American Graffiti
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| American Graffiti | |
|---|---|
 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | George Lucas |
| Produced by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Written by | George Lucas Gloria Katz Willard Huyck |
| Starring | Richard Dreyfuss Ronny Howard Paul Le Mat Charles Martin Smith Candy Clark Mackenzie Phillips Cindy Williams Wolfman Jack |
| Distributed by | Universal Studios |
| Release date(s) | August 11, 1973 |
| Running time | 110 min., 112 min. (1978 re-release) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD$750,000 |
| Followed by | More American Graffiti |
| IMDb profile | |
American Graffiti is a 1973 film directed by George Lucas. It tells the story of a group of middle-class American teenagers in small-town California, on the last night of the summer vacation after their graduation from high school. It is set in 1962 against the backdrop of commentary and music spun by disc jockey Wolfman Jack. This film is number 48 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". This movie ranked number six on Entertainment Weekly 's list of the "50 Best High School Movies."
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[edit] Production
The script was written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck. The movie was based upon the memories of George Lucas's teenage years in Modesto, California and was primarily shot on location in Petaluma, California. It features Mel's Drive-In formerly located at 140 S. Van Ness in San Francisco. The low-budget movie was mostly filmed at night over the course of less than a month.
[edit] Radio plot thread
The movie gained some of its popularity through its accurate reflection of period music that is broadcast on The Wolfman Jack Show. Every car radio in town is tuned to the same radio station and each listener feels they have their own personal relationship with the hip disk jockey (DJ). Many times the characters in the film seem to feel closer to Wolfman Jack than to the person sitting next to them in the car. The mysterious radio personality causes each listener to imagine what the Wolfman really looks like and where he is. Some speculate that he is a "Negro" who broadcasts from a plane that flies in circles. Others believe he broadcasts out of Mexico using a local transmitter, just outside of town, as a clearing station in order to fool the cops.
In reality, Wolfman taped his daily XERB show onto several 10" reel-to-reel tapes in his Los Angeles studio. Each tape held about an hour's worth of specific recorded material on it. For example, one tape would have music only on it, while another had phone calls, and still others contained introductions or local LA commercials. Then the tapes, (along with instructions on how to put the show together), were transported into Rosarita, Mexico to be broadcast from XERB's 50,000 watt transmitter site the following night when radio waves would bounce off the ionosphere carrying the signal into California Valley towns like Fresno and Modesto and even farther up north into Canada and Alaska.[1].
[edit] Reception
[edit] Academy Awards
The film is included in the National Film Registry.
[edit] Inspiration for TV series
- Although it began as an unsold pilot called Love and the Happy Days which aired on the television series, Love American Style, the unexpected success of American Graffiti helped to convince ABC to give the green light for the television series, Happy Days, which also starred Ron Howard. Both shows also featured as their theme song "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets, which led to the song returning to the American record charts in 1974, 20 years after it was recorded.
- On Happy Days Laverne De Fazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (American Graffiti-star, Cindy Williams) were two girls who were love interests for Richie Cunningham and Fonzie. Their occasional appearances led to their own series, Laverne and Shirley, which took place in the same city as Happy Days, Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the 1950s. The show debuted in January of 1976 and was an instant success. Ranking number three in the Nielsen ratings for the 1975-1976 season, the sitcom lasted seven years.
[edit] Trivia
- George Lucas has stated that the Roger and Penny Henderson characters in his 1994 film Radioland Murders are intended to be Curt's mother and father.
- The scene in which the rear axle of a police car is pulled completely off was proven unlikely to actually happen in an episode of MythBusters. The hosts of Myth Busters theorized that a ramp was used in American Graffiti to give the car and axle enough of a boost to wrench the axle completely free.
- Lucas was able to achieve the awesome spectacle without a ramp as the hosts of Myth Busters had surmised. The act of damaging the patrol car in the film was meticulously planned. The entire rear axle of the car was cut away from the frame and body and the cable (in the movie a chain was used. The real event involved a heavy cable) was attached. The other end of the metal cable was not attached to a light pole (as in the story) but rather to a winch on a heavy-duty 10-wheel tow truck that was parked in the darkness at the far end of the lot. As the car sped away from its parked location, at the exact moment when it crossed the sidewalk, the winch was activated. The pulling of the cable along with the force of the forward moving car caused the axle to be effectively yanked from beneath the car.[2].
