American Graffiti was released on this day in 1973. It's on our Movies In History list, which discusses it here:
American Graffiti
Like The Wonder Years, I've made frequent reference to this film recently. I was surprised when I started doing that, that I'd never reviewed it.
American Graffiti takes place on a single night in Modesto California in 1962. It's the late summer and the subject, all teenagers, are about to head back to school or already have, depending upon whether they're going to high school or college. Some are going to work or already working. They're spending the summer night cruising the town. That's used as a vehicle to get them into dramatic situations.
The story lines, and there are more than one, in the film are really simple. One character, played by Richard Dreyfus, is about to leave for college and develops a mad crush, in a single night, for a young woman driving a T-bird played by a young Suzanne Summers. Another plot involves a young couple, played by Ron Howard and Cindy Williams, who are struggling with his plan to leave for college while she has one more year of school. Another involves an already graduated figure whose life is dedicated to cars, even though its apparent that he knows that dedication can't last forever. The cast, as some of these names would indicate, was excellent, with many actors and actresses making their first really notable appearances in the film.
What's of interest here is the films' portrayal of the automobile culture of American youth after World War Two. This has really passed now, but it's accurately portrayed in the film. Gasoline was relatively cheap and access to automobiles was pretty wide, which created a culture in which adolescents spent a lot of time doing just what is depicted in this movie, driving around fairly aimlessly, with the opposite sex on their minds, on Friday and Saturday nights. This really existed in the 1960s, when this film takes place, it dated back at least to the 1950s, and it continued on into the very early 1980s. At some point after that, gasoline prices, and car prices, basically forced it out of existence.
For those growing up in the era, this was a feature of Fridays and Saturdays either to their amusement or irritation. As a kid, coming into town on a Friday or Saturday evening from anything was bizarre and irritating, with racing automobiles packed with teenagers pretty much everywhere. Grocery store parking lots were packed with parked cars belonging to them as well. "Cruising" was a major feature of teenage life, and nearly every teenager participated in it at least a little big, even if they disavowed doing it. While they did this, in later years they listened to FM radio somewhat, but more likely probably cassette tape players installed after market in their cars. In the mid 1970s it was 8 track tape players. In the 50s and 60s, it was the radio.
So, as odd as it may seem to later generations, this movie is pretty accurate in terms of what it displays historically. And, given that the film was released in 1973, a mere decade after the era it depicts, it should be. The amazing thing here is that by 1973 American culture had changed so much that a 1973 film looking back on 1962 could actually invoke a sense of nostalgia and an era long past.
The music and clothing are certainly correct, as is the cruising culture. I somewhat question the automobiles in the movie, as most of those driven by the protagonists are late 1950s cars that wouldn't have been terribly old at the time the movie portrays, but a person knowledgeable on that topic informed me once that vehicles wore out so fast at the time that people replaced them fairly rapidly, which meant that younger people were driving fairly recent models. Indeed, looking back on myself, I was driving early 1970s vintage vehicles in the late 1970s.
The music, which is a big feature of the movie, is also correct, which ironically often causes people to view this as a movie about the 1950s, rather than the early 1960s. The music of the early 60s was the same as that of the late 50s, and music from the 50s was still current in the early 1960s, so this too is correct.
This movie was a huge hit, and it remained very popular for a very long time. It's justifiably regarded as a classic. More than that, however, it's one of the few movies that influences its own times.
Already by the 1970s there was some nostalgia regarding the 1950s. Sha Na Na, the 50s reprisal do wop band, actually preformed at Woodstock, as amazing as that seems now. By the late 1960s seems felt like such a mess that people were looking back towards an earlier era which they regarded as safer, ignoring its problems. American Graffiti tapped into that feeling intentionally, although it has some subtle dark elements suggesting that not all is right with the world it portrays (the film clearly hints that a returned college graduate student is involved with his teenage female students). George Lucas, when he made the film, couldn't have guess however that it would fuel a nostalgia boom for the 1950s like none other.
From our entry:
One of the really remarkable things about this film, well worth noting, is that it depicted a night in 1962. That means, of course, that it was depicting, with nostalgia, something that had happened only ten years prior and yet already seemed like an earlier era.
Do we feel that way about 2013? I doubt it.
This demonstrates that our perception of the decades not only depends upon years, and the years we've lived but also on events and eras. What made the 1962 seem like history in 1973?
Well, probably quite a lot. The US entered the Vietnam War and had just left the country in defeat, although the collapse of South Vietnam was yet to come. The US had landed men on the moon more than once. The Great Society had come and gone. A U.S. president had died violently. Inflation was racking the nation.
And 1968, which is to say "the 60s" had come, and was just leaving, although that was not apparent.
By the 80s, those who had "experienced the 60s" were looking back on some of it fondly, although they weren't looking back on the Vietnam War fondly. So the process slightly repeated itself. But by 1973 people were really aware that the post World War Two world had really passed. It wasn't as carefree as depictions of the 1950s would have it, not by a long shot. But a lamenting of what had been lost was starting, and in some ways, has very much returned.
Looking forward, it was on this day that "hip hop", or "rap" was born when Jamaican born Olive Campbell introduced the form under the stage name DJ Kool Herc at a party organized by Campbell and his sister, that being the Bronx, New York, Back To School Jam.
The Soviet Union sentenced for men to death and three to prisoner terms for collaboration with the Germans while they were members of the Red Army during World War Two.
The Icelandic Coast Guard ship ICGV Óðinn rammed the Royal Navy's HMS Andromeda off the Icelandic coast in a violent exchange in the Cod Wars.
