Tonight, for the third of six movies in this summer's Last Remaining Seats series, the Los Angeles Conservancy screened the 1973 film American Graffiti, the second feature film directed by George Lucas. His first was THX 1138 and his third was, yes, Star Wars. Oh wait, sorry. That would be Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Funny that American Graffiti was his second feature and not his first. I've been a movie fan longer than I've been a book fan, and it's definitely the tradition that the first feature a director makes is a deeply personal one, just as a novelist's first novel is an autobiographical one. But of course, THX 1138 was pure escapist fantasy, a plot-driven eighty-or-so-minute film about a guy (Robert Duvall in his first leading role) who was tired of being a medicated number. No, it wasn't until his second film that George drew from his own life experiences. If you haven't seen American Graffiti, it's definitely worth a watch. Just know that it's not exactly action packed. It's an hour and fifty minutes chronicling the last night a bunch of recent high school grads spend together before going their separate ways.
George made it in 1973 but set the story in the spring of 1962 (the film's tag line is "Where were you in '62?"). Why '62, you ask? Because that's when George would've been the same age as the main characters, eighteen and just out of high school. The story takes place in Modesto, again no shocker there since that's George's hometown. It's up in Northern California, east of the Bay area and not all that far from Marin County, where the man lives and works today on Skywalker Ranch. One of the storylines in the film involves drag racing. As a youngster, George loved cars and dreamed of one day becoming a pro racecar driver....until an accident toward the end of high school put a crimp in that. In fact, he's lucky to be alive when you read about how awful that accident was. Not surprisingly, American Graffiti features a terrible car crash that amazingly doesn't kill anyone but does leave one of the characters with a new take on life, something George said he went through and in fact inspired THX 1138. And here's one more interesting tidbit about the film's autobiographical angle: George has said that three of the main guys we follow in the film are based on three different phases of his life. How about that, eh? Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) is based on George's personality during his USC days. John (Paul Le Mat) is George Lucas the drag racer. And that nerdy guy Toad (Charles Martin Smith) apparently comes from George the high school freshman, his awkward phase when he couldn't get a girl to look in his general direction to save his life. The main character is Steve, played by Ron Howard. I'm not surprised George didn't base him on anyone. He's sort of this vanilla everyman who serves as a sounding board for the truly unique characters around him, including and especially Curt, John, and Toad.
Funny thing is, though, as personal as it is, George may not have made it had Francis Ford Coppola not challenged him to make a mainstream movie. Coppola's the reason George found a career in movies at all. While still a film student at USC, George made a short called THX 1138: 4EB (Electronic Labyrinth). He submitted it to the National Student Film Festival his senior year and scored first place. One of the judges on the festival? Francis Ford Coppola. This award meant Warner Brothers gave George the chance to spend all day every day on a film set watching a feature being born. The film in question? Finian's Rainbow, directed by....Francis Ford Coppola! No mistake, the Godfather of The Godfather took the young George under his wing and mentored and supported him. It was thanks to Coppola that George got enough money to make a feature version of THX 1138. And it was during the making of that film that Coppola challenged George to follow up that flick, about a sci-fi dystopia that probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience, with something more palatable to said audience. George later said the reason he opted for something so personal was to show people a culture that wasn't just his culture, but a national culture, that of the hot rods and drag racing. By the seventies, that culture was all but gone, so George wanted to create a film that would serve as a cultural artifact. He couldn't've grown up in a better state for awesome cars. Then and now, California is THE place for auto enthusiasts. After living in L.A. for twelve years now, I can definitely say that if you don't have a car, you don't exist. Drive (or walk!) around any part of L.A. and you'll be amazed at the variety of cars on the road, including a lot of very handsome ones.
Tonight's screening was at the Orpheum. On Broadway between Eighth and Ninth streets, it's the furthest south (and therefore the longest walk from the Pershing Square parking garage) of all twelve theaters on Broadway. It was also the first historic downtown theater I ever visited, back in April 2005 for a Jenny Lewis concert. It was pure serendipity. I had no idea what an historical gem the Orpheum is. The concert was on a Saturday, and I remember telling someone at work Friday that I was going to see a concert at the Orpheum. The guy practically did a double take. "The Orpheum? That's cool!"
