American Graffiti

I recall this film being big in the early 1970s. It was George Lucas's first hit, and while a severe comedown from THX 1138, it was not quite as mindnumbing as the Star Wars films.

Some good performances in a frothy, light film, it did not make one hate Lucas, but it was not as dark nor 'realistic' as, say, The Lords Of Flatbush, which came out a year later. That film starred Henry Winkler in a proto-Fonzie role, while his future Happy Days co-star, Ron Howard, starred in this film. Lords was also a better film than AG, if for no other reason than its low budget feel made it seem more realistic. Also, its thugs acted the way one stereotypically thought of gang kids from the 1950s.

Here's the trailer for AG:

THX 1138

It's amazing to look at this intelligent and provocative film, and then realize that what followed was American Graffiti, and three plus decades of juvenilia known as Star Wars (aka Film Franchise Ripping Off Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series Without Any Remuneration).

Here is a clip:


As I wrote in my review:
'In the commentary, Lucas vows that now that he has finally done with the Star Wars films, he is set to return to avant-garde filmmaking of this sort, and his heroes from the French New Wave. Let’s hope so, because after three decades of dumbing down the art of film with his simplistic and pallid Joseph Campbellian rot, the man owes literate filmgoers, and owes us big time for he became, wittingly or not, the very thing that his great first film excoriates, and, if the commentary is to be trusted, he still does not get it. Let’s toss him a softball and pray for the future.'

Still holds true, yessireebob!