Despite The Captain’s best efforts to get me to review The French Connection as an homage to the late great Gene Hackman, I went a different direction. (I’m still waiting for the check to clear on the first movie review, so I figure I can have some latitude in which movies I pick to review.)
If the premise of these movie reviews is to focus on the cars in the film and have everything else be incidental, then American Graffiti just makes sense. Let’s face it, the whole movie is filmed in, around, through, and in relation to CARS. It’s just a logical choice for this to be the second movie featured. But before we get into the significance of the cars, what’s the significance of the movie itself?
American Graffiti, released in 1973, takes place on one night in 1962. The world depicted on this night, the last one of summer, wouldn’t be the same afterwards. In October of that year the Cuban Missile Crisis took place. The following fall Kennedy would be assassinated. By the time the film was shot, the Beatles, the British Invasion, Watergate, and the first Arab Oil Embargo would have forever changed America into something nobody expected it to be in 1962.
Some have called the movie a ‘coming of age story’. They’re wrong. The movie is a good-bye to what America once was as it spins uncontrollably into what it was soon to become. Cars, music, politics, and the American way of life were all about to be thrown into a blender and stirred up. This was a farewell to the past.
Cars are the tools used to tell much of the story. Boys in cars looking for girls. Girls in cars hoping to be found. Cars cruising up and down Main Street, their passengers hoping to be seen. Cars meeting up on deserted roads at sunset vying for prominence on the blacktop, speed being the perfect metaphor for manhood testing its limits.
The other thing that makes this film a classic is the number of people who were launched into super stardom shortly after being associated with it. This is the movie that made director George Lucas his first million dollars, producer Francis Ford Coppola his second million dollars, and pushed actors Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Suzanne Somers, and Harrison Ford onto the scene in ways that would launch stellar careers for all of them. These people, in front of or behind the camera, would have a major influence on American film for the next half century. But in this 1973 movie set firmly in 1962, they were all young and fresh and relatively new to their craft.
Whereas the film is metaphorically about America saying good-bye to its past, it is nostalgically about a group of friends saying good-bye to one another on the last night of summer. Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys and Bill Haley & His Comets provide the soundtrack for the melancholy tale as the stars cruise the streets for the last time, the futures they’re heading to uncertain.
What are the cars that are the stars of this flick?
Let’s start off with the 1958 Chevrolet Impala Sports Coupe driven by Ron Howard. A perfect choice for his character, Steve Bolander, to drive. His Impala, Chevrolet’s first iteration of the model, would have been four years old at the time, but the Impala was the most popular car in America throughout the 60s. The car that symbolized Everyman had a chance at the American Dream. Bolander’s Impala was lightly customized, with stripes and a raised rear end, showing that even the most popular car on the American road could still be custom tailored and adapted to show the free spirit of the man behind the wheel.
An interesting automotive choice for Bolander’s girlfriend, Laurie (Cindy Williams), to drive was another 1958 model, an Edsel Citation. Technically the Edsel would have belonged to her parents. What self respecting young attractive girl in 1962 would purchase an Edsel sedan for her personal mode of transportation? But the Edsel was an interesting choice to be featured in the film, for sure. Perhaps it was used to call attention to the biggest mistake in automotive history up to that point. Maybe the purpose was to point out that American Business, the engine that drives the growth and prosperity for America, and the world, is not infallible. Perhaps it was a subtle warning . . . “Look out America! There could be another Edsel around the corner, an even bigger failure!”
A trifecta of automobiles provides a nod to three different unique visions of the American car culture: Bob Fall’s (Harrison Ford) 1955 Chevy, John Milner’s (Paul Le Mat) 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe, and a 1951 Mercury Custom Coupe driven by the Pharaohs, a local gang. Each of these choices is iconic on its own merits, easily recognizable for their unique take on what a cool custom car should be. Whether your particular choice is to chop and lower, swap engines and hot rod, or modify and make it faster, the vehicle that best represents your fantasy is fully on display in the film.
Of course, one of the more memorable cars of the film is the one barely seen, usually only glimpsed at lights and intersections as it makes its way off camera towards destinations unknown. Suzanne Somers behind the wheel of a white 1956 Ford Thunderbird proves to be the perfect combination for any red blooded American male to question his future choices, which Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) quickly does.
Of course, Curt has other questionable choices that need to be pointed out, mainly his own choice of transportation, a Citroen 2CV. While parked for most of the film, the blue Citroen is unique because of the fact that it was a pretty rare car, even for Southern California. Even more so because it is a 1967 model in a film that is set in 1962. Lucas later said he thought he could get away with the inconsistency due to the fact that there was little change in appearance of the Citroen 2CV since it had debuted in 1948. It does provide an opportunity for you to win a bet next time you’re debating New Guy at the Lucky Lady.
While these seven cars are the ones most significant to the telling of the story, a film shot on set the streets of a small California town in 1962 is going to provide a plethora of other great car shots, as well. There are other Fords, Buicks, Pontiacs, and Oldsmobiles featured throughout the film. A steady stream of American iron makes its way in and out of the parking lot of Mel’s Diner throughout the evening. There’s even a 1961 Ford Galaxie sedan that becomes airborne in a prank involving its rear axle being chained to something as the unknowing officers inside make a quick departure in pursuit of illegal activity that is destined to go unpunished.
In reality a Galaxie series Ford would have never been used. Rather, a Custom or Fairlane model would have been the choice of police departments all over America, but I won’t hold it against George Lucas for getting it slightly wrong on this one.
While the cast and the cars cruise the streets, Wolfman Jack spins the tunes that are the backdrop for everything else that takes place. The music just enhances everything else taking place in the film, providing for the ears what the cars do for the eyes.
Does the film have the gift of the depth of plot? Hardly. There are Captain My Captain stories with deeper plot lines and more twists, and that’s not high praise. But it resonated with audiences 50 some odd years ago, and it still does. Particularly if you are of a certain generation that enjoys the cars, the music, and the remembrances of a simpler time. Lucas made the film for $750,000, an amount he’d spend for just a few props in the Star Wars features that would follow a few years later.
I’m going to say that the sum used on American Graffiti was more wisely spent. I give it a 10 out of 10.
This has been your CMC Auto Movie Critic, Jimmy Don Ventura, saying “See you at the Prairie-Twin Drive In.”
