*****TWIN BARREL-CARB SPOILERS!*****

After the arguably unjust box office failure of his arthouse-dystopian sci-fi film “THX-1138” (1971), George Lucas was challenged by his mentor and American Zoetrope producing partner Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather” trilogy, “Apocalypse Now”) to do something challenging to his own avant-garde sensibilities, which, for young George Lucas, meant creating a warm, humorous, character-driven teen comedy for well under a million dollars.

Aided in the screenwriting (which Lucas admits is not his strong suit) by the spousal writing team of Willard Hyuck and Gloria Katz (“Howard the Duck,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”), Lucas created a semi-biographical coming-of-age comedy about several recent high school graduates and townies coming together over a last night of dancing, cruising, drag-racing and romance before their lives diverge.  

The Characters

The admittedly-thin story for this otherwise charming and inspiring film is best synopsized through its core characters.

Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) is the popular high school class president who, at the beginning of the movie, is planning for college out of state after graduating the previous semester.  During this final all-night fling with his friends, he begins to question his current choices—and even his steady relationship with his girlfriend Laurie. Over the course of one night, Steve and Laurie break up at a school dance, and later reconcile after she’s nearly killed in the movie’s climactic drag race while riding with bad boy hot-rodder Bob Falfa.  After nearly losing Laurie, Steve recommits to staying home and attending community college with her.  We learn in the film’s coda that Steve later becomes a local insurance salesman.

Note: George Lucas was expected to work in and eventually take over his father’s office stationery business, but the younger Lucas decided to attend film school instead; a choice that greatly angered his conservative father.  Steve’s choice to stay behind in Modesto and become an insurance salesman is possibly a glimpse into the kind of ordinary life that Lucas avoided for himself.  Of course, actor Ron Howard was already an established child star, with a long-running role in “The Andy Griffith Show” (1960-1968) and cult films such as “Village of the Giants” (1965) as well as TV’s “Happy Days” (1974-1984), where he played a character (“Richie Cunningham”) superficially similar to Steve Bolander. Howard would go on to become an Oscar-winning director after paying his dues in Roger Corman’s famed ‘film school’ (i.e. on-the-job training in profitable, low-budget guerrilla filmmaking).

Laurie (Cindy Williams) is Steve’s girl, and she’s angered by his choice to “see other people” while he’s away at college, which leads to their breakup during a tense school sock hop (for youngsters reading this, sock hops were dances where you kicked your shoes off and literally danced in your socks). While Steve soon regrets his words, Laurie decides to sow her own wild oats with bad-boy drag racer Bob Falfa, and she’s nearly killed after Bob’s  crashes and explodes.  This near-death experience brings Laurie and Steve closer than ever, as Steve decides to stay with her and attend community college in Modesto.  We later see more of their future shaky marriage in the 1979 sequel “More American Graffiti” (which Lucas did not direct).

Note: The drag race that nearly kills Laurie after totaling Bob’s car is loosely based on the life-changing car accident that nearly killed teenage George Lucas, who crashed his Fiat just before high school graduation. After several months of hospitalization, this near-death experience convinced would-be racer Lucas to rededicate his life to something other than racing. This choice would change the landscape of cinema forever.  Sadly, actress Cindy Williams (1947-2023) passed away from a mysterious illness a little more than a year ago at the time of this writing. Williams also costarred in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” (1974) before achieving her greatest fame in the “Happy Days” spinoff, “Laverne & Shirley” (1976-1983), where she proved to be wildly adept at physical comedy.

Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) is bound for college in Vermont after winning a local scholarship, and on the evening before his flight east, he begins to have nostalgic yearnings to remain in Modesto. Throughout the course of the movie, we see Curt chasing his ‘dream girl’ in a white Ford Thunderbird (Suzanne Somers), while improbably befriending a gang of toughs known as the Pharaohs, led by a guy named Joe (Bo Hopkins, 1938-1922).  After using his respectability to help Joe raise a bit of hell, the college-bound Curt then makes his way to a local radio station where he unwittingly meets the mysterious ‘negro’ disc jockey, “Wolfman Jack” (played by himself).

