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My first car was a ‘54 Ford and I bought it for $435. It wasn’t scooped, channeled, shaved, decked, pinstriped, or chopped, and it didn’t have duals, but its hubcaps were a wonder to behold.

On weekends my friends and I drove around downtown Urbana -- past the Princess Theater, past the courthouse -- sometimes stopping for a dance at the youth center or a hamburger at the Steak ‘n’ Shake (“In Sight, It Must Be Right”). And always we listened to Dick Biondi on WLS. Only two years earlier, WLS had been the Prairie Farmer Station; now it was the voice of rock all over the Midwest.

When I went to see George Lucas ’s “American Graffiti” that whole world -- a world that now seems incomparably distant and innocent -- was brought back with a rush of feeling that wasn’t so much nostalgia as culture shock. Remembering my high school generation, I can only wonder at how unprepared we were for the loss of innocence that took place in America with the series of hammer blows beginning with the assassination of President Kennedy.

The great divide was November 22, 1963,and nothing was ever the same again. The teenagers in “American Graffiti” are, in a sense, like that cartoon character in the magazine ads: the one who gives the name of his insurance company, unaware that an avalanche is about to land on him. The options seemed so simple then: to go to college, or to stay home and look for a job and cruise Main Street and make the scene.

The options were simple, and so was the music that formed so much of the way we saw ourselves. “American Graffiti”‘s sound track is papered from one end to the other with Wolfman Jack ’s nonstop disc jockey show, that’s crucial and absolutely right. The radio was on every waking moment. A character in the movie only realizes his car, parked nearby, has been stolen when he hears the music stop: He didn’t hear the car being driven away.

The music was as innocent as the time. Songs like “ Sixteen Candles ” and “Gonna Find Her” and “The Book of Love” sound touchingly naive today; nothing prepared us for the decadence and the aggression of rock only a handful of years later. The Rolling Stones of 1972 would have blown WLS off the air in 1962.

“American Graffiti” acts almost as a milestone to show us how far (and in many cases how tragically) we have come. Stanley Kauffmann, who liked it, complained in the New Republic that Lucas had made a film more fascinating to the generation now between thirty and forty than it could be for other generations, older or younger.

But it isn’t the age of the characters that matters; it’s the time they inhabited. Whole cultures and societies have passed since 1962. “American Graffiti” is 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.

On the surface, Lucas has made a film that seems almost artless; his teenagers cruise Main Street and stop at Mel’s Drive-In and listen to Wolfman Jack on the radio and neck and lay rubber and almost convince themselves their moment will last forever. But the film’s buried structure shows an innocence in the process of being lost, and as its symbol Lucas provides the elusive blonde in the white Thunderbird -- the vision of beauty always glimpsed at the next intersection, the end of the next street.

Who is she? And did she really whisper “I love you” at the last traffic signal? In “ 8 1/2 ,” Fellini used Claudia Cardinale as his mysterious angel in white, and the image remains one of his best; but George Lucas knows that for one brief afternoon of American history angels drove Thunderbirds and could possibly be found at Mel’s Drive-In tonight... or maybe tomorrow night, or the night after.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

American Graffiti (1973)

110 minutes

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‘american graffiti’: thr’s 1973 review.

On August 1, 1973, George Lucas brought his nostalgic film to the big screen at the Avco Cinema Center in Los Angeles.

By Alan R. Howard

Alan R. Howard

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On August 1, 1973, George Lucas brought his nostalgic film American Graffiti to the big screen at the Avco Cinema Center in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below: 

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'deadwood': thr's 2004 review, 'family guy': thr's 1999 review.

American Graffiti takes place in Modesto, California, in the early ‘ 60s , the twilight of American innocence, before drugs, Vietnam, assassination and political protest. During one night the town’s teenagers cruise the city streets in their fancy cars, fighting, dueling, arguing, falling in and out of love.

The ingeniously structured screenplay by Katz, Huyck and Lucas offers up a load of wonderful characters who whirl about in ducktail haircuts and shirtwaist dresses, lost in the obscenity of American culture. Thanks to some of the most spirited, daffy dialogue since Lubitsch , their sweetness is deliriously funny. No matter how high the dramatic stakes become, the movie never loses its sense of humor, and although it has a lot to say, it’s gloriously free of pretensions.

Lucas’ great accomplishment is that the proceedings don’t look like camp. Instead, the movie is a comic poem which celebrates the past but also catalogues its textures with telling precision. American Graffiti looks like no other movie, an achievement which is always the best measure of a truly gifted director.

The casting by Fred Roos and Mike Fenton is astonishing, down to the least important extra. Richard Dreyfuss plays the movie’s hero with humorous self-possession, a feeling of sanity which makes him a born survivor.

Ronny Howard plays the good, responsible kid, the class president in love with head cheerleader Cindy Williams, who gives the movie’s best performance as an engaging slip of a girl who probably doesn’t know she’s destined to a dreary, housewifey existence.

The comic duo is Candy Clark, a bleached blonde looking for liquor, sex and cheap thrills, and Charlie Martin Smith, a small guy who wears glasses and tries to pretend he’s not insecure. Clark and Smith are blessed with the best characterizations, and they take the movie away with their dizzy but warm bubble-headedness.

Harrison Ford is excellent as the king of the road in his fine car, a man destined to be dethroned because he’s too old to be playing such games. Bo Hopkins is the arrogant leader of the local street gang; Manuel Padilla Jr. and Beau Gentry are his followers.

The smaller parts, and there are dozens of them, are as affectionately observed as the major ones. The performers who stand out are Kathy Quinlan, Terry McGovern, Jana Bellan, Jim Bohan, Scott Beach and Al Nalbandian.

The intricate, provocative soundtrack created by Walter Murch and Lucas is one of the film’s highlights. Throughout the movie disc jockey Wolfman Jack speaks through car radios, announcing an endless stream of ’50s and ’60s hits which create a parallel dramatic subtext.

The film’s steady technique serves the story with disciplined control. The fine photography by visual consultant Haskell Wexler, Ron Eveslage and Jan D’Alquen is light years from superficial gloss. The film editing by Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas manipulates the sometimes hectic pace without assaulting the audience.

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American graffiti, common sense media reviewers.

Coming-of-age classic has smoking, gender stereotypes.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Friends express their loyalty to one another, and

Most of the teens in American Graffiti are struggl

Main characters are all White and mostly men. Whit

Fistfights, but no blood. Gunshots during a robber

Teens flirt constantly, talk about dating and brea

Several uses of "s--t," plus "damn," "goddamn," "a

Mentions of Chevy, Thunderbird, and Jeep cars, and

One teen gets a stranger to buy him alcohol at a l

Parents need to know that George Lucas' American Graffiti follows a group of teens in the early 1960s as they cruise the streets in their showy cars, flirting, fighting, and drag racing the night away. It stars Ron Howard, Mackenzie Phillips, Harrison Ford, and other well-known actors/directors early in their…

Positive Messages

Friends express their loyalty to one another, and Steven and Laurie thoughtfully try to figure out what the uncertain future will do to their relationship. But rebelliousness, including illegal acts (drag racing, etc.), is rewarded, and symbols of authority (cops and laws) exist to be circumvented and mocked. Casual racism when a teen says her mom won't let her listen to a radio host "because he's a Negro."

