians never felt the song was a single, yet because of the film tie-in, it was made into one anyway, giving the Smithereens a welcomed career boost. Coincidentally, the song’s title is also the title of a 1961 Italian horror film directed by Roger Vadim.

The Smithereens’ debut album offered four more songs that were inspired by movies. Pat wrote "Strangers When We Meet" after viewing the 1960 drama of the same name. The Richard Quine directed film was based on Evan Hunter’s novel and starred Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak as married persons who fell in love with each other.

Pat said the following about his song "Cigarette":

"I remember seeing films that celebrated the romance of the cigarette by showing a couple in bed sharing a smoke after sleeping together, or the actor Charles Boyer putting two cigarettes in his mouth and lighting them both at the same time and then handing one to his lover. That’s what he song is about really."

"In A Lonely Place" is also the title of a 1950 Nicholas Ray film starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame about a feisty screenwriter facing a murder charge who has an affair with a starlet. The film’s dialogue, is excerpted here:

I was born when she kissed me.
I died when she left me.
I lived for a few weeks while she loved me.

Pat’s lyrics for the song closely resemble the dialogue:

I was born the day I met you.
Lived a little when you loved me.
Died a little when we broke apart.

Pat’s first musical composition, "I Don’t Want To Lose You," was written after he saw Elia Kazan’s 1976 drama "The Last Tycoon." The picture was based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last novel and starred Robert DeNiro as a 1930s movie producer who was slowly working himself to death. Adding the details of his inspiration Pat said, "I was moved by the film’s final moments where DeNiro, having just lost the love of his life forever, hears these words repeating over and over again in his head: ‘I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you…’"

The third Smithereens album is titled "11," as in "Smithereens 11." "It's a play on ‘Ocean's Eleven’ and Spinal Tap's line about turning your amps up to 11," Pat said. "Ocean’s Eleven" is the 1960 crime comedy starring the Rat Pack -- Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Cesar Romero, and Joey Bishop. In the film, an eleven-man team attempts to rob five Las Vegas casinos simultaneously. Pat commented, "I'm just a fan of that era." "I love Sinatra, especially in that era, that bygone, not-to-be-recreated days of yore when Sinatra and his buddies could make films together by day and rule the stages of Vegas by night. There is some magic about that that is never going to come back."

To another interviewer Pat added, "When I'm home, I don't listen to much music.. I'm visually oriented, and I try to exploit whatever hobbies I have for my work. I get a lot of imagery that winds up as musical ideas and lyrics in songs. So when Dennis and I walked into a used bookstore and found a paperback book tie-in for `Ocean's 11,' that sparked our imagination to call our record ‘Smithereens 11’ and re-create the image of the paperback cover on our album."

He later elaborated, "The cover art work resembles the last shot in the old movie. Four proud men walking toward their destiny." The similarity to the film’s artwork is evident in the packaging for the video cassette release of the film, and can be seen by clicking here.

One of the group’s biggest hits, "A Girl Like You," was written specifically for the movie "Say Anything." Pat explained: "I based it on bits of dialogue in the screenplay and video that they gave me months and months before the film was released. At a certain point, the producer wanted me to change the lyrics and I didn't want to, so the band decided not to give them the song."

The 1989 comedy/drama’s screenplay was written by Cameron Crowe, who commissioned Pat to write a title track. A line from the film is "London, Washington, anywhere you are I’ll run." Producer James L. Brooks wanted the song to play over the film’s beginning credits, but he felt Pat’s lyrics gave away too much of the movie. "Ridiculous! Who would listen that closely to a title track?" Pat retorted.

Because "A Girl Like You" was not made part of the film, Cameron Crowe later made up to Pat by giving him a role in his 1992 film "Singles." Pat played the part of "Sid," the owner of a Seattle bohemian espresso house called "The Java Stop." The part originally included a long argument with Matt Dillon’s character (Cliff) about music, but it was cut. Pat does appear in the movie for about one second, but has no dialogue. Watch closely, or you will miss it!

