During the summer I always like to watch "Summer Movies." Last week I watched "Summer of 42" and yesterday I watched "American Graffiti" a movie which takes place near the end of summer during a night before two new high school grads are to fly back east to college for the first time. It takes place in 1962. I was in high school on the west coast of the United States in 1962 and this movie is one of the best movies ever made to recreate a time and place. A time before the Kennedy assassination, the build up in Vietnam, student unrest and the excesses of the later 1960's. It was a time before the storm when it wasn't the 1950's but not yet the 1960's. Rock music was still innocent and pure. A time before lost innocence. It is almost a sociological study of the time and of the car culture of American teenagers living on the west coast of the United States. I see myself, my friends and my classmates in the characters in this movie. The end of the movie is haunting when you learn what happened to each of the teenage boys. I first saw this movie in 1973 when it first came out. At that time it was only 11 years removed from 1962 but it seemed a lot longer after I had been through college the army and then Law school. It is now 44 years since 1962... how time flies. The John Milner character was named after movie Director John Milius who was a friend of the screen writers at the time. I still have the sound track from the movie , now on CD, and still love to play it. Harrison Ford has a small part near the end of the movie when Cindy Williams is in his hot rod on the way to the drag race. This scene was cut from the theatrical release of the movie to shorten the running time but put back in for the DVD release. In it Harrison Ford starts singing "Some Enchanted Evening" from "South Pacific" to make fun of Williams who will not sit next to him because she is in love with the Ron Howard character. Any way, this led me to watch "South Pacific" next.... see post below. For a link to the Internet Movie Data Base page for "American" Graffiti" click on the title above.
.
