American Graffiti (1973)

Considering that I am going back to college in a few short hours, what better film to review than American Graffiti for the occasion? I watched this film the night before I went to college the first time, but I didn’t finish it because I had to go to bed! I loved it after finishing it. Directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, and released in 1973, the film featured a few big names such as Ron Howard, as well as then-unknown actors such as Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, and Harrison Ford. The film inspired the great show Happy Days and many teen films to come. It’s about the lives of a few teenagers on their last night in town before they go off to college for the first time. Curt (Dreyfuss) is beginning to have doubts about going to college and is thinking about taking off a year, while his buddy Steve (Howard) thinks the idea is ridiculous. Steve is having trouble with his girlfriend, Laurie (Williams), who is also Curt’s younger sister. Laurie is going into her senior year of high school and is upset that Steve wants both of them to see other people while he is away at college. Meanwhile, Curt becomes incredibly lovestruck when he has a brief encounter with an attractive blonde in a T-bird. Curt attempts to find out who the woman is while navigating through bizarre obstacles throughout the night. Steve has lent his Impala to a younger nerdy teen, Terry “The Toad” Fields (Charles Martin Smith), while Steve is away at school. Toad almost instantly becomes reckless with the car, as well as picking up an attractive girl, Debbie (Candy Clark). Lots of other storylines unfold in the film, one of the most prominent being the racing challenge between mechanic and drag racer John Milner (Paul Le Mat) and cowboy hat-wearing Bob Falfa (Ford). There’s so much else that happens in the film that I can’t fit in the caption here, so I suggest you watch the film for yourself. I highly recommend this film to anyone looking for a good teen comedy. I related to the film in many ways. When you think of films like Superbad or Dazed and Confused, just think about the fact that this is one of the films that started it all. I rate it GREAT.