50 years of American Graffiti

Off track, at school so <18, we were taken to the cinema to see Macbeth (Roman Polanski's version) anybody who's seen it will probably agree not really suitable for <18's. It was the first film he made after Sharon Tates murder by the Manson gang.

For American Graffiti as well as the main feature cars there some great cars in the street/cruising scenes include incongruously a Frogeye Sprite.

I remember going to see it in Kirkcaldy (the Rio Cinema I think) around 1974, I would have had this mini at the time

I'm too young to remember it first time round, it's one of those 70s films where nothing really happens...
It's a sort of snapshot in time though, and after watching it, it makes you want to go and cruise around with a pack of fags rolled in your sleeve looking cool.

"What happened to your flathead?"
"Your mother!"

The soundtrack is the likes of which we will never see again due to royalties, licensing etc.

Harrison Ford is way cooler in this than Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Blade Runner. Who would think a cowboy hat and a badass Chevy would work so well?

That's what makes it great really. You either get it or you don't. If it had a more obvious storyline it wouldn't feel so realistic.

Those of you who like 'Graffiti should also check out Dazed And Confused which was made in the 90s but set in the 70s and obviously heavily influenced by AG. 

I always thought it interesting that as a nostalga film it was set only 10 years into the past. Perhaps less if it was a few years in production. I couldn't imagine a nostalgic film or even coming of age film being made today about 2013. It's just not different enough. Perhaps set around going into Covid would work.

At the same time LA in 1973 would, in my mind if not reality, be very different from itself between the '60s and '70s.

In the '80s in a cheap part of London where the only performance upgrade I could afford on my Minor was removing the heavy bumpers and rear seats, sunny LA as portrayed in AG seemed like 100 years in the future. In my '80s world it was songs about unemployment and life in a northern town. Cooler kids than me glamming up as new romantics - a bit of colour in a grey world.

A secondhand car showroom had what I now know to be a Mach 1 Mustang. Even though a relic from the '70s by 1986 it was to me as a dazzling spaceship from the future. 5.7 litres of unashamed American 'curse word You' making pub talk of porting 1.3 and 1.6 Kent crossflow engines seem as relevant as starting handles. Way out of my budget of course. Would be yuppies aspiring to run-of-the-mill BMW 3 series from their FWD Escort XR3s seemed as dull as wanting a mortgage or British Gas shares.

But if the cars weren't accessible the music was a bit more so. Before t'internet and in my case a video recorder the only access to AG was when it came on TV. Primed to watch it by references in Street Machine and Custom Car. No pausing or rewinding. So a took a bit of digging to find Jan & Dean (Two Girls for Every Boy) even though I was already into the Beach Boys.

Embarrassingly now, I thought then that if only I could make a car faster than the other teenagers with clapped out Escorts and Minis and fearlessness somehow all my other problems would be solved. Money, girls, crappy job, all would resolve to a '60s surf soundtrack. The California dream would remain as unattainable as visiting the moon for many years to come.

Maybe 10 years after I first saw AG I watched it again with older eyes and saw how Mildner's arc had already peaked, he wasn't moving on to something and his local hero racer struggles were becoming like the childish games we mostly put away and move on from. "But I was the best at hungry Hippos, nobody this side of the valley came close". Sure you were son, got to go fix the leak in my greenhouse, we'll talk soon, I promise.