Positive Role Models

Most of the teens in American Graffiti are struggling with their identity and the transition to life after high school. Steve hurts Laurie at the start of the film but eventually realizes his mistake. Carol is tough, curious, and independent.

Diverse Representations

Main characters are all White and mostly men. White women have supporting roles; their lives revolve around boys (and what type of cars the men drive), but they do have their own minds and opinions. Still, gender norms are strongly enforced, as men are expected to chase women, a girl says "girls don't pay, guys pay," etc. Mexican American character Carlos, played by Latino actor Manuel Padilla Jr., has a handful of lines playing a gang member. The role starts off stereotypically, but the gang eventually becomes friendly with the main character. Casual racism when a teen says her mom won't let her listen to a radio host "because he's a Negro." At a school dance, brief glimpses of East Asian and Black students among a nearly all-White crowd.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Fistfights, but no blood. Gunshots during a robbery. A car crash and a car explosion. Groups of men, including a main character, harass women and girls on the street (whistling, a White teen calls out "buenos noches," young men follow women and girls with their cars) -- it's portrayed as OK behavior, with one girl appearing pleased when a man eventually uses the "right" compliment on her (comparing her to a celebrity she likes).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Teens flirt constantly, talk about dating and breaking up, and kiss. A character is pantsed, briefs visible. Innuendo ("I'll let you touch it. I mean, I'll let you touch the upholstery"). Backseat necking, petting implied. Flashing of bare bum (mooning). Stereotypes of romantic roles (men chase women; women judge men on how flashy their cars are). Some flirtations border on harassment -- see Violence & Scariness for details.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "s--t," plus "damn," "goddamn," "ass," "hell," "bitchin'," "spastic," and "Jesus" used as an exclamation. Middle-finger gesture. A White character says her mom won't let her listen to a radio host "because he's a Negro."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Mentions of Chevy, Thunderbird, and Jeep cars, and a pop culture reference to The Beach Boys.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

One teen gets a stranger to buy him alcohol at a liquor store and then gets so drunk that he throws up. He also drives after drinking. Teens smoke cigarettes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that George Lucas ' American Graffiti follows a group of teens in the early 1960s as they cruise the streets in their showy cars, flirting, fighting, and drag racing the night away. It stars Ron Howard , Mackenzie Phillips , Harrison Ford , and other well-known actors/directors early in their careers. Teens frequently smoke cigarettes and drink. There's a fistfight, gunshots (no one gets injured), drag racing, a car explosion, and some strong language ("s--t," "damn," "ass," "hell," "bitchin'," and "spastic"). Teens challenge authority, drink and drive, talk about sex, and make out, and there's one shot of a naked backside during a drive-by mooning. There's not much diversity -- the cast is nearly all White, and gender norms are strictly enforced (plenty of street harassment is portrayed as OK behavior, a woman says "girls don't pay, guys pay," etc.). But the characters realistically portray the confusion around this age, as newly graduated high schoolers who have yet to start work or college. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (14)

Based on 4 parent reviews

It nails youthful nostalgia almost perfectly!

What's the story.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI is a coming-of-age dramedy set in Modesto, California, in 1962. Steven ( Ron Howard ) and Curt ( Richard Dreyfuss ) are leaving for college. Over the course of a long last night, Steven and Laurie ( Cindy Williams ) resolve to date others, while Curt chases a mysterious blond woman ( Suzanne Sommers ) in a T-bird. Meanwhile, Steven's friend Toad ( Charles Martin Smith ) takes Steven's car and romances a girl named Debbie (Candy Clark). Another friend, John Milner (Paul Le Mat), wants to drag-race hotshot Bob ( Harrison Ford ). Unfortunately, Milner gets saddled with babysitting 13-year-old Carol for the evening ( Mackenzie Phillips ). Teens tangle with a gang, destroy a cop car, get into a car crash, and consult with DJ Wolfman Jack (playing himself). With varying degrees of anticipation and fear, the teens leave high school behind.

Is It Any Good?

Four years before he would make Star Wars , a then-unknown George Lucas set the standard for teen movies with this exceptional film . The cast is uniformly strong. Most of the young actors are famous now: Howard, Ford, Dreyfus, Sommers, and Phillips have all had long careers. And the soundtrack, virtually a greatest-hits collection from the early 1960s, includes recordings from such early rock legends as Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Fats Domino. The songs are beautifully woven into the movie's restless teenage world. Like the characters themselves, America in 1962 was on the brink of enormous changes, and Lucas captures that momentous feeling, tinged with uneasiness, in the exceptional American Graffiti .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how the teens in American Graffiti have just closed a chapter of their lives and whether they can relate. Teens: What phases of life have you completed? Elementary, middle, or high school? What do you think about the idea of moving away from everything you know?

How does American Graffiti compare with contemporary movies about high school kids? How is it different? The same?

Which characters do you most identify with? Which ones feel more remote? What are the similarities or differences that make you feel this way?

The teens in American Graffiti spend several hours aimlessly driving around. Do you experience a modern-day equivalent of this type of freedom? Or does this lifestyle feel rooted in the past? What are the pros and cons of growing up without any digital connectivity?

What do you think about the way characters flirt and date in this film? Are they relatable, or do teens pursue romance differently today? Are the aggressive tactics used by male teens in this movie acceptable? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : April 11, 1973
• On DVD or streaming : March 1, 1992
• Cast : Richard Dreyfuss , Ron Howard , Charles Martin Smith , Paul Le Mat , Cindy Williams , Harrison Ford
• Director : George Lucas
• Inclusion Information : Female writers
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Cars and Trucks , Friendship , High School
• Run time : 110 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : mature themes and sexuality
• Award : Golden Globe
• Last updated : January 28, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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American Graffiti Reviews

The primary interest of American Graffiti is its setting and the nostalgia that it conjures.

Full Review | Nov 8, 2023

American Graffiti is a classic coming-of-age flick that holds up rather well after 50 years. It may not be too heavy on plot, but it more than makes up for it with its charming characters, brought to life by a tremendous cast, and its rockin' soundtrack.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 6, 2023

I'm not sure I would have enjoyed their way of life, but it's a great one to remember, even if you didn't live it yourself, and it makes American Graffiti the ultimate nostalgia movie -- certainly the best teen-myth movie since Rebel Without a Cause.

Full Review | Oct 3, 2023

The movie has no resonance except from the jukebox sound and the eerie, nocturnal jukebox look.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2023

A surprise blockbuster hit with an enormous and lasting cultural footprint.

