It\u2019s 1962 in Modesto, California. But the \u201860s haven\u2019t made it out to these small towns yet, where kids still listen to doo-wop and drink milkshakes in their muscle cars while cruising the downtown strip. Director George Lucas\u2019s sophomore effort is a wistful picture about the twilight of American innocence, set on the precipice of the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam. American Graffiti<\/em> was the unexpected blockbuster hit of 1973, a massively entertaining crowd-pleaser credited with kickstarting a 1950s nostalgia craze that dominated the rest of the decade. But it\u2019s a melancholy celebration, full of characters clinging to a time in their lives that\u2019s already passed them by. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s the last night of summer, in more ways than one. Richard Dreyfuss\u2019 nattering, wannabe writer Curt Henderson and his best friend Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) are set to fly out to an unnamed college somewhere \u201cback East\u201d in the morning. This evening is supposed to be their final hurrah in the old town \u2013 a chance to say farewell to friends and maybe hit the freshman sock hop for old times\u2019 sake. It\u2019s also an opportunity for Steve to dump Curt\u2019s sister Laurie (Cindy Williams), the cheerleader with whom he\u2019s been going steady. Deftly played by Howard as a guy realizing he already peaked in high school, Steve\u2019s the sort of fellow who suggests \u201cseeing other people\u201d without realizing this means that she gets to date other dudes, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And now Curt\u2019s getting cold feet about leaving. Especially after a blonde goddess (Suzanne Somers) driving a white T-Bird whispers \u201cI love you\u201d at a stoplight and sends our frenzied, hormonal young man on an all-night quest to find her. Could there still be this kind of adventure right here in his backyard? More likely is the darker vision of his future Curt sees when sneaking cigarettes behind the school with one of his favorite teachers, who confesses that he washed out of Middlebury College after a single semester and slinked back to work at his alma mater and have what looks like an awfully inappropriate relationship with one of his students. Maybe you can\u2019t come home again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Steve has entrusted the care of his precious \u201958 Chevy Impala to their adorably dorky sidekick Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith). With such a bitchin\u2019 set of wheels, the bespectacled goofball finds himself picking up a dreamboat named Debbie (Candy Clark) who\u2019s way out of his league. She\u2019s a sucker for tuck-and-roll upholstery, and the film\u2019s funniest scenes come when she tasks her ineffectual suitor with scoring them some liquor. Meanwhile, Milner gets stuck babysitting a 12-year-old brat played by MacKenzie Phillips and I don\u2019t know where to begin explaining how Curt finds himself being inducted into a gang of Latino hoods, improbably led by middle-aged Peckinpah favorite Bo Hopkins. Circling the strip is a mysterious man in a cowboy hat, played by a then-unknown carpenter-to-the-stars and future big-screen archeologist. His name is Bob Falfa and he\u2019s looking for a race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lucas shot the picture documentary-style, allowing his insanely talented cast of unknowns to block their own scenes and improvise away while sending two camera operators chasing after them to catch whatever they could. At first, he assumed he could do this without hiring a cinematographer. But after early footage came out unusably dark, Lucas called in his USC buddy, the legendary Haskell Wexler, to the rescue. Credited as a \u201cvisual consultant,\u201d Wexler would sneak around the location stashing lights in retail storefronts and car ashtrays and anywhere else he could get a brighter image without compromising the movie\u2019s run-and-gun spontaneity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these separate scenes and storylines are stitched together beautifully by the music. Lucas had the brilliant idea that instead of a traditional movie score, everyone should be listening to the same radio station. Wild man disc jockey Wolfman Jack serves as a Greek chorus to their travails, like a semi-mythical voice in the night. The endlessly innovative sound designer Walter Murch took it a step further, re-recording the soundtrack of jukebox oldies in the physical spaces where they\u2019re played in the picture. Depending on our perspective at the moment, the songs are either echoing in the streets or up close on crummy car radio speakers. It unifies the picture, making us feel like the characters are sharing the same space even when they\u2019re on the other side of town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Executives at Universal hated the movie, and for a time considered sending it directly to television. At one point during the contentious post-production period, producer Francis Ford Coppola took out his checkbook and offered to buy the film back from them for its full $775,000 budget. That sounds like a very Francis thing to do, but he would have gotten a hell of a deal. American Graffiti<\/em> went on to gross $115 million at the box office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “American Graffiti” is streaming on Netflix<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/american-graffiti2-1024x576.jpg\")
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American Graffiti<\/em> admittedly doesn\u2019t have much in the way of a plot. It\u2019s more a tapestry of incidents and anecdotes weaved together over the course of a long night\u2019s journey into day. What\u2019s magical about the movie is its offhand sense of enchantment, the feeling of when a late summer evening opens up in front of you and for a few hours its possibilities seem to stretch out forever. Lucas and his co-writers Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck all went to nearby high schools at the same time, so these stories come from their own memories or tall tales passed around the malt shops and backseats of their teenage years. (They even named Milner after their screenwriter friend John Milius, a similarly larger-than-life character.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n