Like most of these historic downtown theaters, the Orpheum was built in the 1920s. It was originally part of a chain of theaters called the Orpheum, a popular vaudeville circuit that included four venues in L.A. The theater currently known as the Orpheum was the fourth and final one. It was designed by the same architect, Albert Lansburgh, who designed one of the other Orpheums on Broadway, which today is known as the Palace Theatre. I've never been in the Palace, but apparently both it and tonight's Orpheum have the same French style interior. According to the Conservancy, this style is specific to sixteenth century France. Both the lobby and auditorium in the Orpheum are decorated with salamanders, which was apparently the mascot, if that's the right word, of King Francis I. If you watch that Showtime show The Tudors about Henry VIII, you may already know about Francis. He and Henry were contemporaries, sometime allies and sometime rivals. Francis actually figures prominently during the first season, which starts with Henry in his late twenties, ten years into his reign, and covers a good ten years or so by season's end.
While just about all of these historic downtown theaters originally hosted both movies as well as live entertainment, the Orpheum is one of the few that still serve both purposes. Indeed, the Orpheum's got quite a live entertainment legacy. My having seen Jenny Lewis is piss in the wind compared to the legendary talent that's graced its proscenium. We're talking names like Duke Ellington, Jack Benny, Lena Horne, Burns and Allen, Gypsy Rose Lee, and even Lassie for Pete's sake. As for recent stars, Michael Jackson did concerts here. Lyle Lovett and Norah Jones are even more recent names to conjure. Cool, huh?
What I really love about the Orpheum, and why it might be my favorite Broadway theater, is that organ. The Mighty Wurlitzer! Yep, when you walk into the auditorium, you'll see way up front and center, separating the front row from the stage, this huge organ that was originally used to provide soundtracks during silent movies. And it still is! Every year for Last Remaining Seats, the Conservancy will set aside the sixth and final Wednesday for a silent classic at the Orpheum to give that Wurlitzer (and whoever's playing it) a workout. But even on nights when they're not showing silents, like tonight, they'll have someone up there belting out tunes on that bad boy during the hour between when doors open at 7pm and when the show starts at 8pm. What's even cooler is that they used to have one of the original players of the Mighty Wurlitzer, Bob Mitchell. When he was a teenager growing up in L.A. in the twenties, Bob was already getting gigs at the Orpheum and other theaters to provide soundtracks to silents. He was playing at the Orpheum, in other words, when it was brand spanking new. How awesome is that? He also played the organ at Dodgers games. I was lucky enough to see (and hear) him provide the pre-show soundtrack during the 2008 and '09 Last Remaining Seats. But finally his time came on the 4th of July last year, just days after providing the pre-show entertainment at the final Last Remaining Seats screening, when the Conservancy put on the German silent Pandora's Box. No, Bob wasn't providing the soundtracks for the films themselves anymore. For that they got a younger, more nimble guy. That Mighty Wurlitzer really is mighty and no mistake. Bob was in his nineties. It was just awesome that he could be here at all. He was near and dear to the hearts of many Angelinos. Suffice it to say the 4th of July last year was not a happy day.
Tonight's pre-show music was provided by Robert Israel, the same guy who provides the silent film soundtracks. When the program kicked off at 8pm, Conservancy head Linda Dishman gave her welcome and thank-you spiel before introducing pop culture writer Charles Phoenix. He's a Conservancy regular who hosts at least one screening a year and conducts an interview with someone related to the film in question. The program said they'd have Cindy Williams (Shirley from Lavern and Shirley), who plays Laurie, Ron Howard's love interest in American Graffiti. As it turns out, though, they were able to get a second gal from the film, Candy Clark, who plays the adorable Debbie. They're in their early sixties now and still look great. It's funny, whenever I hear Cindy Williams talk, I immediately hark back to Laverne and Shirley. She still sounds exactly the same. And yes, Cindy and Candy are still working. Candy played Matt Damon's mom in The Informant!. And she was in the David Fincher version of Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhaal. Cindy, meanwhile, does a flick now and again but mainly sticks with TV. She's done a ton of guest spots over the years, most recently on stuff like Girlfriends, Drive, and one of the Law & Order spinoffs.