Full Review | Aug 26, 2023

Nothing much really happens as they hit the sock-hop, cruise the strip, grab a bite at the drive-in, and square off in a drag race on the outskirts of town. It’s more of a mosaic, jumping from character to character over the long, last night...

Full Review | Aug 19, 2023

George Lucas's “Great Gatsby,” his statement on his generation, and looking back, it’s clear that as popular as his later works became, this was his masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 10, 2023

A wistful picture about the twilight of American innocence, set on the precipice of the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam. It’s the last night of summer, in more ways than one.

Full Review | May 12, 2023

I admit it, seen it at least fifty times since 1973. Similar to Gone With the Wind American Graffiti packs a potent nostalgia which is why it always leaves you with a bittersweet ache.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 27, 2023

Like a lot of great nostalgia pieces (Meet Me in St. Louis, Summer of ‘42, Cooley High, New York New York, Dazed and Confused) it seems to get better the further it gets from its original release date.

Full Review | Jun 30, 2022

The ostensible narrative focus is Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the sensitive scholarship kid determined to break away, but the film, sometimes to its detriment, is more in love with the vibrant small-town milieu.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2021

I was, and remain, very tempted to add this film to my Top 100.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020

A fun-filled cultural snapshot imbued with classic rock and reminiscence.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 27, 2020

George Lucas has directed with a remarkably firm but unostentatious hand, two virtues equally rare in a young film maker.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2020

Without unnecessary nudging or underlining, Lucas beautifully establishes his characters as both enslaved to the image of themselves which the media have given them and permanently in need of its company.

Full Review | Mar 27, 2020

Stop reading this and go out and see it!

Full Review | Oct 2, 2019

... the music-filled picture still holds up nearly a half-century later.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2018

...it transports you to 1962, to a moment in American history in which all you had to worry about was your car, your music and your friends... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 5, 2018

The movie is a comic poem which celebrates the past but also catalogues its textures with telling precision. American Graffiti looks like no other movie, an achievement which is always the best measure of a truly gifted director.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2017

Maybe the best film about teenagers ever made.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 11, 2014

Accessibility Links

American Graffiti (1973) review — Harrison Ford’s charisma shines in this iconic drama

Challenge yourself with today’s puzzles.

★★★★☆ This landmark teen drama is vital to the history of American cinema. It’s a love letter from the Star Wars creator George Lucas to radio rock’n’roll (the use of a radio DJ voiceover was replicated by Reservoir Dogs ), drag racing (see The Fast and the Furious ) and the innate charisma of Harrison Ford.

His star-making appearance here, as racer Bob Falfa, was a dry run for Han Solo and he injects the movie with a welcome dash of scoundrel when he hisses at Charles Martin Smith’s nerdy Terry: “I ain’t nobody, dork!”

The ostensible narrative focus is Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the sensitive scholarship kid determined to break away, but the film, sometimes to its detriment, is more in love with the vibrant

Related articles

American Graffiti Review

01 Jan 1973

107 minutes

American Graffiti

George Lucas' second directorial effort - and his first big hit - was set in 1962 on the night before the graduating class of that year split up. An instant classic perfectly attuned to the mood of early 70s baby boomers who'd just woken up after Vietnam, Watergate and the hippie era. Besides setting Georgie and producer Coppola on the road to moguldom, this launched the acting careers of Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Candy Clark, Charlie Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Joe Spano, Paul Le Mat and Kathleen Quinlan, all of whom interact as cruising teens on the strip in Modesto, California, and take their first steps into the turbulent 60s. A funny-serious movie with gorgeous cars and colours and an amazing feel for the artefacts of an instantly vanished era.

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Metacritic reviews

American graffiti.

• 100 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert On the surface, Lucas has made a film that seems almost artless; his teenagers cruise Main Street and stop at Mel’s Drive-In and listen to Wolfman Jack on the radio and neck and lay rubber and almost convince themselves their moment will last forever. But the film’s buried structure shows an innocence in the process of being lost, and as its symbol Lucas provides the elusive blonde in the white Thunderbird -- the vision of beauty always glimpsed at the next intersection, the end of the next street.
• 100 The Hollywood Reporter The Hollywood Reporter The ingeniously structured screenplay by Katz, Huyck and Lucas offers up a load of wonderful characters who whirl about in ducktail haircuts and shirtwaist dresses, lost in the obscenity of American culture. Thanks to some of the most spirited, daffy dialogue since Lubitsch, their sweetness is deliriously funny. No matter how high the dramatic stakes become, the movie never loses its sense of humor, and although it has a lot to say, it's gloriously free of pretensions.
• 100 The New York Times The New York Times American Graffiti exists not so much in its individual stories as in its orchestration of many stories, its sense of time and place. Although it is full of the material of fashionable nostalgia, it never exploits nostalgia. In its feeling for movement and music and the vitality of the night—and even in its vision in white—it is oddly closer to some early Fellini than to the recent American past of, say, The Last Picture Show or Summer of '42.
• 100 Variety Variety Of all the youth-themed nostalgia films in the past couple of years, George Lucas’ American Graffiti is among the very best to date. Set in 1962 but reflecting the culmination of the 1950s, the film is a most vivid recall of teenage attitudes and mores, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast of relatively new players.
• 100 The Dissolve Matt Singer The Dissolve Matt Singer It isn’t simply a nostalgic movie, it’s a nostalgic movie about nostalgia. Lucas could have set the film in 1959, when Steve, Curt, and John were still in high school and still cruising night after endless night. Instead, Graffiti begins right as the fun is about to end, and gives its characters just enough self-awareness to recognize that this is last call at the party. George Lucas isn’t the only one mourning for this magical lost era; the characters onscreen mourn right along with him.
• 100 TV Guide Magazine TV Guide Magazine In a series of touching and telling vignettes, American Graffiti follows a memorable crew of small-town teenagers through one momentous night in 1962. Based on George Lucas' own teenage hot-rodding days in Modesto, California, the appeal of American Graffiti is in its fragmentary scenes; the nervous camera jumps from character to character to present a powerful collage of American youth on the brink of maturity and the complex experiences of the coming decade.
• 90 The Telegraph The Telegraph American Graffiti is more a collection of vignettes than a straight forward movie, and the quality of the different plots is a bit hit and miss. But American Graffiti's appeal has less to do with plot and more to do with seeing the USA of the early 1960s faithfully recreated in celluloid, and Lucas gets every detail right. From the diner waitresses on skates to the hokey-sounding slang to the sock hop line dances to the gorgeous soundtrack (which is a aural treasure trove of late 50s and early 60s pop), Lucas doesn't put a foot wrong.
• 83 The A.V. Club Scott Tobias The A.V. Club Scott Tobias American Graffiti is an unabashed nostalgia piece, but the poignancy of Lucas holding onto this memory only becomes clear at the end. For these boys, nothing would ever be the same again.
• 80 Empire Empire A funny-serious movie with gorgeous cars and colours and an amazing feel for the artefacts of an instantly vanished era.
• 80 Time Out London Geoff Andrew Time Out London Geoff Andrew Too full of incident to reflect a typical night in reality, it's nevertheless funny, perceptive, pepped up by a great soundtrack, and also something of a text-book lesson in parallel editing as it follows a multitude of adolescents through their various adventures with sex, booze, music and cars.
• See all 15 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for American Graffiti

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Classic Film Review: “American Graffiti” (1973) at 50 — Nostalgia as American Epic

“American Graffiti” was a culture-shifting blockbuster when it came out, a modestly-budgeted movie with a mostly-no-name cast that spawned a 1950s-early-’60s nostalgia boom that swam against the tide that gave birth to disco and punk.

