American Graffiti (Collector's Edition)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Paul Le Mat, Richard Dreyfuss, Ron HowardBrand: Universal Studios
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
Published: 1998-09-01
DVD Release Date: 1998-09-16
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of American Graffiti (Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: "WHERE WERE YOU IN 62?"
Summary: 5 Stars
Before he became best known as Mr Star Wars, there was only a young filmmaker called George Lucas, with just one critically acclaimed debut feature (THX: 1138) to his name. Despite his lack of box-office success and after several rejections, he managed to impress Universal studios enough to finally get his next project off the ground. It would be a low budget film based on his own teenage years called American Graffiti: a Rock 'n' Roll movie that would double as a kind of sociological study of the American mating ritual. Armed with a minuscule $750,000, a cast of relative unknowns, and a shooting schedule of just 28 days (filming almost entirely at night), Lucas went out and made a film that was to strike a particularly resonant chord with American audiences: becoming the sleeper hit of the summer.
At it's core, American Graffiti is perhaps George Lucas' most personal film to date - dealing as it does with the themes of his own coming of age. In a BBC Omnibus special celebrating the release of the Star Wars: Special Edition, co-writers Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck pointed out that the central male characters draw not only on people he knew, but also mirrored the different facets of Lucas' own personality. On a deeper level, the film also explores his own longing for the lost innocence of his country: before the rude awakenings of Vietnam and Watergate soiled the American dream.
As well as eliciting a sensational response from critics and audiences alike, Graffiti would garner a total of five Oscar nominations and went on to take over $55 million at the box-office (rising to $117 million when it came out on video) - making it the most profitable film in Hollywood history. Perhaps most important of all: after seeing a screening of American Graffiti Alan Ladd Jnr, a development executive at 20th Century Fox, was impressed enough to give Lucas the money to develop the script for Star Wars. This was despite confessing to George that he didn't really understand what it was about. As Lucas describes it, Ladd told him: `I don't understand this movie, but I trust you and I think you're a talented guy... I'm investing in you.'
Set on the last night of summer 1962 - a mythic time of pre-Vietnam innocence, Graffiti is an incredibly simple film, dealing with a group of teenagers' coming of age in a small town. Largely created in the editing room after shooting was completed, American Graffiti doesn't really follow the traditional three-act framework of most movies, choosing instead to take the (at the time) novel step of intertwining several different unrelated stories into a documentary-style narrative.
The action itself is propelled along by a constant background of period music that blares out from car radios: broken up sporadically by the manic exhortations of the howling, prowling pirate DJ: Wolfman Jack. The music used perfectly underscored all of the major events in the film, each moment having an appropriate soundtrack. Along the way Lucas managed to capture the arcane rituals and obsessions of American youth; the simple pleasures of Rock 'n' Roll, drive-ins, cruising the strip and making-out with a girl on the back seat.
After completing the editing, Lucas handed the finished film over to the studio bosses at Universal who expressed almost total bemusement at this strange little film - even after an enthusiastic response from a test audiences. There was talk of changes and cuts to be made before they would consent to the film's release. This attitude enraged Producer, Francis Ford Coppola, who got into a furious shouting match with one executive in the lobby of the theatre and ended up demanding to buy the rights back and take it to another distributor. Eventually the decision was taken out of both his and Lucas' hands when Universal went ahead with re-cutting the film without permission. A similar situation had arisen with THX: 1138 and the experience left him bitterly disappointed with the machinations of the Hollywood studio system.
As a footnote to this disgraceful episode, the success of Star Wars allowed Lucas to go back and restore both films back to the way he originally intended. Today, it's with a great deal of satisfaction that he declares: "those mutilated versions don't exist anymore."
THE STORY
The film opens at Mel's Drive-in, the local teen hangout and focal point of the movie. It's here the main characters gather to begin their last night together to the strains of `Rock Around The Clock'; there we find Steve (Ron Howard) preparing to leave town and go to college along with Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) who is unsure whether he still wants to go.
As the night begins, Steve attempts to break up with his girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams): giving her the old "Seeing other people will only make our relationship stronger" line. As you might expect, she is less than enthusiastic about the idea and storms off. Steve also decides to leave his beloved car in the hands of his amiable but nerdy mate, Terry the Toad (Charlie Martin Smith) while local High school dropout: John Milner (Paul Le Mat) a brooding James Dean type, appears - doomed to be left behind by yet another generation of friends. As the night's cruising gets underway, we learn that there is a new hot-shot driver in town looking to challenge Milner to a race. Meanwhile Curt sees the woman of his dreams: a mysterious blonde cruising in a white T-Bird (Suzanne Sommers).
After unsuccessfully trying to impress a car-load of girls, John finds himself palmed off with Carol (McKenzie Phillips), a bratty 13 year old who he ends up liking despite himself. More by accident than design, Debbie (Candy Clark), gets picked-up by Terry the Toad who is out driving in Steve's Chevy. In an effort to impress her he tries to buy some booze and ends up becoming involved in a hold-up. After taking her to the local make-out spot - he also manages to get Steve's car stolen.