They obviously had a great time tonight going back down memory lane. They said originally they were supposed to shoot American Graffiti in George's hometown of Modesto, but that didn't pan out. When George went back there in the summer of '72 to start pre-production, he decided Modesto looked too different from the town he remembered ten years earlier when he was still in high school. Next up was San Rafael, which is where George's lack of on location experience caught up with him. He didn't anticipate how long it would take to mount the cameras on the cars. And when you're shooting outdoors, you have to block off the shooting area from the fine folks who actually live there. Cindy said one of the biggest complaints from the locals was that George and crew had one of the town's favorite bars blocked off. Eventually the folks who ran San Rafael got kind of frustrated at all the disruption. What's more, one of the guys on the crew was arrested for smoking pot. Takes care of San Rafael. And so finally they landed in Petaluma, another little town in the Bay area just a few miles away. That proved to be the ticket. Cindy and Candy said they started filming the last week of June in '72 and wrapped it up in exactly four weeks. Because the story takes place over the course of one night, the cast and crew would start working at 6pm and keep going until 6am.
The budget for the film was $750K, which would be about four million smackers today. Yeah, that's a good amount, but still relatively puny by mainstream Hollywood standards. Cindy said most of the money went to the music rights. The cast wasn't that big, nor was the crew, and they were mostly young folks just starting out the industry. They came cheap. They said Harrison Ford's salary, for example, was all of $400 a week. What a difference ten years makes, huh? Look at him in American Graffiti, and then look where he was in 1983: Three Star Wars flicks and an Indiana Jones flick in the can. Anyway, for American Graffiti, it wasn't Han Solo but the soundtrack that drove up the bill. Like a lot of people, including me, George loves the music he grew up to. He was determined to get some of his favorite songs in there, but he couldn't afford all of them. In fact, I bet George had to make a lot of tough choices about what to include. Besides the soundtrack itself, another nod to George's love of fifties and sixties rock comes in the form of Wolfman Jack, the famous DJ whom you hear sporadically throughout the movie and who finally makes a cameo at the end when Curt sort of stumbles into the station and asks the guy there if he can play a song for "the blonde" and tell the blonde to meet him and all that. Not until Curt's gone on his way and hears the radio broadcast does he realize he was talking to none other than Wolfman Jack.
George was a huge fan of Wolfman Jack. When he was still a student at SC, he seriously considered doing a documentary about the guy, but it never panned out. As for the cameo, once again we have to give thanks to Coppola for making that happen. George just assumed a living legend like that couldn't be bothered with a low-budget film starring a bunch of unknowns. But sure enough, Wolfman was the man. In fact, he got pretty into it. He and George listened to a whole bunch, like thousands, of archived phone calls Wolfman had taken on the air from listeners over the years. So when you watch American Graffiti, those calls you hear are real.
Not every scene was shot in Petaluma. You take Mel's Diner for instance. The Mel's they used in the film was on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. Cindy and Candy said it had already closed down and was on the verge of being demolished when George approached the owners about using it in the film. I'll never forget the film's opening scene where Toad rides his scooter into the parking lot. Sadly, right after George was finished with it, Mel's was torn down. But you can find Mel's elsewhere, of course. We've got a few in L.A., including one in Sherman Oaks I used to drive by all the time. There's another Mel's right in the heart of Hollywood, on Highland just south of Hollywood Boulevard. And you've got the one in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. That's the only one I've been in. I had no idea until tonight that it was thanks to American Graffiti that all these other Mel's exist. As I said up top, it's a landmark film that impacted people in many ways, especially folks of George's generation. It revived an interest in the small-town culture the film depicts and which is represented by Mel's. In fact, get this. Cindy and Candy said that every year to this day, Petaluma has an annual American Graffiti festival. Cindy said the town hasn't changed all that much from the American Graffiti days.
