Rating: 
Summary: Lucas' Nostalgia
Review: American Graffiti was the movie that broke George Lucas into the mainstream. The movie is based on his teenage days growing up in the early 60's in a small Northern California town. The movie starred virtual unknowns who went on to big Hollywood careers. Ron Howard was the only well known actor and the role of Steve was his first chance to play a more adult role. The film takes place over the course of one night where Mr. Howard's Steve and his best friend Curt are preparing to leave town and head off to college on the East Coast. Richard Dreyfus plays Curt and Cindy Williams plays his sister and Steve's boyfriend. Paul LeMat plays John Milner who is the cool guy in town with the fastest car around. He gets tricked into picking up the 13 year old MacKenzie Phillips and spends the night driving around with her. Charles Martin Smith plays the nerdy Terry the Toad. Steve entrusts him to watch his car while he's away. he cruises around and picks up Candy Clark and through a series of elaborate lies, gets her to park by the lake. The car is stolen, but they get it back with the help of John. The movie closes out with a drag race between John and Harrison Ford's Bob Falfa. The movie is spiced up by its soundtrack which helped bring back the 50's nostalgia that permeated the 70's. The film also introduced the infamous DJ Wolfman Jack to the country. The film is an unapologetic feel good, warm movie and its major success allowed Mr. Lucas to make another little movie by the name of Star Wars.
Rating:
Summary: Where Were You in 1962?
Review: This movie helped George Lucas move onto bigger and better things (like the Star Wars saga) and helped make stars out of Paul LeMat, Mackensie Philips, Harrison Ford, Candy Clark, and Richard Dreyfuss (I didn't include Ron Howard since he was already well-known from the Andy Griffith Show). In this movie, the viewer is treated to the era Lucas grew up in. It takes place in September, 1962 (all in one night) in Northern California. Steve (Howard) and Curt (Dreyfuss) are debating whether or not to go off to college. Steve is eager, though he realizes he and his girlfriend Laurie (Williams) must split if he does. Curt is reluctant, since as he says "It doesn't make sense to leave home to find a home and say goodbye to people I love". Steve generously loans his wheels to the nerdy Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith) who picks up a flirtatious blonde (Candy Clark) and spends the entire night trying to impress her with his tall tales (until the car gets stolen). John Milner (LeMat) tries picking up women and winds up with the obnoxious 13-year-old Carol (Philips). Meanwhile, Laurie gives Steve the cold shoulder and tries to lure him back. Curt in turn goes from trying to find an attractive blonde in a T-bird (Suzanne Somers) to nearly joining the Pharoahs (a gang of hoodlums) to asking the Wolfman to play a request (all in the same night!). Milner later meets up with Bob Falfa who challenges him to a drag race. The soundtrack features such classics as "Rock Around the Clock", "Come Go with Me", "Surfin' Safari", "Maybe Baby", "At the Hop", "Johny B Goode", "Green Onions", "Since I Don't Have You", "Teen Angel", and "Only You". This edition also features interviews with Howard, LeMat, Philips, Williams, Smith, and Lucas, explaining the making of this classic movie.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet trip back in time
Review: I revisted this movie for the first time since the theatrical debut (in 1973) just a few nights ago on DVD. I have to say, this movie stands up as an incredible achievment by a couple of amateur directors gone internationally famous since. The casting was pure brilliance. I can only think of a few films that can truly draw me in like this one. The underdog sub-plot has never been done better. If there could ever be a movie to landmark a time in our lives, it is this one. A beautifully made, well acted, well written movie about the good and bad moments in our lives that makes us think about our own. Funny when it should be, serious when it can't help but be. Richard Dreyfus and Ronny Howard show the world what they are made of. And they've been showing us ever since. If you've never seen this movie, and can appreciate a semi-musical, don't miss this.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice but overpriced
Review: I paid $25.48 for this DVD and that was pretty high. Can anyone explain why some DVD's are SO expensive? I've seen this movie a zillion times & never tire of it. Richard Dreyfuss serves up an amazing performance, and it was great to see Wolfman Jack....and Suzanne Somers.
Rating:
Summary: It is more like a dream than a movie!
Review: Please believe me! I was 17 during the summer of '62, and this excellent movie seems more like a dream than an actual film. It captures the feelings, the personalities, the innocence better than any film of this type. George Lucas' lighting and pacing throughout this wonderful film casts a surreal, dreamlike feeling. The characters are believable, despite a cast of future all-stars. There's the common guys like Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss, the nerds, the hoods, and the local hot-rod legend. Even Harrison Ford makes his debut as a redneck hotrodder named Bob Falfa. McKenzie Phillips plays the typical 13-year-old. The music soundtrack features many of the 50's and 60's great hits with a hint of reverb adding to the dreamlike atmosphere. A poignant film, that leaves you emotionally drained at the end. Anyone who doesn't like this film must have no romance in their soul. Stick to WWF. This is one of the all-time greats!