Its warmth, innocence and fun, celebrating “car culture” in the middle of an Arab Oil Embargo, gave us “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley” on TV, movies from “The Buddy Holly Story” to “La Bamba” and oldies radio stations that endured well into the ’90s.

But looking at it anew, 50 years after it launched the career of George Lucas, passing over its impact on the culture, you can’t help but be struck by how beautiful it is — the glossy images, indelible, quick-sketch archetypal characters, the visual and aural grandeur of it all.

“American Graffiti” is an American Epic.

It’s about the allure of leaving for a bigger life vs. the pull of the comforts and security of home, the celebration of youth culture and nostalgia for its rituals, an eagerness to “grow up” battling the ease of a life of arrested development, curiosity and naivete contrasted with the first insights of worldly wisdom.

Director and co-writer Lucas plainly felt bittersweet, conflicted about it all, looking back on the early ’60s a mere decade after he lived through them. His film became his “Great Gatsby,” his statement on his generation, and looking back, it’s clear that as popular as his later works became, this was his masterpiece.

Lucas was recreating his rural, overwhelmingly white Modesto, California youth, serving up a sort of “Andy Griffith” past where the farm-town’s Latin populace is represented by a lone character, and the tiny number of Black residents didn’t register.

But race and a shift in the culture worked its way in, through the music and by this admission from annoying tween Carol ( Mackenzie Phillips ) about her favorite DJ.

“I just LOVE listening to the Wolfman! My mom won’t let me at home, because he’s a Negro.”

The four threads of the totally masculine story are firstly, the Great Romance. Ron Howard is Steve, college-bound and clumsily trying to extract himself from his steady girlfriend. Laurie ( Cindy Williams ) is the only girl to wear his #62 letterman’s sweater.

“Where were you in ’62?” was the movie’s poster tag-line. And Steve’s big George-Bailey-in-“It’s-a-Wonderful-Life” decision is whether he has the guts to hurt someone he loves. Howard is wonderful as the exasperated, conflicted and responsible center of the movie. Cindy Williams is here to break his and our hearts.

You Can’t Go Home Again if you Never Leave is the thread about Curt. Richard Dreyfuss is Curt, Laurie’s brother and just as college-bound as Steve. But even though Curt has no real ties holding him there, he’s conflicted about going to college way out East. He will spend this “last night” sampling the world he might be leaving behind, tempted by the mysterious blonde in the white T-Bird ( Suzanne Somers ), buffeted by all the people urging him to “LEAVE.”

“We’re finally getting outta this turkey town,” Steve pleads. Besides, you don’t “wanna end up like John.”

That would be John Milner (Paul Le Mat ), the Big Fish in a Small Town icon story thread. He’s an auto mechanic, and thanks to his yellow Little Deuce Coupe , the king of the illegal drag racing subculture. Like Wooderson, the “Dazed and Confused” character he inspired, Milner never left town, still acts like a juvenile and cruises every Friday night, looking for high school girls.

In Western terms, Milner’s the fastest gun. There’s always somebody new gunning for the legend. This night, that would be hotrodded ’55 Chevy cowboy Bob Falfa, played by future superstar Harrison Ford.

Curt? In a town of hot-rods and every V-8 under the sun, Curt drives a tiny Citroen 2CV. He’s plainly too hip for this ‘burg.

And the final thread is a Princess and the Frog story. Toad ( Charles Martin Smith ) is the runty mascot of them all, liked by everyone, respected by few. He figures his ticket out of that pigeon-hole isn’t leaving town. It’s Steve’s generous act of leaving Toad his ’58 Chevy Impala, fuzzy dice and all, to drive and take care of while he’s in college. Toad can reinvent himself in a town that thinks it knows him.

As we’ve seen him tumble off his Vespa pulling into Mel’s Drive-in, we know he’s got the steepest hill to climb. A lot of lies and misadventures trying to impress Deb ( Candy Clark ) lay ahead of him on this long, late-summer night.

As the music of the era — oldies from the ’50s, pre-Beatlemania/British Invasion pop and rock of the early ’60s — weaves in and out of the soundtrack, everybody in this narrative meets, flees or embraces his or her destiny.

The Dennis Lynton Clark production design of this picture is era-defining, and the 35mm Techniscope photography — the film had two directors of photography, with Lucas pitching in on some shots and Haskell Wexler “consulting” on the shooting — has a sheen that few digital shoots today could match.

But if you’re looking for the “Star Wars” saga to come in this film, you have to see beyond Harrison Ford and use your ears to do that. The seamless sound design (Walter Murch & Co.) uses music as the soundtrack of these lives. It is diegetic here , sounds that emanate from car radios — with every car radio tuned in to The Wolfman Jack Show — or a diner jukebox, with Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids recreating the hits of the day live at the Freshman Hop at the local high school.

A song introduces a shift in scene or a new sequence, heard in full, deep, stereophonic sound. Then we’re edited into the interior of this VW Beetle, that Chevy, Edsel, Buick or whatever , with the Wolfman pranking phone callers and promising that tonight “We’re gon’rock’n roll ourselves to DEATH.”

The genius of this film is its sense of dropping in on one night of lives being lived. School restroom primping rituals, eagerness to get your hands on “the hard stuff,” the liberation of having a ride for the evening, the security of having someone you want to ride around with, it’s all become cliches now. But when Lucas came at it, it was fresh.

“American Graffiti” is brimming with movement — the swirl of the high school hop, the whirl of motion at the drive-in, the cars “doing the loop.” Cruising, flirting, mooning, and peeling out as a mating ritual  isn’t limited to America, but it was invented and perfected here.

My favorite bits about it haven’t changed over the years. I laugh at the hilarious intimidation and then initiation of Curt into The Pharoahs, led by Bo Hopkins , every time it turns up. The famous Richard Dreyfuss laugh was introduced to the world in these scenes. How he kept a straight face among these goofy goons is a marvel.