When Charles Phoenix asked if they ever see Ron Howard anymore, they said no, they haven't seen him in forever. Cindy playfully bemoaned Ron's living in Connecticut (which I didn't know) and having a wildly successful directing career. I actually got to see Ron Howard in person once. Back in 2003 or thereabouts, when he made that movie The Missing with Cate Blanchett, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood (just around the corner from Mel's) had an advanced screening of it with Ron Howard in person for a Q&A afterward. Yes, Opie Cunningham is just as folksy and down to earth as you think he is.
One myth Cindy and Candy debunked was that Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were spun off from American Graffiti. Nope, not true. That was a revelation to me, but I guess it makes sense if you actually know the plot of the film, where it takes place, who the characters are, and then see that none of it matches up with either show. They both just happen to star Ron Howard in one with Cindy Williams in the other and take place in the nostalgic past. Maybe having "Rock Around the Clock" as the Happy Days theme song, after it had just been used as the opening music to American Graffiti a year earlier, didn't help matters.
Charles asked them if they had any inkling during the shoot if the movie was going to turn out good. It's almost a useless question in my opinion. Film shoots are so long and tedious, with the scenes broken up into so many different shots after so many takes, it's always tough to tell how it's going to turn out. The first Star Wars movie is a great example, maybe one of the best, of where the cast and crew had no idea what the finished product would look like. Partly this is because George is a very quiet guy. I remember Carrie Fisher saying once that some days he wouldn't say a single word to anyone. On the other hand, Candy said that after two weeks of shooting, when they were halfway through principal photography, George showed everyone a rough edit of what he had so far. Candy said the cast was pleasantly surprised at how well it was turning out. Candy really knew they had a hit on their hands soon after the film came out. She went to some random theater in some town somewhere to watch the film anonymously, sitting in the back so she could see reactions (or if people were walking out). When people stood up to dance to "Rock Around the Clock" at the beginning, she knew everything would turn out grand.
And that about does it for another pleasant evening with the Conservancy and their Last Remaining Seats series. Not to sound like a broken record (pun intended), but if you haven't seen American Graffiti, you really need to. It's a true cultural landmark documenting a particular time and place. What's more, when you do see it, and you notice the "THX 1138" on John's license plate, you'll get it.
George made it in 1973 but set the story in the spring of 1962 (the film's tag line is "Where were you in '62?"). Why '62, you ask? Because that's when George would've been the same age as the main characters, eighteen and just out of high school. The story takes place in Modesto, again no shocker there since that's George's hometown. It's up in Northern California, east of the Bay area and not all that far from Marin County, where the man lives and works today on Skywalker Ranch. One of the storylines in the film involves drag racing. As a youngster, George loved cars and dreamed of one day becoming a pro racecar driver....until an accident toward the end of high school put a crimp in that. In fact, he's lucky to be alive when you read about how awful that accident was. Not surprisingly, American Graffiti features a terrible car crash that amazingly doesn't kill anyone but does leave one of the characters with a new take on life, something George said he went through and in fact inspired THX 1138. And here's one more interesting tidbit about the film's autobiographical angle: George has said that three of the main guys we follow in the film are based on three different phases of his life. How about that, eh? Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) is based on George's personality during his USC days. John (Paul Le Mat) is George Lucas the drag racer. And that nerdy guy Toad (Charles Martin Smith) apparently comes from George the high school freshman, his awkward phase when he couldn't get a girl to look in his general direction to save his life. The main character is Steve, played by Ron Howard. I'm not surprised George didn't base him on anyone. He's sort of this vanilla everyman who serves as a sounding board for the truly unique characters around him, including and especially Curt, John, and Toad.
