American Graffiti intro side notes

Its May 5th that means it's Revenge of the Fifth and revenge of the Graffiti in our case. Yep its time for more info on the intro to American Graffiti that I promised yesterday, because there are a lot more intresting facts that involve the intro and what we see. 

the first is what we actually see during the opening credits, the drive in restaurant, Mel's. 

Mel's Drive-In 

The restaurant wasn't just a location made up for the film, Mel's was actually a real drive in. It was founded in 1947 by Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs in San Francisco. It was the first drive-in restaurant in San Francisco. At the time drive in restaurants were extremely popular in the days before fast food. The first drive ins dated back to the early 20s, but had peaked in popularity during the 50s. They worked very differently than the fast food drive THRU restaurants of today. Rather than go through a window to order and receive your food, you would drive into a parking section and order hence its name. Your order would have be taken by a waiter or waitress referred to as a carhop (sometimes depicted wearing roller skates but usually most of the time in real life they're on foot) who would also deliver the food to you in your car. By the 1960's drive ins were staring to be replaced with fast food restaurants and drive thrus. But some still survive and of course there's also the Sonic burger chain that revolves around drive in service.

the second fact is when Charles Martin Smith's character, Terry "The Toad" Fields, pulls up on the Vespa in the beginning, his crash into the building was actually unscripted. He actually did lost control of the bike and went straight into the front of the trashcan, and Lucas kept the cameras rolling. Luckily, Smith managed to keep in character and the accident managed to fit into the film quite well. in fact when the film made its first initial public premiere it got a good laugh out of the audience.

The third fact is that Harrison Ford wasn't the only actor to get his first big break from this film, there are also two other very familiar faces in this intro. Well, as long as you're either old enough or are familiar with hit movies and tv shows of the 70's and 80's that is. The character Steve Bolander, who we see leaning on a quite nice looking 1958 chevy impala is played by Ron Howard who's probably better known for his role as Richie Cunningham in the 1974 to 1984 tv sitcom, Happy Days. Howard chose the role as a way to break out of the mold of his previous career as a child actor, previously being known for his role as Opie Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show.

The other actor is Richard Dreyfuss as Curt Henderson who we see pulling up in a 67' Citroen DS. At the time, he was 25 years old and had only had a few roles in various tv shows and commercials, but this was his first major film debut. he eventually went on to star in various films most notably Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

the fourth and final i'll give is that three characters are actually based on different stages from Lucas's younger life. Curt is modeled after Lucas's personality during USC, John Milner (played by Paul Le Mat) is based on Lucas's teenaged street-racing and junior-college years, and Terry represents Lucas's nerd years as a freshman in high school, specifically his "bad luck" with dating.

left to right: Richard Dreyfuss, Charles Martin Smith, and Ron Howard.

So there you have it, some facts about the opening of American Graffiti, Happy Revenge of the Fifth!

How American Graffiti paved the way for the galaxy far far away

Well, its Star Wars day in'it? The day we celebrate everything Star Wars, the iconic film franchised that been in pop culture for over close to 45 years now. But as you can probably tell from this title, We're not talking specifically about Star Wars. 

You may be aware earlier today we went over our rough cuts for Moving Image Fundamentals and my film choice, of course as you're aware, is American Graffiti. A film that while may not be familiar to most of you, the people behind it certainly are. let's get the intro back in here and take a closer look:

 LucasFilm Ltd you say? That means...

Yes Indeed! 

That's right, this film was directed by none other than Star Wars director, George Lucas!

George Lucas during the filming of American Graffiti (1972)

In fact, this was actually his second theatrical film, and it partially came about after the failure of his first theatrical film.

To tell this tale we need to rewind to 1971, when Lucas released his first theatrical film, THX 1138.

The poster for THX 1138 

(and in case you're wondering, Yes, this is partially where the THX sound system got its name from. but that's another story.)

The plot goes that in the distant future, love and free will are outlawed by means of mandatory medication that controls human emotion. The film follows THX 1138 (Played by Robert Duvall) and LUH 3417 (Played by Maggie McOmie) who stop taking their medication and discover the bleak reality of their own existence and fall in love with each other in the process, leading them to become outlaws on the run from the army of android police. 

The film was based on Lucas's student film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which he made back in 1967 while attending the USC. The film was released in theaters on March 11, 1971, but while it did impress some critics, it ultimately bombed at the box office, only earning $945,000 in rentals.

However all hope was not lost. While THX 1138 was in production, producer Francis Ford Coppola challenged Lucas to write a script that would appeal to mainstream audiences. In a tale somewhat similar to that of the creation of Atari's pong, Lucas realized that the reason why THX probably failed was because it was a little too depressing for the average movie gower of the era. So, his idea was to make a more realistic, uplifting film. Inspired by his experiences as a teenager cruising in Modesto, California in the early 1960s, he ultimately came up with the plot of 3 friends trying to make the most of their last summer night together by meeting girls, cruising in cars, and just having a good time before ultimately leaving for college.

After another year of filming, American Graffiti was released in theaters August 11, 1973, and was an immediate smash hit critically and commercially. The financial success of American Graffiti gave Lucas the cash and opportunities to establish more elaborate development for Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound, and Industrial Light & Magic, and another film that Lucas was writing around the same time as Graffiti. It was an unnamed space opera that was inspired by the classic Flash Gordon serials, which would eventually become Star Wars.

In fact, there are a lot of similarities to both films. Both are both are coming of age films and involve leaving home, both have there own mysterious woman in white, (In American Graffiti, its an unnamed woman in a Ford Thunderbird and in Star Wars of course it's Princess Leia.) both films are known for their soundtracks, both have vehicles involved with key scenes, and probably one of the most notable similarities is the acting choice of Harrison Ford. This film was Ford's breakthrough role before he got to play as Han Solo in Star Wars. Not only that but one of the casting choices happened to be future Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill.

So as you can see, a lot of the basic elements of Star Wars can be traced right back to American Graffiti and it makes you wonder how things would have turned out if things in this film had changed because without them, perhaps Star Wars might have turned out very differently.

Tune in tomorrow and i'll discuss the intro to American Graffiti, and some interesting facts i found out about it.