And Curt’s fateful meeting with Wolfman Jack is quiet, touching and just a tad thrilling. He’s a kid stumbling into a creature of myth from the pre-Internet days when media figures could seem larger than life because who knew who this dude was, what he looked like or where he even broadcast from? Mr. “Ha’MERCY, baby” embodies the idol you meet, mentally cut down to size, and then swells back up in the memory as he is everything you want and hope him to be.

That’s been the journey George Lucas has taken through pop culture over the decades. Built up, an icon and emperor of an empire of his own creative imagination, losing style points and widely criticized before selling his brainchildren to Disney and regaining some of his obscurity as he did.

But fifty years on, we can look back, past the huge footprint he left on world pop culture, and watch this beautiful film that came directly from his adolescence and straight from his heart, a young man facing the first big choices life gave him and plunging on, straight into the nostalgia that would make him and entertain generations that followed.

He made “Where were you in ’62?” universal, a touchstone era and cultural shorthand for every “last night” of a “last summer” and the choices we all have to make at just that moment — move on or stay, grow up or — as we say today in an arrested development societal change that George Lucas helped engineeer — “cosplay.”

Label it as culturally significant or dismiss it as simply an astonishingly vivid snapshot, but there’s no way you can rewatch this close-to-perfect jewel of a film and not think “American Graffiti” is a defining modern American classic.

Rating: PG, fisticuffs, teen drinking, smoking, mild profanity

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Harrison Ford, Bo Hopkins, Mackenzie Phillips, Suzanne Somers and Wolfman Jack.

Credits: Directed by George Lucas, scripted by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:50

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‘Graffiti’ Ranks With ‘Bonnie and Clyde’

By Stephen Farber

• Aug. 5, 1973

SUPERLATIVES are dangerous, but sometimes hard to resist. George Lucas's “American Graffiti” is easily the best movie so far this year. Beyond that, I think it is the most important American movie since “Five Easy Pieces”—maybe since “Bonnie and Clyde.” The nostalgia boom has finally produced a lasting work of art.

“American Graffiti” opens a little uneasily, with an overdose of fifties camp: waitresses on roller skates at Burger City, double chubby chucks and cherry Cokes, snowball at the sock hop, the classic pop songs,. from “Rock Around the Clock” to “Teen Angel,” and the exotic lingo — “cooties,” “boss,” “bitchin',” “bod,” “dork.” For the first few minutes, the trivia threatens to get out of hand; one expects another “Summer of ’42,” or a “Grease” on wheels. But the movie deepens as it goes along. Its definitive, remarkably resonant portrait of adolescence transcends all generation gaps. On a budget of just over $700,000, and on a very tight shooting schedule — 28 days (28 nights, to be precise) — Lucas has brought the past alive, with sympathy, affection, and thorough understanding.

The film actually takes place in 1962, in Modesto, California, on the night before two high school graduates are scheduled to set off for college in the East. There is no conventional “story”; the movie has a freer musical rhythm, interweaving the adventures of four teen‐age boys as their paths crisscross during the night. Lucas uses all the resources of the medium to build his mosaic of impressions of small‐town life.

The soundtrack has a special importance. A nonstop stream of fifties music, punctuated with fragments of disk jockey's crazy freeform monologue, accompanies all the action. The radio is these kids’ lifeline, and by keeping it in the background of almost every scene, Lucas mesmerizes us right along with the characters. The music releases our own memories, and gives an emotional charge to everything on screen.

Great films absorb the audience in a distinctive world, and the garish night world of “American Graffiti” is vividly detailed, sometimes claustrophobic. But the film represents’ more than a technical triumph. The stunning screenplay by Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck is rich in characterizations, full of wit and surprise. First impressions can never be trusted. For example, John Milner (Paul Le Mat), the car freak who carries his pack of Camels rolled up in the sleeve of his T‐shirt, could be caricature of a greaser, but his sweetness and vulnerability keep undercutting his belligerent pose; he's the town Galahad, the protector of the weak and the helpless.

All the characters burst out of stereotype; they seem to have an independent life, and by the end they are so real that it's painful to leave them. The whole movie is brilliantly cast and performed. Lucas's technical flair was already visible in his first movie, “THX‐1138,” but his work with the actors in “American Griffiti” is a revelation. His gifts are prodigious; at 28 he is already one of the world's master directors.

Lucas has an interesting sense of social history. Set at the tail end of an era, the film freezes the last moment of American innocence.

Vincent Canby is on vacation. In 1962 the kids in Modesto still drive fifties cars, listen to fifties music, and pattern themselves after fifties culture heroes — James Dean, Connie Stevens, Sandra Dee. It's as if they were trying to make time stand still. They can't know how radically the country will be shaken and polarized by the cataclysms of the next few years; but they do have an intuitive sense that their culture is disintegrating. “The whole strip is shrinking,” the dragstrip champion Milner complains forlornly. “Five or six years ago it used to take a couple of hours and a whole tankful of gas just to make one circuit.” A little later he dismisses the Beach Boys’ new brand of surfing rock: “Rock and roll's been going downhill since Buddy Holly died.”

The transience of this world regulated by Ozzie and Harriet is always implicit, and the titles at the end of the film make the point explicit — probably overexplicit. That sense of impermanence gives the comedy its undercurrent of pathos. Everything seems precious because we know it can't last. “American Graffiti” conveys the feeling of a dream about to dissolve. The whole movie was shot at night, and Lucas and Haskell Wexler (credited as “visual consultant”) create a dream landscape; the cars glide through the darkness in a strange, hallucinatory Parade.

It seems as if several years are compressed into one night — a series of comic, terrifying, romantic adventures that represent the most hypnotic possibilities of small‐town life. The film isn't meant to be a naturalistic record; it's a carnival fantasy, a pageant of wonders, seen through the eyes of kids who don't want to leave. The class president, Steve (Ronny Howard) breaks up with his steady girlfriend (Cindy Williams), but they reunite at dawn. On this charmed night even the awkward, creepy boy nicknamed Toad (Charlie Martin Smith) can pick up a bouffant kewpie doll (Candy Clark) in his borrowed Chevy, and although he does everything wrong, he manages to win her anyway'Luckily for him, she thrives on disasters; she can accept anything but a routine evening.

Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the sharpest of the teen‐age quartet, is still trying to decide whether to go East to college, or stay at the mediocre junior college in town; the town has a strong hold on his imagination. On his last night he gets picked up by a gang of hoods, the Pharaohs, and although he almost gets killed carrying out their horrifying ultimatums, he proves himself to them and wins the chance to take part in their blood initiation. He even discovers a woman of mystery cruising main street — a blonde in a white ’56 Thunderbird who whispers “I love you” as her car passes his, and then disappears.

This shadowy woman in white embodies the magical promise of the familiar world. Cruising through town one summer night, a boy can see his old friends, meet glamorous or dangerous new people, experience just about everything — love at first sight, break‐up and reconciliation, felonious assault, a hairbreadth escape from a fiery death — from the sublime to the ridiculous. Why would anyone want to leave?