Funny thing is, though, as personal as it is, George may not have made it had Francis Ford Coppola not challenged him to make a mainstream movie. Coppola's the reason George found a career in movies at all. While still a film student at USC, George made a short called THX 1138: 4EB (Electronic Labyrinth). He submitted it to the National Student Film Festival his senior year and scored first place. One of the judges on the festival? Francis Ford Coppola. This award meant Warner Brothers gave George the chance to spend all day every day on a film set watching a feature being born. The film in question? Finian's Rainbow, directed by....Francis Ford Coppola! No mistake, the Godfather of The Godfather took the young George under his wing and mentored and supported him. It was thanks to Coppola that George got enough money to make a feature version of THX 1138. And it was during the making of that film that Coppola challenged George to follow up that flick, about a sci-fi dystopia that probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience, with something more palatable to said audience. George later said the reason he opted for something so personal was to show people a culture that wasn't just his culture, but a national culture, that of the hot rods and drag racing. By the seventies, that culture was all but gone, so George wanted to create a film that would serve as a cultural artifact. He couldn't've grown up in a better state for awesome cars. Then and now, California is THE place for auto enthusiasts. After living in L.A. for twelve years now, I can definitely say that if you don't have a car, you don't exist. Drive (or walk!) around any part of L.A. and you'll be amazed at the variety of cars on the road, including a lot of very handsome ones.
Tonight's screening was at the Orpheum. On Broadway between Eighth and Ninth streets, it's the furthest south (and therefore the longest walk from the Pershing Square parking garage) of all twelve theaters on Broadway. It was also the first historic downtown theater I ever visited, back in April 2005 for a Jenny Lewis concert. It was pure serendipity. I had no idea what an historical gem the Orpheum is. The concert was on a Saturday, and I remember telling someone at work Friday that I was going to see a concert at the Orpheum. The guy practically did a double take. "The Orpheum? That's cool!"
Like most of these historic downtown theaters, the Orpheum was built in the 1920s. It was originally part of a chain of theaters called the Orpheum, a popular vaudeville circuit that included four venues in L.A. The theater currently known as the Orpheum was the fourth and final one. It was designed by the same architect, Albert Lansburgh, who designed one of the other Orpheums on Broadway, which today is known as the Palace Theatre. I've never been in the Palace, but apparently both it and tonight's Orpheum have the same French style interior. According to the Conservancy, this style is specific to sixteenth century France. Both the lobby and auditorium in the Orpheum are decorated with salamanders, which was apparently the mascot, if that's the right word, of King Francis I. If you watch that Showtime show The Tudors about Henry VIII, you may already know about Francis. He and Henry were contemporaries, sometime allies and sometime rivals. Francis actually figures prominently during the first season, which starts with Henry in his late twenties, ten years into his reign, and covers a good ten years or so by season's end.
While just about all of these historic downtown theaters originally hosted both movies as well as live entertainment, the Orpheum is one of the few that still serve both purposes. Indeed, the Orpheum's got quite a live entertainment legacy. My having seen Jenny Lewis is piss in the wind compared to the legendary talent that's graced its proscenium. We're talking names like Duke Ellington, Jack Benny, Lena Horne, Burns and Allen, Gypsy Rose Lee, and even Lassie for Pete's sake. As for recent stars, Michael Jackson did concerts here. Lyle Lovett and Norah Jones are even more recent names to conjure. Cool, huh?
