American Graffiti

Happy Independence Day to all of my online readers! To celebrate this patriotic day, I will be reviewing a classic coming-of-age movie directed by the great George Lucas, “American Graffiti,” released in 1873.

This was Lucas’ second directorial effort, and his first huge film that took place in 1962 on the night before these graduating high school friends separated. Empire said it right in their review, “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 making Lucas and producer Francis Ford Coppola on the path to popularity, this started 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 who interact as teens driving through the night on the strip in Modesto, California, and get their first tastes in the unstable 60s. A funny-serious movie with great cars and colors and a great feel for the artifacts of an instantly gone time.

Sad to say that this film was a victim to a horrible sequel that came out in 1979, “More American Graffiti.” This tried to re-create the work of George Lucas’ classic and was a risky movie for director Bill Norton, which wasn’t successful. The real reason was that the sequel did split-screen imagery. Margaret Moser noted in her review, “It looked great onscreen in the theatre but loses so much when reduced to even a 27-inch television screen.” This also came out six years after the first one, so that even growing the characters rightly ruined some of the original’s greatness. With most of the main actors returning, “More American Graffiti” does mange to keep some of its dignity and rightly moves the story into the place of political protest and cultural change. Moser said, “A montage of scenes at the beginning takes the viewer from balmy California to napalm-y Vietnam and sets the scene for social and personal rebellion.” “American Graffiti” mainly focused on the male characters, “More American Graffiti” notices the growing of feminism in American in two completely different ways. Cindy Williams in Laurie Henderson Blolander, the former cheerleader who married her high school sweetheart (Ron Howard), wants a more meaningful life than a house in the suburbs with two kids (Mark and Michael Courtney). Moser said, “Clark's character Debbie Dunham has already liberated herself physically from platinum bouffant to straight hippie hair, but inside she longs for a more traditional marriage. The split screen is distracting enough, but it is the choppy scenes representing the passage of time that make the story hard to follow.” However, “More American Graffiti” is not without its moments and Cindy Williams’ moment of realization, where she goes up against authority to lead a police car full of women in singing Baby Love, is great. (Texas audiences will enjoy seeing the late Doug Sahm in great shape as the crazy singer of a band called Electric Haze.) Like the first movie, “More American Graffiti” ends caringly, and to its credit isn’t weak on the original’s serious reflection into the future.

The first movie, as you can instantly think, is a classic that must be seen by everybody. If you haven’t seen it, make sure to watch it today. However, like I have already hinted at, the sequel is just one of the worst. Maybe not so much, but it’s one that shouldn’t have been made. You’ll see “if” you watch it (The key word being “if”). I think everyone shouldn’t watch the sequel and just stick to the first one, since that is amazing.

Once again, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day. I hope everyone enjoys today, make sure to go out and enjoy the fireworks, and just be safe. I’m not sure if I will be going out tonight to see the fireworks, but we’ll see.

Stay tuned this Friday for what I have in store everyone this month.