Yet in spite of everything that happens, nothing really happens. You feel stimulated by the drive through town, and you also feel trapped in the circle; there's no way out. For all the charm of this world, there is pain in it too — the constant pressure of testing yourself against the challenges of the tribe, the cruelty of adolescence at a time when behavior was regimented. The street is enchanted by night, transformed in the spectral glare of headlights. In the morning, everything, looks smaller, drabber.

Toward the end of the movie, the comedy is displaced by a growing sense of wistfulness and melancholy. Even Milner, the king of the road, feels strangely depressed by dawn, as he walks away from his latest victorious drag race. “I was losing. He had me, he was pulling away from me,” he tells the blindly idolatrous Toad. The triumphs that this world offers no longer satisfy Milner; he is nagged by a feeling of failure, the fear of time slipping away from him. He knows that his only future is in the car graveyard he haunts. One day his shiny yellow deuce coupe will be junked right on top of the legendary ’41 sedan he never had a chance to race.

For Curt the night ends with a visit to the Wolfman (played by the real Wolfman Jack), the disk jockey on the outskirts of town. To the kids, the Wolfman is Modesto's most exotic, resplendent culture hero. Some people say he broadcasts from a plane that never lands; others believe he lives in Mexico. But when Curt goes inside the radio station, he finds only a kind, befuddled man eating a Popsicle from a broken — down refrigerator. The Wolfman who stirs the town's imagination is a fictional character, the real Wolfman is a ragged Wizard of Oz, the great pretender. This encounter clinches Curt's decision to leave his childhood wonderland. At last he knows that the emerald city is a mirage.

But when Curt finally does leave town, we feel deeply torn — saddened by what he must sacrifice, relieved that he is breaking away. Somehow the sense of melancholy seems stronger. This emotionally complex film retrieves the exuberance of a carefree moment of youth, but by the end it is suffused with a feeling of lost mot.tunities, shattered possibilities. You feel sad for the kids who stay, equally sad for the boy who leaves. No decision is the right decision. Everybody loses. That blonde in the T‐bird is still on the highway as Curt's slaw takes off, tantalizing, elusive, unattainable; she will always be the one that got away.

The ambiguity of this film disturbs whatever preconceptions one brings to the theater. I don't happen to share the current nostalgia for the fifties — a period of apathy, complacency, and anti‐Communist hysteria — but found myself irresistibly drawn to the world created in “American Graffiti.” That's because the film is free of special pleading. It acknowledges the insularity of the fifties, but it also recalls the innocence and the sense of community — the shared language, music and humor that contributed to the last authentic national folk culture. The kids who left home in 1962 didn't know they were embarking on a journey across centuries. We have to contemplate their innocence with mixed emotions.

In thinking about the past, one almost always distorts it — either sentimentalizing it or indicting it by applying the standards of the present.

“American Graffiti” takes us inside the gaudy, swollen universe of the fifties; it sees the period whole, without settling for easy judgments.

The film has the spirit of rock music — bold, confident, colloquial, casually lyrical, unpretentious but evocative; it is a tribute to the beauty of American graffiti. Although it is a highly personal film, drawn from Lucas's own experience (he grew up in Modesto and was graduated from high school in 1962), it has the universality of the greatest popular art. Part of the experience of moviegoing Is private dreaming in the dark; but the best movies create a fragile community of dreamers.

That is why movie houses are still on occasion the true churches of the twentieth century. On the streets everyone is isolated, but sometimes when the lights go down in the theater, the current that races through the house overwhelms all differences, dissolves all barriers. “American Graffiti” connects with an audience in a way that few movies ever have.

The only thing that worries me is the thought of all the exploitative fifties nostalgia pix that this movie may spawn. “American Graffiti” happens to reflect the public's yearning for the innocent contentment of the fifties, but the special excitement of the film is that it takes us beyond nostalgia —into a rediscovery of the past, and of memories that might have been lost forever. For those of us in Lucas's generation, watching “American Graffiti” is like going home; it's a primal experience, and the deeply conflicting feelings that it stirs cannot possibly, be resolved.

Clemens Kallscher

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American Graffiti

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Release details.

• Duration: 110 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: George Lucas
• Screenwriter: George Lucas, Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
• Charles Martin Smith
• Cindy Williams
• Harrison Ford
• Richard Dreyfuss
• Candy Clark

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American Graffiti Ending Explained: The Calm Before The Storm

Before the mammoth success of "Star Wars," George Lucas  directed and co-wrote (along with Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck) the 1973 coming-of-age film " American Graffiti ." A nostalgic slice of Americana pie filmed in a warm, naturalistic style, " American Graffiti " is the simple, wistful story of a group of California teenagers spending one last night together after their high school graduation in 1962. There's the best friends Curt Henderson ( Richard Dreyfuss ) and Steve Bolander ( Ron Howard ), the drag-racing John Milner (Paul Le Mat) and the nerdy Terry "The Toad" Fields (Charles Martin Smith). Harrison Ford makes an appearance as Bob Falfa, John's drag race rival. 

They cruise the Modesto strip while listening to their favorite rock and roll songs, contemplating what lies ahead of them in their adulthood. Lucas uses the soundtrack to emphasize the carefree wonder of the teenagers' current lives and what they will be leaving behind. Curt has second thoughts about leaving his home with Steve to attend an East Coast college. Steve, on the other hand, looks forward to this change and tries to convince his devoted girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams) to break up so they can date other people. Terry meets the high-spirited bombshell Debbie (Candy Clark). The night unfolds with drag races, chasing a mysterious blonde in a Thunderbird, and listening to DJ Wolfman Jack on the radio.

Lucas' ending sees Curt and Steve's roles reversed: Steve promises to stay with Laurie after witnessing John and Bob's explosive drag race, and Curt bids goodbye to his parents and friends. While looking out the window of his plane, Curt sees the white Thunderbird driving below. Yearbook-style photos of the four male leads appear in a shot of the sky next to writing that reveals their adult fates. The inclusion of this title text drew some criticism.

What happens after 1962?

The title card states that John was killed by a drunk driver in 1964, Terry was declared missing in action near An Lộc in 1965, Steve works as an insurance agent in Modesto, and Curt is a writer living in Canada. Writers Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck did not agree with the inclusion of this epilogue. First, they were offended by Lucas' erasure of the female characters. So was Pauline Kael, who accused Lucas of misogyny in her New Yorker review (via S-UISH ):

"Using women (and not only women) as plot functions may be a clue to the shallowness of many movies, even of much better movies  —   American Graffiti , for example. The audience at American Graffiti appears to be ecstatically happy condescending toward its own past — how cute we were at seventeen, how funny, how lost — but for women the end of the picture is a cold slap ... At the close, it jumps to the present and wraps up the fates of the four principal male characters as if lives were set ten years after high school! — and it ignores the women characters. This is one of those bizarre omissions that tell you what really goes on in men filmmakers' heads."