- Additionally, the vandalized patrol car scene is similar to one depicted in a 1963 episode of Leave it to Beaver. In episode #231, Eddie Haskell and the Cleaver boys fastened one end of a chain around a tree trunk and the other around the rear axle of their friend, Lumpy’s car. When Lumpy tried to move his car it caused unforeseen damage as the entire third member and wheels became detached.
- The 1975 film Cooley High, about several Black high school students in 1960s Chicago, is frequently compared to American Graffiti.
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), also directed by George Lucas, features two references to American Graffiti: The yellow airspeeder that Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi use to pursue the bounty hunter Zam Wesell is based on John Milner's yellow deuce coupe. Also, Dex's Diner is reminiscent of the diner featured in American Graffiti [3].
- David Willardson did the famous (uncredited) air-brush artwork for the cover of the American Graffiti soundtrack. A few years later, he worked for Lucas and crew again by producing the famous Raiders of the Lost Ark movie logo.
- In the movie Swingers (1996) the license plate on Jon Favreau's car reads THX 138. The license plate is identical to the one on John Milner's '32 Ford deuce coupe in American Graffiti. The license plate in Graffiti is an homage to George Lucas' first feature film, THX 1138, while the same license plate in Swingers is tribute to American Graffiti.
- Two of the '55 Chevys used in the filming of Two-Lane Blacktop were later used in the filming of American Graffiti.
- The high school that the characters had just graduated from, is called Dewey High, a reference to the actual high school George Lucas attended. However the real name of the high school is Downey High. All the high school Sock Hop scenes were filmed in the boys gym at Tamalpais High School in Marin County while the school bathrooms, the hallway with lockers, and parking lot were filmed at Petaluma High School.[4].
- In the Simpsons episode "Summer of 4 Ft. 2," Homer replicates a scene from American Graffiti at Li'l Valu-Mart where he buys a bunch of embarrassing stuff to get some fireworks.
- When originally submitted to the Universal executives, they disliked the film and ordered Lucas to cut several minutes from it. In 1978, after Lucas achieved some fame from the film and from Star Wars Lucas made the executives reinstate the missing footage for its re-release. Aside from the reinstated footage, the soundtrack was remixed in Dolby Stereo and the date of John Milner's death was changed from June 1964 to December 1964 in the epilogue in order to fit in with the sequel More American Graffiti.
- In 1998, Lucas altered the opening of the film. In the background above Mel's Drive-In, the sky was cloudy and grey, it was changed so that the sun appears to be setting. This was done to add some symmetry to the sunrise at the end of the film.
- In the 1991 made-for-TV movie Keeping Secrets, Alan Hamel (David Birney) is seen talking with his wife Suzanne Somers (in a self-portrayal) on the set of Graffiti, in which she played the elusive blonde in the T-bird. The initial critical reaction to the film is reflected in Hamel's question, "Who's gonna go see a movie called American Graffiti?"
- In 1998's Why Do Fools Fall In Love, one of Frankie Lymon's widows Elizabeth Waters (Vivica A. Fox) sets the tone for the film while discussing with her attorney uses of the title song for which she may entitled to royalties. Waters cites Graffiti, an American Greetings commercial, and Diana Ross' 1981 remake as unauthorized uses of the song requiring back payment.
- More American Graffiti, a sequel, was released in 1979 to lukewarm critical and commercial reception.
[edit] References
- ^ Wolfman Jack. Kip Pullman's American Graffiti Page. Retrieved on October 25, 2006.
- ^ Behind the Scenes of American Graffiti. PETALUMA CELEBRATES AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Retrieved on October 24, 2006.
- ^ Dex's Diner. starwars.com. Retrieved on October 2, 2006.
- ^ On Location. Kip's Best American Graffiti Page. Retrieved on October 25, 2006.
[edit] See also
- 1950s Nostalgia Films
- 41 Original Hits From The Soundtrack Of American Graffiti
- List of films recut by studio
[edit] External links
