Lucky to Be First

Looking back at American Graffiti now, though it is a very stylish and well-made film -- with a great soundtrack of music AND ambient sound --- it does seem very, very slight.

Consider: both American Graffiti(1973) and Animal House(1978) are set in 1962, but the latter is filled with hilarious dialogue pitched at a collegiate level. Whereas American Graffiti has a lot of teenagers...talking like teenagers. Also in 1978 , Grease did the American Graffiti thing, but with a ton of musical numbers and a cartoonish tongue-in-cheek. Again: American Graffiti is simply realistic in comparison.

American Graffiti inspired a big 70's hit TV show in "Happy Days" -- starring the star of American Graffiti, Ron Howard -- but that took on a life of its somewhat silly own, what with The Fonz and Laverne and Shirley and Lenny and Squiggy as elements and spin-offs.

Interesting: "Happy Days" is perhaps the one production that actually PRECEDED American Graffiti. Its pilot had been shown as an episode of "Love American Style" a coupla years before American Graffiti and when Graffiti hit big in '73, ABC dusted off the pilot(which starred Ron Howard BEFORE American Graffiti), moved it from the 50s to the early 60's and re-used the star of "Happy Days the pilot" AND "American Graffiti" (Ron Howard) in the series.

But still: "American Graffiti" came before the "accepted" version of Happy Days, and inspired it. Had there been no "American Graffiti," there would have been no Happy Days -- the series. The pilot would have stayed dead.

So..."American Graffiti" WAS lucky to be first. Its a more mundane and simple version of what would be more funny in Animal House, more gigantic and tuneful in Grease, more TV mainstream in Happy Days.

But back when none of those later projects existed, American Graffiti connected in a big , big way on its own.

Part of it was heavy nostalgia: "Where Were You in '62?" was a hook for the Americans(in the main) now in their early adult years who HAD been teenagers in '62 and DID remember that music, those cars, those phrases (As Time wrote of the film: "Bitchin. Superfine.")

And '62 HAD been the last year of innocence before JFK was blown away(1963), The Beatles came over('64), and the sixties got "heavy"(from Vietnam to Manson.)

Also: "American Graffiti" was about the last night of summer for graduated-Senior high schoolers about to make the move up to college...or not. And you could be a teenager in 1973 and relate totally to THAT.

George Lucas and his ace creative team made sure that the "simplicity" of American Graffiti was couched in Grade-A cinema: the cinematography, the weirdly haunting sounds(this movie and Hitchcock's Rear Window are movies where disembodied , echoing sounds take over the movie.)

And the narrative structure: from dusk til dawn. The last night of summer. High school into college...or not. At the start, one guy is flying off to college and one guy is backing out of making the same flight; and the end, the two guys have switched places.

And the symbolism: a pretty, worldy older woman in a white T-Bird who cannot be attained.

All of this meant a lot to audiences in 1973, across at least two generations. And if American Graffiti seems a bit too simple now, a bit too banal in the dialogue, well -- you had to be there.

PS. As someone wrote recently: "In 1973, this movie made you nostalgic for 1962. Today, it makes you nostalgic for 1973."

PPS. Not quite known at the time of release: how many stars aborning were in this film. Ron Howard was established but...we would get Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford and Candy Clark and Cindy Williams and (as the blonde in the T-Bird) Suzanne Somers and...