Huyck and Katz also found the characters' futures depressing, but this only adds more pathos to the film. "You can't stay 17 forever. We're not kids anymore," Steve tells Curt, and Lucas chooses not to remember his characters that way; instead, he briefly shows how the revolutionary 1960s affected them. "American Graffiti" purposefully takes place in 1962, exactly one year before John F. Kennedy's assassination changed everything. Kennedy's death turned America into a counterculture battleground, and George Lucas telegraphs a breezy time period for America's youth that would soon disappear. 

How do the title cards impact "American Graffiti"? Filmphest argues "they do provide a contrast of the carefree past with the more troubling future, but they also kill some of the mystique around the picture and unnecessarily close events that could have been left more open-ended." I feel the details of the characters' destinies, some more somber than others, adds to the poignancy of Lucas' tender nostalgia; he depicts a blissful time in the teenagers' lives that will never happen again, and knowing how they end up makes their final night together even more bittersweet.

A strange sequel depicts the characters' adult lives

But there is more to the characters' stories. Bill L. Norton wrote and directed a bizarre sequel entitled "More American Graffiti," which follows most of the original characters (sans Richard Dreyfuss' Curt) during New Years Eve from 1964 to 1967. Norton sets each sequence apart using different formal techniques meant to capture the chaos and fragmentation of the counterculture era. For example, during the 1965 sequence in Vietnam, Norton uses grainy 16mm film with a hand-held camera on to evoke war reporters' footage.

"More American Graffiti" shows the core group of "American Graffiti" experiencing the cultural upheaval of the women's lib and anti-war movement. John is still a drag racer, and he falls in love with a woman from Iceland before heading off to his untimely death. We see Terry in Vietnam, so desperate to escape that he actually fakes his own death and hides in Europe, hence he's only stated as "missing in action." Debbie is now a hippie who becomes a country-western singer. Steve is married to Laurie and they have two children, but he resents her desire to start working. Laurie gets embroiled in Vietnam War protests with her draft-dodging brother, Andy. 

Janet Maslin of The New York Times panned "More American Graffiti" as "grotesquely misconceived, so much so that it nearly eradicates fond memories of the original." In his review for The Washington Post , Gary Arnold critiqued Norton's visual experimentation: 

"All this fussy, arbitrary switching of scenes, years and aspect ratios may wow them back in film school, but the complicated framework reveals nothing but one inconsequential or misleading vignette after another. Norton doesn't achieve a true dramatic convergence of parallel stories; and his historical vision is confined to cheerleading reaffirmations of all the old counterculture cliches about war, cops, Women's Liberation, you name it."

In 2021, The Guardian 's Matt Mitchell encouraged audiences to reappraise the film as "an experimental love-letter to teenage omnipotence becoming adult mortality ... There is a beautiful melancholia lurking beneath the comedic surface. It's an empathetic look at the distances in which our sorrows can migrate." 

While the impact the late 1960s had on the characters is certainly worth expanding on, the beauty of "American Graffiti" lies in its nostalgic preservation of an optimistic time in America. The title card at the end of "American Graffitti" does a great job of addressing the turbulent changes that were to come while still preserving the film's innocence. Whether or not you accept "More American Graffiti" as canon is up to you. 

American Graffiti Blu-ray Review

Director george lucas dials the clock back to the 1960s..

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American Graffiti (1973)

Hollywood century, 1973: in which fresh cinematic modernism is used for rampant nostalgia, and all the new hollywood kids are pals with each other, connect with us.

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Hear me out: why More American Graffiti isn’t a bad movie

The latest in our series of writers defending unloved films is a defense of a sequel with more to it than people originally saw

A fter Bill L Norton’s More American Graffiti hit theaters in August 1979, Janet Maslin called it “grotesquely misconceived” in the New York Times. The movie still holds a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes and, since its release, has been largely forgotten. But just like 2008 Kentucky Derby racehorse Big Truck, More American Graffiti was thrown to the wolves under the guise of a pitiful, boring title and high expectations. At the box office, the future Oscar-winner Apocalypse Now and the audacious Life of Brian ran the gamut – so More American Graffiti had to be a near perfect sequel in order to outshine its competition sweeping the US. It wasn’t.

The movie’s predecessor, 1973’s American Graffiti, was a perfect film. A baby boomer’s chef d’oeuvre. An Oscar-nominated encapsulation of suburban American idealism, positioned before the looming culture shift as the first troops touched down in Vietnam. It had the sitcom star Ron Howard and the future Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss. On the flipside, More American Graffiti was seen as a messy experiment – a movie not just decimated by Dreyfuss missing in the cast, but also by failing to nail the transition from the original’s late-night car cruises and doo-wop chart-toppers to a distinctive and differentiated riff on a decade-old counterculture.

Still, More American Graffiti does right in honoring the original by capitalizing on its narrative formula, in that it properly balances the lives of all of its protagonists – but this time not over the course of one summer night, but four consecutive New Year’s Eves. Milner (Paul Le Mat) is competing in an amateur drag-racing league in 1964; Toad (Charles Martin Smith) fakes his death during the Vietnam war in 1965; Debbie Durham (Candy Clark) falls in love with a honky-tonk singer in 1966 after Toad was reported missing in action; conservative suburban couple Steve and Laurie Bolander (Howard and Cindy Williams) are raising twin boys while their marriage falls apart in 1967. Each year is shot differently, ranging from super 16mm used during the Vietnam war chapter to the multi-angled split-screen shots reminiscent of the Woodstock concert film in the Haight-Ashbury scenes.

But to me, what defines More American Graffiti is the earnest attempt it makes at remembering. Like its predecessor, the film is eulogizing something . In American Graffiti, it was an era loved and longed for by the people who lived through it; in the sequel, it’s the memory of a now-deceased friend carried on by four people widely separated from one another, as if they are each living in four different worlds, or in four different films.

Where American Graffiti was immediately a breathing time capsule full of familiar faces that an entire generation could always return to, More American Graffiti was seen as unnecessary – released in the era before sequels became blockbuster endeavors. Movies like Jaws 2 and Beneath the Planet of the Apes, were obvious studio cash-grabs recycling exhausted ideas but More American Graffiti is an experimental love-letter to teenage omnipotence becoming adult mortality – with the urgency of foreshadowed devastation at the center of it all. The viewer knows Milner dies at the end, but the quick mentions of the anniversary of his death, the way each character’s memory of him is still so clearly palpable, reminds us that, yes, these characters have grown apart from each other, but they are still tethered together by the grief filled with Milner’s absence.

