Reframe: American Graffiti

When American Graffiti was released in August of 1973, it was virtually impossible to imagine how a film about a group of teens spending their last night together after graduation in 1962 in Modesto, California could have become such a sensation. While in retrospect, the film sports a remarkable cast (Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, and Mackenzie Phillips), all pre-stardom. Only Ron Howard, who became famous as a child playing the Sheriff’s son, Opie, on The Andy Griffith Show, was a well-known actor. 

The film’s director George Lucas, had made only one movie before, the chilly dystopian sci-fi film starring Robert Duvall, THX 1138–a critical and financial failure that would later earn greater regard. The entirety of American Graffiti takes place over a single sleepless night as the main characters prepare, awkwardly, for their next steps in life. 

Howard’s Steve is looking to go away to college but wants to have his first roll in the hay with his girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams), to have something to remember her by. Steve is open about wanting to see other people once he leaves, and Laurie, quite reasonably, is reluctant to give herself to such a baldly callow and surprisingly aggressive young man, who is offering her nothing greater than a likely dissatisfying few minutes in the backseat of his car. 

Richard Dreyfuss’ Curt is almost painfully ambivalent about moving on to college. With a flight set for the morning, Curt still is unsure whether he will climb aboard, or stay in the relative comfort of Modesto. 

Paul LeMat’s John is sort of the “Wooderson” of American Graffiti, except his “never going to leave this town” character has a moral center that Matthew McConaughey’s now legendary Dazed and Confused character never had. The evidence of this can be seen when John is out “cruising for chicks” and ends up with Carol, a 12-year-old girl (a terrific Mackenzie Phillips) who may be just a little too eager to grow up, but John, rather decently (if in somewhat annoyed fashion) never takes advantage of her. Both John and Wooderson are the cool guys growing older in a town that will one day no longer see them as such once their hair grays and their hot rods get traded in for Pintos. 

Speaking of hot rods, Charles Martin Smith’s Terry is given Steve’s prized 1958 Chevy Impala to take care of while he’s at school and nearly loses the car out on the town with Candy Clark’s Debbie, a baby-doll voiced young woman that you can tell has been taken advantage of more than a time or two by a wayward scoundrel.

In a way, there’s not a lot to American Graffiti. It’s strange to think that a film made in 1973 had such a great nostalgia-based success while referencing a time that existed just a decade before. Much of the film’s effectiveness can be found in the smoothness of George Lucas’ direction. American Graffiti juggles its storylines so effortlessly that you might not notice between the elegant editing and the hit-driven needle drops that most of the film’s characters aren’t that interesting. 

A shortcoming that is partially defensible because most of us aren’t that interesting at eighteen years of age. Of the men, LeMat’s John (who other than Graffiti and Melvin & Howard has few notable screen credits), is by far the most compelling. While it’s not represented on the page, LeMat imbues his character with the sense that he knows his days as the town’s cool car guy are coming to a close, and that it’s more likely that he will end up being the lonely guy at the end of the bar. 

More could have been done with Dreyfuss and his character’s reticence, but there is a rather lovely scene in the back part of the film when Curt discovers who his favorite DJ is (Wolfman Jack, who rode the American Graffiti wave for a long time as a real disc jockey). Seeing that this mythical voice over the airwaves is just another human being, we are left to wonder if that’s all Curt needs to reach the tipping point of being ready to attempt to grow up. 

The Charles Martin Smith character is largely used as comic relief, and how amusing you find his Terry to be is likely to come down to whether you think a kid trying too hard to fit in and vomits after drinking far too much whiskey is funny or not. 

But it’s the Ron Howard character that I found most problematic. If anyone found Steve likable at the time, I would love for them to explain to me why. Steve’s entire goal for the night is to have sex with Laurie, and even when being kind to her, you are never for a moment unaware that carnal knowledge is his only focus. There is a moment at a dance when Laurie and Steve are swaying closely to a slow song where Laurie’s eyes well up with tears, and it’s devastating. The funny thing is, I’m not sure if Lucas (who seems to want us to like Steve) wants us to feel Laurie’s fear of losing him, or her disappointment in him seeing her as a last-second conquest. Perhaps it’s both. At that moment, Cindy Williams becomes the heart and soul of the film. 

This is why it’s so odd that Lucas does not treat her, Phillips’ Laurie, or Candy Clark’s Debbie as significantly as he treats the men in the film. I suppose Lucas can be understandably forgiven for the lack of diversity in his cast (only two characters of color are seen at a dance, and neither has any lines). But maybe it’s unfair to ask Lucas to add persons of color in a film made in 1973 when that was not the norm, and not necessarily reflective of his own experience (the film very much feels like the director’s memories captured on celluloid). 

But when the film concludes with a postscript telling you what became of Steve, Curt, John, and Terry, not a single word is shared about Laurie, Debbie, or Carol. Hindsight is always 20/20 when looking back at a film that is now over fifty years old, but even so, I think it’s fair to take American Graffiti to task, not for its lack of feminism, but for not understanding that the audience genuinely cared about these young women. 

At minimum, Lucas’ exclusion of these women at the end of the film is a failure of storytelling that is so obvious that it’s stunning. And it reduces his film to mere nostalgia for a time that feels better left unremembered when the filmmaker himself forgot those who mattered most.