The Wolfman uses his influence to try and connect Curt with his mystery woman, but Curt is unable to meet her for a date, since he’s committed to leaving Modesto.  As Curt departs aboard his flight the following day, he looks down to see a white T-bird paralleling the runway. The coda tells us that Curt becomes a writer who now lives in Canada (presumably to avoid the Vietnam War draft).

Note: Curt is the opposite of Steve, as he ultimately chooses to leave the cradle of suburban Modesto to pursue his dream of writing.  Richard Dreyfuss, like costars Harrison Ford and Ron Howard, would break into mainstream success two years later with Steven Spielberg’s mega-blockbuster “JAWS” (1975) and would later go on to star in Spielberg’s grand UFO epic “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) before winning an Oscar for 1978’s “The Goodbye Girl.” Dreyfuss is still active in film and TV today.

Like Cindy Williams, actress Suzanne Somers (Curt’s dream girl) also passed away in 2023, after battling breast cancer. Somers achieved her greatest fame four years after the movie’s release with her role as Chrissy Snow for several seasons of TV’s “Three’s Company” (1977-1984).

Terry Fields (Charles Martin Smith), aka “Toad,” wears thick glasses and is a car-crazy kid who is put in charge of looking after his friend Steve’s treasured gleaming-white 1958 Chevy Bel-Air Impala (with red detailing) while he goes away to college (which he doesn’t, of course). Toad normally drives a Vespa scooter, so the loaner is a massive upgrade. What does the nerdy kid with Coke-bottomed glasses do with such responsibility?  Why, he takes it cruising, of course.  Over the course of the long night, he picks up a ditzy, but sweet-natured girl named Debbie (Candy Clark) who goes with him on various misadventures, which include trying to score a bottle of whiskey without ID, and spending most of the night looking for Steve’s car, which is stolen from a local makeout spot.  After finding the car in the hands of thieves, a beaten-senseless Toad eventually gets it back with the well-timed aid of his buddy, John Milner.  In the coda, Toad is reported missing in action near An Lôc in South Vietnam, three years later (fear not; we later learn in “More American Graffiti” that Toad faked his own death and moved to Europe).

Note: Nice to see that the ill-fated Toad got the girl at the end of the story. Toad, aka Terry, is the character Lucas has since confessed was most like himself, save for Toad’s MIA status in Vietnam. Lucas says he was a car-crazy kid who dreamed of engines and racing until his near-fatal car crash shelved that dream permanently.  Actor Charles Martin Smith, like costar Paul Le Mat, would go on to achieve a respectable level of fame in various memorable roles (“Deep Impact,”“The Buddy Holly Story”) but wouldn’t become a household name, unlike some of his costars.

John Milner (Paul Le Mat) is the movie’s rough-and-tumble townie who’s a cross between James Dean and Star Wars’ Han Solo; the guy with the cool ride and a heart of gold under his hood.  His bright yellow 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe is the fastest ride in town, and despite his rebel status, John’s always there for his buddies Steve, Toad and Curt (even if he doesn’t share their affinity for academia or conformity).  Over the course of the movie, Johns’s saddled with underage Carol—the cousin of a girl John was hitting on at a red light while cruising the boulevard.  The precocious kid develops a schoolgirl crush on John, and his grudging tolerance for her turns into genuine friendship. Their night ends when he feigns arousal in order to get her address so that he can drop her off at home (one of the few scenes that doesn’t hold up well).  As a token of their time together, John gives Carol his gearshift ornament before going off to challenge local speed demon Bob Falfa to a fateful drag race. The race ends in Milner’s favor, though he credits fate, not speed.  The coda tells us Milner was killed by a drunk driver two years later (another event chronicled in “More American Graffiti”).

Note: Paul Le Mat achieved a level of fame in indie movies and action/exploitation flicks, the most prominent being 1983’s sci-fi movie “Strange Invaders.” Sadly, Le Mat never quite achieved the stardom of some of his costars, though he gives a solid and believable performance in the movie (which earned him a Golden Globe for Best New Actor). Le Mat memorably played a violently abusive husband in the real-life inspired TV movie, “The Burning Bed” (1984), which starred the late Farrah Fawcett. That infamous role earned Le Mat another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a TV movie.

Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) is the precocious underage kid who very unwisely gets into a car with John Milner (no ‘Stranger Danger’ public service messages in those days) and develops a schoolgirl crush on the drag-racing tough guy. Carol has surprising insight for her age, and during the course of the movie, the two of them develop a bond akin to an older brother and kid sister, at least from his point of view.  

Note: Actress Mackenzie Phillips (daughter of musician John Phillips, of “The Mamas and the Papas”), later achieved fame in the TV sitcom “One Day at a Time” (1975-1984).  She was only 12 during filming, but she effortlessly holds the screen with actors more than twice her age, much like Oscar-winner Tatum O’Neal in “Paper Moon,” released that same year.  Sadly, like so many child stars, early fame took a toll on Phillips. Enabled by her incestuous father, she fell into a life of drug abuse. However, today she is clean and sober, and works at a drug treatment facility in Los Angeles.  She also costarred as a therapist in the Netflix reboot of “One Day at a Time” (2017-present).

Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford) is the local drag racing champion who drives a 1955 Chevy 150 and seems to be with a different girl in his passenger seat every time we see him.  One of the girls who becomes his ever-changing girlfriends is the jilted Laurie, who flees from her steady Steve, after he expresses a wish to “see other people.”  Bob is also on the prowl for John Milner—looking to meet and beat the local up-and-comer.  After treating Laurie to a terrible time (including an earache-inducing rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening”), Bob eventually faces John in a drag race, where he crashes his prized Chevy, and barely manages to escape the wreckage with Laurie before it bursts into flames.  The local speed king is dethroned.

Note: Pretty sure I don’t need to go too deeply into the career of the now legendary Harrison Ford, who also costarred in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” (1974), along with Cindy Williams.  Ford also had a small but pivotal role in Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979), the movie Lucas passed on to do 1977’s “Star Wars”, which launched Ford into superstardom. Ford’s many successes led to the “Indiana Jones” movies, and an Oscar nomination for 1985’s brilliant culture-clash crime drama “Witness.” Ford recently returned to the role of Indiana Jones for 2023’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, which sadly underperformed at the box office.

Real-life famed radio disc jockey Wolfman Jack (1938-1995), born Robert Weston Smith, appears in the movie as a fictionalized version of himself.  In this movie, Wolfman plays attempted matchmaker for Curt and his dream girl. Though the anonymous deejay denies being the Wolfman, he insists he’ll pass along Curt’s dedication. The movie’s Wolfman is a “Wizard of Oz”-type character who shatters a few illusions after Curt sneaks a peek at him using his character voice live on the air, after insisting the Wolfman was created entirely on tape.  Wolfman Jack also appeared as himself in a two-part episode of “Galactica 1980” (“The Night the Cylons Landed,” Parts 1 and 2). G1980 was a sequel to 1978’s “Battlestar Galactica” TV series which was unsuccessfully sued by 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm for copyright infringement of “Star Wars.”

Note: The movie’s soundtrack is an aural wall of classic rock carefully selected from hits of the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, with many tunes (“The Great Pretender,” “Ain’t That a Shame,” “16 Candles,” “Runaway,” “Only You,” “At the Hop,” et al) perfectly mirroring the main characters’ emotions like an unseen Greek chorus.  This is arguably one of the best ‘found-tracks’ in cinematic history, taking its place next to “Easy Rider” (1969) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994). 

Summing It Up

“American Graffiti” is a vivid, gritty, coming-of-age comedy shot in a natural, quasi-documentary style not too unlike writer/director George Lucas’ “THX-1138,” but with much warmer characters and a more easygoing humor (both of which are keenly lacking in Lucas’ more intellectual, esoteric first film).  Beyond established child star (and future Oscar-winning director) Ron Howard, “American Graffiti” is a virtual high school yearbook of future famous faces (Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Kathleen Quinlan, etc) who give the movie its strong emotional core.  

