Not too long ago (50 years ago, to be exact), in a place not too far away, there were teenagers driving around in cool cars and spending their last night together before going off to college.
American Graffiti may not sound like a mind-blowing premise, but George Lucas’ ability to make the audience feel as if they’re riding along with the characters, as they hang out for one last time, is exceptional. The film’s surprising box office numbers allowed him to change a couple of important things in his already-signed contract for Star Wars, meaning that American Graffiti deserves some credit for giving us the original Star Wars trilogy as we know it.
The teenage cruising movie, released in 1973 – but takes place in 1962 – was partly based on Lucas’ own experiences growing up in Modesto. It was the first film he made under his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd., after the mediocre box office receipts of his first film, THX 1138, which was mostly an expansion of a student film he made at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
The idea for American Graffiti began to develop in Lucas’ mind after his friend and fellow director, Francis Ford Coppola, told him, “I bet you can’t do just a silly comedy.”
Lucas thought he very much could, though the film turns out to be less of a laugh-out-loud comedy and more of a growing-out-of-innocence movie. He kept thinking of all the fun he had cruising around Modesto and drag racing as a teenager before he ended up in a serious car accident in 1962 when he was 17 that helped change his mind about racing.
For the film, however, he figured that he could capture the joy and adventure of a fun night about teenagers cruising around, and he patterned most of the main characters after different stages of his adolescence. The result was a film that almost everyone could find at least one character to relate to or at least recognize from their own experiences, regardless of the cruising aspect of the movie.
Coppolla acted as the producer of the film, partly to get Universal Studios to fully back it. The budget was under $1 million and was shot entirely in 28 days in Petaluma, California, though the film takes place in Modesto, California.
Despite Universal’s backing, they weren’t happy with a large part of the film. Initially, they told Lucas that having four different storylines after the main characters split up early in the film is a bad idea. Ironically, the four storylines help keep the audience interested and make it arguably the film’s most unique quality. As the characters go off on their own mini-journeys, it offers the writers more freedom to introduce numerous elements to the film and push characters into situations that wouldn’t be able to happen if they were kept together (such as the Pharaohs turning Curt gangsta). In fact, each character develops with more freedom and makes the story of their last night together significantly more enjoyable than if they stayed hanging out as a group for the entire night.
All of the film takes place over a single night with the characters reuniting at the end. Two of those characters, Curt and Steve, are forced to think about their respective futures as they are uncertain if they should board the plane the next day on their way to college.
Those layers of storylines also helped Lucas master the idea with Empire Strikes Back, albeit with just two main storylines as opposed to four here, as Luke Skywalker splits with Han Solo and Princess Leia early in the film before reuniting at the end. Of course, we get to see Luke training with Yoda on Dagobah as Han and the Millennium Falcon have a space-hopping adventure.
American Graffiti is a true gem, and it launched the careers of many future stars who were unknown at the time, including Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, who sadly recently passed away, Suzanne Somers, Charles Martin Smith, Mackenzie Phillips, Candy Clark, who earned an Academy Award nomination, Richard Dreyfuss, whose performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination, and Paul Le Mat, who won a Golden Globe for “New Star of the Year.” The film also starred Ron Howard who, although already known from his time on The Andy Griffith Show, would ultimately become a major award-winning director.
The movie itself won the Golden Globe for “Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.” However, after Graffiti was initially screened for an audience, Universal wasn’t happy despite the audience giving positive feedback, which mostly stunned Coppola and co-producer Gary Kurtz.
In a making-of documentary for Graffiti, Coppola explained, “The executive from Universal was there, and he came up to me with a grave face and said, ‘Well, we have a lot of work.’ I just couldn’t believe he didn’t see what he had.”
Coppola then told the executive that if he wasn’t happy with the film that he himself would buy it from Universal because he believed in it so much. Then he told the executive, “You should get on your knees and thank this young man (Lucas) for what he’s done for your career.”
After much deliberation, the studio seriously considered just letting it be a TV movie as they saw no value in it as a motion picture. Thankfully, they changed their minds with help from Coppola and Kurtz. The movie was released on August 11, 1973. Coincidentally, that’s the exact same day as the birth of hip-hop, which we find ironic since hip-hop culture can be partly described with the words “American” and “Graffiti.”
Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox was interested in Lucas’ Star Wars idea and approved a budget of just over $8 million thanks to executive Alan Ladd Jr. Shortly thereafter, however, something changed. As Lucas explains in the outstanding Star Wars documentary, Empire of Dreams, “When I made the deal for Star Wars, originally I made the deal BEFORE American Graffiti came out.”
What no one expected was that American Graffiti would consistently do well at the box office for an entire year. It kept making money until it came in as the third-highest grossing film of the year, earning over $55 million and still kept making money in 1974 until it made about $140 million total at the box office. Keep in mind, the budget was about $800,000. This obviously helped Lucas’ new Star Wars project immensely because it opened the door to renegotiations, and Lucas took full advantage, though not in the way others would. Lucas said, “When it came to doing the contract for the film, which was about a year later (after the original agreement and following American Graffiti’s success), I knew I had to protect the unwritten parts of the script.”
As Ladd explained, “Graffiti comes out and is a big smash success, so his agent came back and said ‘Hey, look, this guy has made this huge successful movie now. Don’t you think he should get more than $200,00 for writing, directing , and producing the movie?’ I said, yeah, I think he should get more.”
However, Lucas had something else in mind considering he knew that his story was too long and he had already divided it into three parts, which he then intended as three separate films. The only problem was that there was no contract for two more films, so Lucas took advantage of the success of American Graffiti and told the studio, “I don’t want more money but I do want the rights to make the sequels.”
Suddenly, the possibility of making the entire trilogy was realized. Lucas was also able to earn more creative freedom as well as merchandising rights. Ladd, who was Lucas’ biggest supporter at Fox, added, “I just believed in him and his genius. I recognized off of American Graffiti that he really was a genius.”
It makes one wonder what the original Star Wars film would look like if American Graffiti was not successful. Of course, if Star Wars still succeeds, then Lucas likely gets to make the sequels anyway, but would he have been granted any leniency at all during the first film for an increased budget? After all, Fox was furious as the budget rose to eventually $11 million, but Ladd kept convincing the studio it was worth it for as long as he could. Almost certainly, Lucas would have been limited in numerous ways while making the first film of the now-celebrated space opera saga, if American Graffiti was not a success. Who knows what would have happened? The film could have been dropped altogether if Graffiti had flopped or Star Wars may have just become a forgettable TV movie.
Ron Howard, who played Steve in American Graffiti, said in the Empire of Dreams documentary that he asked George Lucas towards the end of filming, “What do you want to do next?” According to Howard, Lucas responded, “Well, I really like science fiction. The advances Hubert made, I want to apply that to a Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon-type of movie. Combine that with 2001 special effects but the ships go real fast.”
Published: Feb 17, 2023 08:31 am