American Graffiti [Collector's Edition]

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"Where were you in ´62?" ran the promos for director George Lucas´s "American Graffiti" when it first opened.

In 1962 I had just graduated from a small Northern California high school, a similar place and the same year as the story´s setting, so when I went to the San Francisco premiere in 1973, I was particularly struck by the film´s message and appeal. I, too, had grown up with rock and roll, cruisin´ the Creek, and having to decide where to go to college. For me and a million others the movie was both poignant and nostalgic.

How personal can a reviewer´s response be to a film? The story´s focal point, Mels drive-in, was the actual location that I had often frequented while attending San Francisco State in the mid sixties! Many of us who grew up in the era portrayed in the film have come to look upon its characters and their experiences as extensions of ourselves.

I always considered the movie an instant success. Now, having shown it to students in my own high school classes, and having lived with both BETA and VHS video tape copies for years, the new DVD transfer is a godsend. A lot of cherished memories are encased in this new plastic disc.

Besides my very personal reasons for liking it, "American Graffiti" is a landmark film in several matter-of-fact ways. It was the first mega-hit for George Lucas, enabling him to go on to make "Star Wars" and the rest. It featured an astonishing array of young actors who basically got their start in this film, actors I will enumerate shortly. It was one of the best movies to involve a series of different, inter-cut stories shaped into one cohesive picture. It was among the first movies to use a continuous montage of classic rock and roll music from beginning to end to reinforce its plot. And it was made on a shoestring but became something like the second biggest-grossing film of 1973.

The story takes place during the course of one night in a small Central California Valley town, just as school is about to begin in September. The main characters are a group of recent high school graduates, several of whom are college bound. One of the primary characters is Curt, played by Richard Dreyfuss, an adventurous loner who spends the evening chasing a beautiful blonde dream girl (Suzanne Somers) in a white T-Bird. Lucas says that Curt most resembles himself, the one who eventually goes off to college and becomes a writer.

Another important person is Steve, the All-American boy played by the All-American kid actor, Ronny Howard; he´s the former student body president who has to decide whether to go away to school or stay around home, close to his girlfriend (Cindy Williams). A third important figure is Terry the Toad, played by Charlie Martin Smith. He´s the eternal loser, the poor soul with the funny haircut and glasses who never gets the girl; only this time, with the help of a sweet young air head, played by Candy Clark, things turn out just a little better than he could have imagined.

Then there´s John Milner (Paul LeMat), the hot rodder, the juvenile delinquent, the tough guy with the heart of gold, the fellow who is just beginning to realize that maybe there is more to life than beating the next challenger (Harrison Ford) in a drag race. His encounter with a young girl (MacKenzie Phillips) helps us to see him in a different light. They are us, folks, each one of them. And over all of this presides the spoken but unseen presence of the mythic disc jockey, Wolfman Jack, perhaps the most important icon of all, the one common thread touching and connecting all their lives.

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