While teen movies would be greatly dumbed down in the decades to come (particularly those stupid teen sex comedies), “American Graffiti” still remains one the all-time best in that often dodgy subgenre.  Few such movies before or since have felt more gritty, real and honest, with outtakes even left in the final cut to give it greater authenticity (Toad’s early scooter crash at Mel’s, for example). The younger, scrappier George Lucas seemed to thrive on the constraints placed upon him by the movie’s paltry budget, making “American Graffiti” the “JAWS” of teen flicks.  

It’s the unique combination of gritty rawness and warmth that makes “American Graffiti” one for the ages.

Why “American Graffiti” Is Important Today

Now, to the real subject of this column; why is “American Graffiti” so important?  To be clear, it’s not so much about the film itself—which is a perfectly fine coming-of-age teen comedy—but rather through the impact of its legacy. This now 51-year old movie was a virtual launching pad of Hollywood up-and-comers, including former child actor and director Ron Howard (“Splash,” “Apollo 13,”), the late Cindy Williams (“Laverne and Shirley”), Harrison Ford (“Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones”), Richard Dreyfuss (“JAWS” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) and even supporting roles, including future Oscar-nominee Kathleen Quinlan (“Twilight Zone: The Movie” “Apollo 13”; the latter film directed by her costar Ron Howard).  

Not to mention the film was conceived by a certain young writer/director who would become a one-man entertainment empire who changed the cinematic landscape forever…  

In the short term, “American Graffiti” marked the beginning of a decade-long infatuation with all-things 1950s. Even though the movie was set in the early 1960s (hence its tagline, “Where were you in ’62?”), 1962 was a time still heavily influenced by the prior decade. The 1960s, as we think of them today, came about more in the mid-to-latter half of the decade; with the Jack Kerouac beatniks of the coffeehouses giving way to the looser, less-conforming, antiwar hippies of the communes. The early 1960s, as dramatized in “Graffiti” (and the more recent TV series “Mad Men”) were still very conservative in style and manner. 

A year before the debut of “American Graffiti” in 1973, there was a backdoor TV pilot aired as part of the anthology comedy series, “Love, American Style” (1969-1974). That segment, titled “Love in the Happy Days”(1972), would eventually get picked up as the popular TV series “Happy Days” (1974-1984) in the wake of “Graffiti”’s success.  The association between “Graffiti” and “Happy Days” was no doubt bolstered by former child actor Ron Howard, who appeared in both. The series also launched its own slew of spinoffs. The first being an “Odd Couple” variant titled “Laverne & Shirley,” which costarred “Graffiti” veteran Cindy Williams as the titular “Shirley” (the “Felix” to Laverne’s “Oscar”).  The 1950s fad spurred producers Alan Carr and Robert Stigwood into making a hit 1978 movie out of a 1950s-themed 1972 Broadway musical called “Grease” (the movie later spawned a lackluster 1982 sequel).

Still upset over Warner Bros executives’ interference with his 1971 feature film “THX-1138,” Lucas was then challenged to make “American Graffiti,” (titled “Another Quiet Night in Modesto” in earlier drafts), which became a huge box office hit ($115 million) on a modest production budget of roughly $750,000 (yes thousand, not million).  It was the success of the movie that steered the young filmmaker (who was just shy of 30 years old at the time) away from the troubled preproduction phase of “Apocalypse Now,” which was eventually made by Coppola after a hellish years-long shoot.  

Next up for the ambitious Lucas was writing and directing a modern-day homage to the “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers” serials he grew up with, but using modern filmmaking techniques, such as Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). After unsuccessfully attempting to secure the rights to “Flash Gordon,” Lucas began writing his own drafts of a story tentatively called (take a breath) “The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars.” This was later shortened to “The Star Wars” in subsequent drafts, and eventually to “Star Wars” upon its 1977 release (no “Episode IV: A New Hope,” which wasn’t added to the title until the movie’s rerelease in 1981, a year after the release of “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back”). Star Wars, of course, costarred Harrison Ford in the “John Milner”-ish role of Han Solo; the cool cat with the sweet ride…