Still chasing his mystery blonde, Curt manages to fall foul of local toughs The Pharaohs(`That's FAY-rows'). Against his better judgement he allows himself to be persuaded into joining them for a night of petty delinquency - culminating in the separation of a police car from it's rear-axle.
Still smarting from her argument with Steve; Laurie hooks up with Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford: a role not a million light-years away from a certain cocky space pirate we all know and love); who is in town to challenge John Milner. After an exchange of insults the cars make their way out to Paradise Road for the final climactic face-off between Milner and the sneering Falfa. This segment also contains the coolest scene in the entire film - the two cars pulling up to the start-line at dawn to sound of Booker-T and the MG's before tearing off, leaving a cloud of smoke and burning rubber on the two-lane black-top. The race ends in an almost fatal crash (inspired by Lucas' own brush with death in a car accident) just as Falfa is on the verge of beating John.
With the night finally over, our unlikely band of heroes meet up for the last time at the airport where everyone says their goodbyes. Curt is at last leaving, while Steve has decided to remain behind. As the plane takes-off we learn what the future holds: Curt becoming a writer; Steve marrying Laurie and staying in town; Terry dying in Vietnam and John killed in a road accident.
THE CAR'S THE STAR
As you might expect, the real stars of American Graffiti are the gorgeous cars that fill nearly every frame. From Milner's chopped yellow '32 Ford (`...what's that s'posed to be? Sort of a cross between piss-yellow and puke green, aint it?' taunts a derisive Falfa) to the mean, low-slung Mercury Lead-Sled driven by the Pharaohs. This film is quite simply a car-nut's dream, crammed with acres of gleaming chrome. The end result is that, watching American Graffiti you can't help but be drawn into it's colourful world of fast-food hamburgers, cruising and the ubiquitous Wolfman Jack - which to your average non-US audience at least, was every bit as alien as Star Wars would be four years later. The real strength of any film is in making you feel close with to the characters in it, and Graffiti does this in spades. You become so immersed in their world; into their hopes, dreams and fears that; after the more-or-less cheery events that have taken place beforehand - the sucker-punch ending, where we discover the respective fates of all involved, comes as quite shock. On this evidence it's a real shame that George Lucas would quit directing after just one more film, a story set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Summary of American Graffiti (Collector's Edition)
AMERICAN GRAFFITI COLLECTOR'S EDITION - DVD MovieHere's how critic Roger Ebert described the unique and lasting value of George Lucas's 1973 box-office hit, American Graffiti: "[It's] not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant." The time to which Ebert and the film refers is the summer of 1962, and American Graffiti captures the look, feel, and sound of that era by chronicling one memorable night in the lives of several young Californians on the cusp of adulthood. (In essence, Lucas was making a semiautobiographical tribute to his own days as a hot-rod cruiser, and the film's phenomenal success paved the way for Star Wars.) The action is propelled by the music of Wolfman Jack's rock & roll radio show--a soundtrack of pop hits that would become as popular as the film itself. As Lucas develops several character subplots, American Graffiti becomes a flawless time capsule of meticulously re-created memory, as authentic as a documentary and vividly realized through innovative use of cinematography and sound. The once-in-a-lifetime ensemble cast members inhabit their roles so fully that they don't seem like actors at all, comprising a who's who of performers--some of whom went on to stellar careers--including Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, and Paul Le Mat. A true American classic, the film ranks No. 77 on the American Film Institute's list of all-time greatest American movies. --Jeff Shannon
Here's how critic Roger Ebert described the unique and lasting value of George Lucas's 1973 box-office hit, American Graffiti: "[It's] not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant." The time to which Ebert and the film refers is the summer of 1962, and American Graffiti captures the look, feel, and sound of that era by chronicling one memorable night in the lives of several young Californians on the cusp of adulthood. (In essence, Lucas was making a semiautobiographical tribute to his own days as a hot-rod cruiser, and the film's phenomenal success paved the way for Star Wars.) The action is propelled by the music of Wolfman Jack's rock & roll radio show--a soundtrack of pop hits that would become as popular as the film itself. As Lucas develops several character subplots, American Graffiti becomes a flawless time capsule of meticulously re-created memory, as authentic as a documentary and vividly realized through innovative use of cinematography and sound. The once-in-a-lifetime ensemble cast members inhabit their roles so fully that they don't seem like actors at all, comprising a who's who of performers--some of whom went on to stellar careers--including Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, and Paul Le Mat. A true American classic, the film ranks No. 77 on the American Film Institute's list of all-time greatest American movies. Befitting that reputation, the collector's edition DVD includes a full-length commentary by Lucas, a behind-the-scenes featurette about the film's production, a photo gallery, and extensive production notes. --Jeff Shannon
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