What I really love about the Orpheum, and why it might be my favorite Broadway theater, is that organ. The Mighty Wurlitzer! Yep, when you walk into the auditorium, you'll see way up front and center, separating the front row from the stage, this huge organ that was originally used to provide soundtracks during silent movies. And it still is! Every year for Last Remaining Seats, the Conservancy will set aside the sixth and final Wednesday for a silent classic at the Orpheum to give that Wurlitzer (and whoever's playing it) a workout. But even on nights when they're not showing silents, like tonight, they'll have someone up there belting out tunes on that bad boy during the hour between when doors open at 7pm and when the show starts at 8pm. What's even cooler is that they used to have one of the original players of the Mighty Wurlitzer, Bob Mitchell. When he was a teenager growing up in L.A. in the twenties, Bob was already getting gigs at the Orpheum and other theaters to provide soundtracks to silents. He was playing at the Orpheum, in other words, when it was brand spanking new. How awesome is that? He also played the organ at Dodgers games. I was lucky enough to see (and hear) him provide the pre-show soundtrack during the 2008 and '09 Last Remaining Seats. But finally his time came on the 4th of July last year, just days after providing the pre-show entertainment at the final Last Remaining Seats screening, when the Conservancy put on the German silent Pandora's Box. No, Bob wasn't providing the soundtracks for the films themselves anymore. For that they got a younger, more nimble guy. That Mighty Wurlitzer really is mighty and no mistake. Bob was in his nineties. It was just awesome that he could be here at all. He was near and dear to the hearts of many Angelinos. Suffice it to say the 4th of July last year was not a happy day.
Tonight's pre-show music was provided by Robert Israel, the same guy who provides the silent film soundtracks. When the program kicked off at 8pm, Conservancy head Linda Dishman gave her welcome and thank-you spiel before introducing pop culture writer Charles Phoenix. He's a Conservancy regular who hosts at least one screening a year and conducts an interview with someone related to the film in question. The program said they'd have Cindy Williams (Shirley from Lavern and Shirley), who plays Laurie, Ron Howard's love interest in American Graffiti. As it turns out, though, they were able to get a second gal from the film, Candy Clark, who plays the adorable Debbie. They're in their early sixties now and still look great. It's funny, whenever I hear Cindy Williams talk, I immediately hark back to Laverne and Shirley. She still sounds exactly the same. And yes, Cindy and Candy are still working. Candy played Matt Damon's mom in The Informant!. And she was in the David Fincher version of Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhaal. Cindy, meanwhile, does a flick now and again but mainly sticks with TV. She's done a ton of guest spots over the years, most recently on stuff like Girlfriends, Drive, and one of the Law & Order spinoffs.
They obviously had a great time tonight going back down memory lane. They said originally they were supposed to shoot American Graffiti in George's hometown of Modesto, but that didn't pan out. When George went back there in the summer of '72 to start pre-production, he decided Modesto looked too different from the town he remembered ten years earlier when he was still in high school. Next up was San Rafael, which is where George's lack of on location experience caught up with him. He didn't anticipate how long it would take to mount the cameras on the cars. And when you're shooting outdoors, you have to block off the shooting area from the fine folks who actually live there. Cindy said one of the biggest complaints from the locals was that George and crew had one of the town's favorite bars blocked off. Eventually the folks who ran San Rafael got kind of frustrated at all the disruption. What's more, one of the guys on the crew was arrested for smoking pot. Takes care of San Rafael. And so finally they landed in Petaluma, another little town in the Bay area just a few miles away. That proved to be the ticket. Cindy and Candy said they started filming the last week of June in '72 and wrapped it up in exactly four weeks. Because the story takes place over the course of one night, the cast and crew would start working at 6pm and keep going until 6am.
The budget for the film was $750K, which would be about four million smackers today. Yeah, that's a good amount, but still relatively puny by mainstream Hollywood standards. Cindy said most of the money went to the music rights. The cast wasn't that big, nor was the crew, and they were mostly young folks just starting out the industry. They came cheap. They said Harrison Ford's salary, for example, was all of $400 a week. What a difference ten years makes, huh? Look at him in American Graffiti, and then look where he was in 1983: Three Star Wars flicks and an Indiana Jones flick in the can. Anyway, for American Graffiti, it wasn't Han Solo but the soundtrack that drove up the bill. Like a lot of people, including me, George loves the music he grew up to. He was determined to get some of his favorite songs in there, but he couldn't afford all of them. In fact, I bet George had to make a lot of tough choices about what to include. Besides the soundtrack itself, another nod to George's love of fifties and sixties rock comes in the form of Wolfman Jack, the famous DJ whom you hear sporadically throughout the movie and who finally makes a cameo at the end when Curt sort of stumbles into the station and asks the guy there if he can play a song for "the blonde" and tell the blonde to meet him and all that. Not until Curt's gone on his way and hears the radio broadcast does he realize he was talking to none other than Wolfman Jack.