The unexpected success of “Graffiti” afforded Lucas a bit of clout in Hollywood (a town he despised and couldn’t wait to leave—much like Curt), and he instantly parlayed that success into Star Wars, which became (as we know) one of the most successful movies ever made, and changed movies (and even how we watch and hear movies) forever. Lucas’ production company of Lucasfilm (created during the production of “THX-1138”) began to blossom. During production of Star Wars, Lucas and a select team of highly talented visual effects artists (John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, Bruce Nicholson, et al) created Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) which operated from a rundown warehouse in Van Nuys (a neighborhood littered with industrial warehouses), before moving to better digs in Northern California and eventually blossoming into a worldwide chain of Oscar-laden premier effects houses, with facilities in San Francisco, Vancouver, London, Sydney and Singapore. 

In 1979, Lucasfilm would co-create Pixar, which rapidly changed the nature of cartoons by use of bleeding-edge computer animation; creating a ripple effect that’s seen computer-generated images becoming a moviemaking staple, and even a bit of a crutch. This successive chain reaction (all spurred by the success of “Graffiti”) led to other advances in moviemaking technology, including THX theater certification in 1983. THX (named after Lucas’ first feature film) became a new sound and picture standard for cinemas to properly exhibit high-end movies.  Soon after, Lucasfilm, though its DroidWorks offshoot company, would pioneer non-linear digital editing in 1987 with the EditDroid.  Editors could now edit movies using digital files instead of cumbersome, delicate and easily-damaged strips of celluloid (something that can be done on my iPhone today).

It’s easy to think that “Star Wars” was the beginning of this moviemaking revolution, but when you look at the totality of Lucas’ career, it was “American Graffiti” that give him both the success, confidence and financial clout to make “Star Wars” happen.  Lucas’ struggles with the Hollywood studio systems (Warner Bros, Universal and later 20th Century Fox) eventually led to his creating his own studio, Skywalker Ranch, in Nicasio, California in Marin County (unlike Curt, Lucas’ own wanderlust came full circle).  The ranch itself was conceived and created to be a high-tech filmmakers’ retreat for fellow artists. Skywalker Sound, for example—one of the most advanced movie audio facilities in the world—is located there.  Today, Skywalker Ranch has its own resort hotel, and even its own fire station (!). 

Lucas would eventually sell Lucasfilm lock, stock and barrel to Disney for just over $4 billion in 2012, as he now chooses to focus primarily on his legacy. To that end, the new Lucasfilm Museum of Narrative Art is currently under construction in Exposition Park in Los Angeles (after scrapping plans to base it in Chicago). The museum is expected to open in 2025, and you can safely bet that I’ll do my damndest to be there when it opens to cover it for this column (see: A Movie Lover’s Dream; the Academy Museum).

The cinematic revolution that followed “Star Wars” came about through the success and stability afforded by “American Graffiti.” The snowballing effect of Star Wars’ own success led to Lucasfilm’s offshoot companies tackling even more ambitious projects, including the “Indiana Jones” movies (which each raked in similar box office hauls until the final film), as well as such groundbreaking movies as “The Abyss” (1989), “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991) and “Jurassic Park” (1993).

I was a mere ten years-old when I first saw “Star Wars,” so I witnessed this cinematic revolution unfolding as a young moviegoer, and there are times I almost feel sorry for the generations of film viewers since who aren’t able to fully appreciate the dramatic upheaval in cinema tech that came with Lucasfilm.  Lucas’ companies (ILM, THX, Pixar, DroidWorks, etc) ushered movies (often kicking and screaming) from fragile analog film stock and magnetic sound strips into the current digital age, where they’ve been ever since. 

And all of it came about thanks to the runaway success of one well-crafted teen comedy, shot for under a million dollars.  “American Graffiti” was the acorn that changed the topography of the entire filmmaking forest forever. 

Where to Watch

“American Graffiti” is available for digital rental and/or purchase from YouTube Premium, Prime Video, Vudu and Google Play ($3.99-up). The movie is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Amazon, as well as Barnes and Noble (where I bought my Blu-Ray copy); prices vary by seller.