Not only does the artwork for "11" sport film influences, but so do the album’s liner notes. "Be good to your parents, they been good to you" is a line borrowed from Mel Brooks’ "High Anxiety." Brooks’ movie itself was a send-up of monster films. It is no surprise then, to read elsewhere in the liner notes a mention of "Hollyweird, Karloffornia," a nod to monster film star Boris Karloff.

The Smithereens’ next release, BLOW UP, featured a cover with black hand print against the flying shards of a yellow, orange and red background. It was designed by artist Saul Bass, who not only created the titles for Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 "Psycho," but also designed the infamous shower scene. Bass designed several movie posters, too, a fact not overlooked by film lovers, the Smithereens.

The album’s title is the same as the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film featuring a cameo by the rock group the Yardbirds. Pat claims the album name has nothing to do with the film, however. "It's a tongue-in-cheek sort of title. If you read it as one line or one sentence, (it's) The Smithereens Blow Up. Does it make a little more sense now?"

Whether or not the album’s title was film inspired, at least one song from the disc was. Pat said that "Top Of The Pops" "was probably inspired by the couple portrayed by Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch in the film ‘Drugstore Cowboy.’" The 1989 film is about two couples who steal from pharmacies in order to stay high. At one point, the lead character tells his incredulous wife that he wants to go straight. Pat describes this moment in his lyrics:

Two time, two ton hangover king.
The bride wore black, we were ready to swing.
Too far gone to stop, top of the pops.

The next album, A DATE WITH THE SMITHEREENS contains another DiNizio-penned song with references to characters portrayed in film. "’Afternoon Tea’ is lyrically about a friend of mine who died of AIDS," Pat said, "but it could be about other things as well. Think of the character Travis Bickle in the Scorcese movie ‘Taxi Driver’ and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about." It is then easy to equate song lyrics with character descriptions:

Bickle the crazy cab driver-killer is described as "I’m losing my mind in a silent way" in song. He tries to save a young prostitute (played by Jodie Foster), and decides to right a wronged world. Pat wrote "Angry at God for what never should be." The film character finds women he can’t have but who will instead have others. Pat described this lyrically with "Lovers and others together, not me."

While Pat was composing tracks for the 1994 album, he was viewing another film starring Robert DiNiro. He confided to an interviewer, "When I write, I try to distance myself from any kind of music. So I watched movies instead. When I was writing the songs for this album, I was watching ‘The Godfather, Part II’ without the sound, and I had a guitar in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. I don't think you can get much more inspiration than that."

Even when song lyrics are not directly inspired by movie characters, sometimes song titles are. Someone asked Pat how it was that he could seemingly write a song with such ease. In an effort to explain his methods, he picked up a TV Guide and ran his finger down the listings choosing a film title. He stopped at the name of a 1988 film starring Barbara Hershey called "A World Apart." Without knowing the film’s plot, Pat said he "wrote the song in five minutes." The song may one day find release on some future Smithereens album, but so far it has only been publicly performed for live radio.

Film titles even lend themselves to band names. Pat borrowed the title of 1969’s classic western by Sam Peckinpah for a group of all-star musicians he and Jim played with in 1996. "The Wild Bunch" comprised more than a dirty dozen rockers who took the stage in a mini-tour around the US.

The influences of the silver screen crop up in many instances of the Smithereens' work. This is not surprising, as they take a vcr with them on their tours. The promotional video for "Only A Memory" is borrowed from the James Bond film title sequences, complete with images of a scantily clad beauty. The group’s music is found on a number of motion picture soundtracks, including the previously mentioned "Dangerously Close," as well as "Burglar," "I Was A Teenage Zombie," "Under The Boardwalk," "Time Cop," "Encino Man," and Showtime’s series "Rebel Highway." Additionally, members of the group have taken a turn at writing films themselves. Dennis wrote the screenplay for the 1985 Beach Boys’ documentary "The Beach Boys: An American Band." Pat has written a couple of screenplays, too, which so far haven’t seen the light of day. Do not be surprised however, if someday a DiNizio film winds up in a theater near you.