That’s what makes More American Graffiti so compelling, that there is a beautiful melancholia lurking beneath the comedic surface. It’s an empathetic look at the distances in which our sorrows can migrate. Early in the movie, Toad breaks the news to Milner about his upcoming deployment, to which Milner ironically retorts: “Just come back alive.” The story then ends 12 hours later, as the cast communally sings Auld Lang Syne at the break of midnight, while Milner drives his famous yellow Ford Coupe towards the car crash that will kill him. When his car disappears into the California landscape, the grief surrounding his death takes immediate shape in the collective suffering of what characters are still left to remember him.

More American Graffiti is available to rent digitally in the US and UK

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American Graffiti: Special Edition

From director George Lucas (Star Wars) and producer Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) American Graffiti is a classic coming-of-age story set against the 1960s backdrop of hot rods drive-ins and rock n’ roll. Starring Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, and Suzanne Somers in their breakout roles this nostalgic look back follows a group of teenagers as they cruise the streets on their last summer night before college. Nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director American Graffiti features the howling sounds of Wolfman Jack and an unforgettable soundtrack with songs by Buddy Holly Chuck Berry The Beach Boys and Bill Haley & His Comets.

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

It's funny to watch George Lucas' 'American Graffiti,' his film remembering the good ol' days of his youth, as you quickly realize that this, his first critical and financial success, would mark the final time he directed a feature film not named ' Star Wars .' Sure, if you told Lucas back in 1973 that his space opera would become one of the greatest franchises in film history, he'd no doubt continue on with his work, but tell a man, who just finished only his second film, that he'd be stuck with one franchise the rest of his directing career, and who knows, maybe the face of cinema history would be entirely different.

As with ' Dazed and Confused ' decades later, 'American Graffiti' is a piece of pure nostalgia, a film that tells many stories, yet doesn't really have all that much of a focal point. The characters are together for one fateful night after high school graduation, before friends will be separated by different life paths, and what better way to say goodbye than to do the same thing they did every other night? Visit the drive-in, go cruising, attempt to score, go cruising, and then go cruising again, it's a lot of ground to cover in one night, but these teens in Modesto, California up to the challenge, all while the sounds of Wolfman Jack fill the Summer air, along with the rumble of engine roars and the excited screams of teenage girls.

Filmed in the areas around his hometown, Lucas' trip down memory lane can connect with audiences of any time period, regardless of their own personal coming of age tales or experiences. The characters are universal, even if they're a bit cliche and too varied to be effectively believable as a group of friends. You have the lovebirds Steve and Laurie (Ron Howard and Cindy Williams), who are going through growing pains, the thought of being apart for months creating an unforeseen rift in their otherwise problem-free relationship. There's the racer John (Paul Le Mat), who's looking for a good time with the ladies (ending up with Carol (Mackenzie Phillips), a girl a bit too young for his liking), while also on the ready for the next of his many racing challengers. Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) is possibly the normal guy of the bunch, the glue, who's looking for the girl who gave him the look earlier in the night, his last in town, while Toad (Charles Martin Smith) is the guy who would love to live life in Steve's shoes, and finally gets the chance when Steve loans him his '58 Impala. Each character brings about secondary characters, and so on, and we're given a little universe, fleshed out to the teeth, and believably so. The girlfriends, love interests, rivals, thugs, disc jockeys, and police officers all become as real as the four primary characters, with that strange sense of familiarity due to implied rather than excessively explained relationship, a storytelling ability Lucas would apparently forget in later projects.

The period music, bright neon lights, and believable locations, not to mention the cars, which are near impossible to see on the roads today, all of these elements truly put you in Lucas' shoes circa 1962, and you feel for the characters, like they're your own friends. If you don't personally relate with a character, you more than likely know someone just like them, so it still works. What starts out slow soon turns into a non-stop twisting adventure that is all-too relatable, with appropriate climaxes, plenty of laughs, as well as believable interactions, stories you root for, characters to root against, and awkward Harrison Fords (ok, just one Harrison Ford) to laugh at.

Did 'American Graffiti' deserve to win the Best Picture category over ' The Sting ?' In my eyes, no, as it has glaring flaws that require a bit of suspension of belief, as well as a horrible anticlimax that dampens the overall enjoyment of the film. The thought of a girl letting her underaged sister ride off with an obviously horny stranger in a fancy, shiny, super fast car for who knows how many hours in the dark should sound some alarms, but perhaps the film's best, most believable interactions come from the odd pairing, even if it screams creepy. The finale of the film brings nice closure, until a text screen reveals what would happen to each of the four main characters later in their lives. It really has no place in the film, as this isn't a film about tomorrow, it's about today...er, forty years ago, but still.

The Disc: Vital Stats

Universal brings their sole Lucas property to Blu-ray on a Region A/B/C BD50 disc, with no annoying pre-menu content. The menu ticker, however, makes up for that, as this may be the most annoying Universal ticker ever released.

Video Review

...If this were 'Star Wars,' I'd be on the front lines, up against the cops in riot gear, pushing towards the studio in question. I would be that hopping mad.

'American Graffiti' got tagged on Blu-ray, and I don't mean one of those artistic railcar pieces of "art." I mean misspelled words and phallic drawings, with the phrase "DNR wuz here!" taking up the most space. The 1080p VC-1 encode has problem after problem after problem. The age of the film shows, no doubt, and it's not fair to judge the film from that. Hell, if anything, it earns points for being so very, very clean. That's the end of my praise, though.

Crush is a frequent issue, with hair often disappearing mid-shot. Detail levels can vanish in a flash, with more than random softness popping up all over the flick. Noise is a minor issue, skin tones are frequently red and hot. Colors sap mid-scene at times, turning an already not-so vibrant picture that much flatter. Edge enhancement? On my Blu-ray? You better believe it, as it can be pretty damned strong at times. The worst, though, is the DNR that is all over the damn place. Clothing is randomly smoothed, with no texture, and no real transition between shirts and, say, a wall. Lines randomly disappear, as well, due to the artificial smoothing.

The entire film feels slathered in gunk, it's all difficult to look past.

Audio Review

The audio for 'American Graffiti' fares better, with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that is neither good nor bad. It just is.

It's great that dialogue is always discernible, and that prioritization isn't an issue in the least bit. However, separation can be a tad bit questionable at times, while the soundtrack, which is one of the film's highlights, doesn't feel all that clear at times, even if it does benefit from the random volume spike here and there. There really isn't any depth to the track.

Get ready for a mix that really shows its age, not that that's exactly a bad thing.

Special Features

Final thoughts.

A long, long time ago, George Lucas was able to make films that didn't involve lightsabers, twincest, or the Force. In 'American Graffiti' he cast a wookiee (who later went bald and created horrible movies of his own), but this flashback to 1962 will remind you of what you did, what your parents did, or, even, what your grandparents did in the old days of drive-ins and sock hops. Universal's Blu-ray release of 'Graffiti' sounds good, but looks like a huge steaming pile of sith. A shame, really, as this is a must own film, on a for fans only disc.

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