George was a huge fan of Wolfman Jack. When he was still a student at SC, he seriously considered doing a documentary about the guy, but it never panned out. As for the cameo, once again we have to give thanks to Coppola for making that happen. George just assumed a living legend like that couldn't be bothered with a low-budget film starring a bunch of unknowns. But sure enough, Wolfman was the man. In fact, he got pretty into it. He and George listened to a whole bunch, like thousands, of archived phone calls Wolfman had taken on the air from listeners over the years. So when you watch American Graffiti, those calls you hear are real.
Not every scene was shot in Petaluma. You take Mel's Diner for instance. The Mel's they used in the film was on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. Cindy and Candy said it had already closed down and was on the verge of being demolished when George approached the owners about using it in the film. I'll never forget the film's opening scene where Toad rides his scooter into the parking lot. Sadly, right after George was finished with it, Mel's was torn down. But you can find Mel's elsewhere, of course. We've got a few in L.A., including one in Sherman Oaks I used to drive by all the time. There's another Mel's right in the heart of Hollywood, on Highland just south of Hollywood Boulevard. And you've got the one in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. That's the only one I've been in. I had no idea until tonight that it was thanks to American Graffiti that all these other Mel's exist. As I said up top, it's a landmark film that impacted people in many ways, especially folks of George's generation. It revived an interest in the small-town culture the film depicts and which is represented by Mel's. In fact, get this. Cindy and Candy said that every year to this day, Petaluma has an annual American Graffiti festival. Cindy said the town hasn't changed all that much from the American Graffiti days.
When Charles Phoenix asked if they ever see Ron Howard anymore, they said no, they haven't seen him in forever. Cindy playfully bemoaned Ron's living in Connecticut (which I didn't know) and having a wildly successful directing career. I actually got to see Ron Howard in person once. Back in 2003 or thereabouts, when he made that movie The Missing with Cate Blanchett, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood (just around the corner from Mel's) had an advanced screening of it with Ron Howard in person for a Q&A afterward. Yes, Opie Cunningham is just as folksy and down to earth as you think he is.
One myth Cindy and Candy debunked was that Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were spun off from American Graffiti. Nope, not true. That was a revelation to me, but I guess it makes sense if you actually know the plot of the film, where it takes place, who the characters are, and then see that none of it matches up with either show. They both just happen to star Ron Howard in one with Cindy Williams in the other and take place in the nostalgic past. Maybe having "Rock Around the Clock" as the Happy Days theme song, after it had just been used as the opening music to American Graffiti a year earlier, didn't help matters.
Charles asked them if they had any inkling during the shoot if the movie was going to turn out good. It's almost a useless question in my opinion. Film shoots are so long and tedious, with the scenes broken up into so many different shots after so many takes, it's always tough to tell how it's going to turn out. The first Star Wars movie is a great example, maybe one of the best, of where the cast and crew had no idea what the finished product would look like. Partly this is because George is a very quiet guy. I remember Carrie Fisher saying once that some days he wouldn't say a single word to anyone. On the other hand, Candy said that after two weeks of shooting, when they were halfway through principal photography, George showed everyone a rough edit of what he had so far. Candy said the cast was pleasantly surprised at how well it was turning out. Candy really knew they had a hit on their hands soon after the film came out. She went to some random theater in some town somewhere to watch the film anonymously, sitting in the back so she could see reactions (or if people were walking out). When people stood up to dance to "Rock Around the Clock" at the beginning, she knew everything would turn out grand.
And that about does it for another pleasant evening with the Conservancy and their Last Remaining Seats series. Not to sound like a broken record (pun intended), but if you haven't seen American Graffiti, you really need to. It's a true cultural landmark documenting a particular time and place. What's more, when you do see it, and you notice the "THX 1138" on John's license plate, you'll get it.