Rating:
Summary: American Graffiti = American Classic
Review: Wait a minute--didn't I go to that school? I'm ten years younger than the characters but the cliques are the same: the nerds, the greasers, the respectables, the vo-techs; and cruising the strip is the only thing that unites them. This is a marvelous story about hitting life at that exact moment when its possibilities seem endless. Curt's ambition is to shake President Kennedy's hand. Steve wants to go East to college. Big John wants to stay king of the highways. And Terry wants a woman. Their plots and destinities collide in funny and heartbreaking ways. "American Graffiti" was an important movie, too. It made stars of Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams and Mackenzie Phillips, and introduced Wolfman Jack to a new generation of fans. And all those movies with music playing in the background that forms a commentary on the action? We have "Graffiti" to thank (or blame) for that technique. Not to mention the fact that this movie was the financial stoker for "Star Wars." "Graffiti" is best seen and enjoyed in widescreen. George Lucas filmed the movie in widescreen and used grainy color film stock in homage to the Universal-International films of the late fifties and early sixties.
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Summary: Signs of the Times
Review: American Graffiti tracks the lives of several kids in a small California town on a late-summer night in 1962, accompanied by a pre-Beatles soundtrack and the famous, stylized DJ Wolfman Jack. ("Now you understand this is a WHITE T-Bird.") Most of them have recently graduated from the local high school. When it came out in 1973 I saw this movie with a guy born in 1950, a year younger than me (my HS class is 1967), and his girlfriend, who was four years younger than him. Bernie and I were in stitches from beginning to end. Barb liked it a lot, too, but she was a little removed from this whole scene of cruising around in cars. I could say the same of my kids, whose high school classes are 1994 and 1997. So if you were born, say, in the forties, you may be able to place yourself right inside these characters' lives; whereas if you were not, you won't. But it's still a very funny movie, and as much a period piece as Sense and Sensibility. It's also a landmark in several ways. George Lucas directed and co-wrote this film. (Star Wars would come out four years later.) Francis Ford Coppola produced it. It's Harrison Ford's first movie (in a small, very effective role as a drag-racer new to town). Richard Dreyfuss and "Ronny" (that's what the DVD box says) Howard appear in very early roles. The third key player is Paul Le Mat, who is outstanding as the reigning drag-race king and a sort of hero, rock of Gibraltar, to the uncertain, hormone-crazed, misdirected, college-bound characters around him. Together with all the hijinks there is a very winning wistfulness to this movie. The cruising life isn't what it used to be. Get out, grow up and pursue those dreams.
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Summary: The First of all Feel-Good 50s Films!
Review: "American Graffiti" is the best trip back to the summer of 1962 Hollywood ever had to offer! The eventful night when freshly graduated high school friends contemplated their futures while immersed in small town America's car-hops, drive-in movies & doo-wop music, is shown in "real time". Richard Dreyfuss is perfect as the smart kid, ready to drive off to college the next morning, but wondering if he's doing the right thing. Ron Howard and Cindy Williams get some practice for their soon to follow "Happy Days", while Charles Martin Smith and Candy Clark are wonderful as the goofus who wants to show a pretty girl a good time. Wolfman Jack plays himself (and cupid) when he plays a very special request going out from Richard Dreyfuss to his dream girl Suzanne Sommers. Look for a pre-teen McKenzie Phillips and a young Harrison Ford in minor roles. This film is a big winner in my book!
Rating:
Summary: Nice but overpriced
Review: I paid $25.48 for this DVD and that was pretty high. Can anyone explain why some DVD's are SO expensive? I've seen this movie a zillion times & never tire of it. Richard Dreyfuss serves up an amazing performance, and it was great to see Wolfman Jack....and Suzanne Somers.
Rating:
Summary: Yea! 1962 comes alive for all posterity
Review: How many times have you seen this movie? It just never gets tired, and the older I get, the more fun it is to watch it and realize how very many of the young then-unknowns have gone on to stupendously successful careers. I mean, George Lucas, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford (without the Indy hat, but the sneer is already present), Richard Dreyfus, Wolfman Jack, of course, and the list goes on and on...
It's so true to small town life in the early 60s, teenagers just having graduated from high school and about to take their first step into adulthood. The whole movie takes place during one hot summer night and manages to capture the look, cars, feel, morals, music, and hopes of that era. This collector's edition DVD includes a long and wonderful commentary by Lucas with interviews of some of the actors, behind-the-scenes production notes.
Tops. One to own - and watch it again with your kids when they ask you what it was like "back in the olden days."
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