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Dom Robinson reviews
Columbia TriStar
- Cert:
- Cat.no: UDR 90076
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Year: 1973
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 49 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: 5 languages
- Subtitles: 14 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: 78-minute Featurette, Weblink, Trailer, Production Notes, Filmographies
Director:
- George Lucas
(American Graffiti, Star Wars 1 & 4, THX 1138)
Producer:
- Francis Ford Coppola and Gary Kurtz
Screenplay:
- George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck
Cast:
- Curt Henderson: Richard Dreyfuss
Steve Bolander: Ron Howard
John Milner: Paul Le Mat
Terry “The Toad” Fields: Charles Martin Smith
Laurie Henderson: Cindy Williams
Debbie Dunham: Candy Clark
Carol: Mackenzie Phillips
Disc Jockey: Wolfman Jack
Joe: Bo Hopkins
Bob Falfa: Harrison Ford
Blonde in T-Bird: Suzanne Somers
In the early 90s I saw magazine adverts for American Graffitibeing released on video with the tagline as mentioned above. Where was I in1962? Certainly not on this planet, unless you believe in reincarnation, as Iwasn’t to be born for another ten years.
The film is a coming-of-age story about four teenage friends and their lastnight together in the summer of ’62 before they head off for college.Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), Steve (Ron Howard), John (Paul Le Mat)and Terry “The Toad” (Charles Martin Smith) spend their night drivingaround cruising for girls, indulging in a spot of drag-racing, going to thedrive-in and hanging out at Inspiration Point with the ladies.
Nothing happens and everything happens in a film which is basically asemi-autobiographical tale of Lucas’ life at the time. Ron Howard,now a big-time director of films likeRansom andBackdraft,appears as he used to do – with hair – in Happy Days, while RichardDreyfuss is the only other one in the cast regularly turning up on theHollywood A-list.
There’s also a role for the late Wolfman Jack as the radio DJ whodied of a heart attack on July 1st, 1995.
DVD Trivia: Toni Basil was the choreographer of this film andI thought she looked about 20 when doing the video for Mickey in 1982but she was born in 1943 and is nearly now a pensioner!
The film is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, which doesn’thave any obvious artifacts but does look rather soft throughout. However,this is how I saw it on the big screen when it was aired at the Keele FilmSociety nearly ten years ago so you appear to be getting what was filmed, sono major problems there.The average bitrate is 5.57Mb/s, briefly peaking above 8Mb/s.
Originally filmed in mono, the soundtrack in English is Dolby Surround,but there’s nothing that particularly stands out over anything else.The French, German, Italian and Spanish dialogue are in mono only.
More American Graffiti.
Top of the pile in the extras list is an engaging 78-minute making-ofFeaturette in which George Lucas discusses how his lifeexperiences had an effect on the finished film, how it first got started,the casting and aspects of the production. Chat from various cast and crewmembers is included along with non-anamorphic widescreen film clips.
In addition is the standard Production Notes, Filmographies and a3-minute 16:9 non-anamorphic Trailer, plus a Weblink whichjust tells you to visitUniversalStudios.com
The film contains an excellent 49 chapters and subtitles in 14 languages :English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Swedish, Finnish,Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Danish and Bulgarian.
The main menu is static, with a look to it akin to the front cover.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.