Year: 1973
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul LeMat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, MacKenzie Phillips, Cindy Williams, Wolfman Jack, Bo Hopkins, Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers
Director: George Lucas
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Clark), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing
Where was I in '62? Nowhere. But I kinda wish I had been.
Quick, I say the name George Lucas and you say...?
Thought so. But while we all love Star Wars (I mean, really, who doesn't?), I think this might be Lucas's unsung magnum opus. I say unsung, but it was a huge hit and garnered Lucas the first Oscar nominations of his career.
Not bad for a movie that's essentially Happy Days but with more reality ensuing.
Okay, that wasn't fair. But it's also not far off the mark. American Graffiti (by the way, was there much actual graffiti in this movie? I can't say I really noticed it) is a nostalgic look back at the era of a director's youth while also being a fairly frank look at what was really going on in that "more innocent time".
Knowing what would become of George Lucas in the modern age, it's almost like this movie, so unlike anything we associate with him, stands as a tribute to a time when he was sane. Yes, it was at least as troubled a production as Star Wars, but the end result is resoundingly down-to-earth, and a perfect snapshot of its time period. This movie is defined by its cars, its fashion, its cars, its hairstyles, its cars, shots of small-town American shops and diners, its cars and its soundtrack.
The plot could accurately be described as a night of teenagers in the summer of 1962 driving around town, yelling at each other from cars, and listening to the radio, which plays classic hit after classic hit throughout the film, the songs and the frequent interjections from DJ Wolfman Jack (playing himself) acting almost as a sort of Greek chorus.
So what makes this so compelling? Because it's really fascinating to watch. To be frank, I'm not sure. It's not like the nostalgic coming-of-age story had never been done before. But somehow, these kids, their cars, that crazy awesome soundtrack; it all just comes together to make something magical.
The group of teens in this film come from different walks of life but the town is small enough that they all know each other and hang out. The 19-year-old dropout Johnny Milner, who just wants to drag race and cruise for girls and has no intention of growing up (Paul LeMat) and hopeless nerd Terry "Toad" Fields (Charles Martin Smith) are friends, and Johnny only teases Toad lightly. High School "king" Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) and his longtime steady girlfriend Laurie Henderson (Cindy Williams) are that one couple everyone is sure will get married, while Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), her older brother, is Steve's best friend. The two of them are headed off to college in the morning, and this is their last night in town, but suddenly Curt isn't sure he wants to go, and Steve is mostly concerned about being able to see college girls while he's gone but still keep Laurie for when he's back in town. Meanwhile, Toad is elated that Steve has left his prize Chevy Impala in his care while he's gone, and he wastes no time taking it out on the strip to see what girls he can pick up. Of course, sweet ride or no, he's still Toad. He does manage to get an older girl, Debbie (Candy Clark) to take a ride with him, but she's an "experienced" (shall we say) woman of the world while he's an utter naife and soon he's in over his head the more he tries to impress her.
Johnny hears there's a new guy in town, Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford) who heard Johnny is the drag racing king of Modesto, and wants to challenge him. Johnny drives a modified, "pimped-out" 1932 Ford Deuce Coupé while Falfa is cruising in a 1955 Chevrolet One-Fifty Coupé and I can only imagine what the Ford and Chevy fans must have made of their rivalry back when this came out. It's kind of interesting watching Ford play a total jerk. But compounding the situation is that Johnny has unwittingly been saddled with Carol (MacKenzie Phillips), the younger sister of a girl he was hitting on through his car window, and by "younger" I mean 12. This is a pretty squicky situation (after all, what girl lets her preteen sister get in the car of a strange man?) but thankfully Johnny is just as squicked out by it as we are, wanting to get her home or back to her sister before anyone thinks anything funny is going on, with Carol determined to make that as hard for him as possible, because she wants to be out having fun.
Curt, meanwhile, catches a fleeting glance of a blonde woman in a T-Bird (Suzanne Somers), who seemingly mouths the words "I love you" directly to him before turning a corner and disappearing. Curt is determined to find out who she is, but with no car of his own and a habit of doing or saying things that get him kicked out of others' cars, he gets no closer to finding her, and runs afoul of a local gang, the Pharaohs, led by greaser Joe (Bo Hopkins).
As I understand it, this movie was extremely low budget (most of it might have gone into paying for all those cars and royalties for the music) and even filmed somewhat guerilla style, with some of the location shooting happening in areas they weren't allowed to film, and that almost no one wanted to distribute it because it didn't have any stars (yeah, really, all those names you recognize were nobodies back then). And then it became a surprise hit, and racked up five Oscar nods, only to lose all of them.
Well, the Picture, Director, Editing and Screenplay nominations were absolutely earned, and I'm a little surprised it didn't win at least editing, but Candy Clark is the only actor to be nominated here, and her performance is kinda one-note and nothing special at all. You've seen a million other performances like it. I think the real stand-outs here are Paul LeMat, who manages to make his "punk" character relatable and likeable, Charles Martin Smith, who has this nervous energy that adds to Toad's geeky charm, and MacKenzie Phillips, who removes any fear that she's in danger being so young and out so late by almost immediately taking charge of the situation in Johnny's car. Not that he wants to take advantage of her (at all!) but his frequent attempts to take her home, find her sister or at least make sure no one sees her in his car all fail hilariously thanks to her outsmarting him at every turn.
The screenplay nomination, for Lucas, his frequent collaborator Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, who would go on to direct the ill-fated Howard the Duck from the same writers and with lucas as a producer, I can certainly understand, but I also understand why it lost, because this really is a sort of "random events plot" that follows around several small groups of people just sort of...doing stuff. It manages to make it compelling, but how much of that was the acting, the cinematography or the acting? Of course, it's also got all those songs which come on at important moments, and I understand that was part of the script as well, so yeah, the nomination was earned.
I don't know where you were in '62, but if you haven't seen this yet, where have you been?
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