American Graffiti Archives

American Graffiti opened in the United States on August 11, 1973. The movie, directed and co-written by George Lucas, captured a nostalgia for a summer in 1962. I can hardly believe that now we are more than four times as much removed in time from the movie as the movie was removed from its characters.

American Graffiti follows two recent high school grads played by Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfus. The two are spending their last night in town before they are scheduled to leave for college the next day. During the evening and night, their stories intertwine with a number of other young men and women cruising in cars around town. The movie not only captures a time and a place (and hot rods!), but it also reveals some of what it is like to be in high school.

The coming-of-age movie featured a number of stars and future stars, including Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Candy Clark, and Suzanne Somers. Also, radio DJ Wolfman Jack makes a special appearance. The film also contained a lot of great music from the period and a wonderful soundtrack.

Reception

Critics and viewers generally loved American Graffiti. The movie was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. The movie failed to win any Oscars and lost the Best Picture award to The Sting. But the film set in Modesto, California became a beloved classic. It also aided the careers of many involved in the movie. And it helped spawn a nostalgia for the 1950s and early 1960s.

American Graffiti ends with title cards reporting what happened to all of the characters, even though Lucas’s co-writers did not like such an ending, which was largely depressing. That, however, did not prevent an interesting but mediocre sequel in 1979, More American Graffiti.

When I was in high school, a few years after the movie was released, one of my teachers showed us the movie on a TV in class. We were studying the period around the 1950s. Our class was in the days before DVDs and VHS, so it was a big deal to see a commercial movie in class back then. So, I will always have a special fondness for the movie.

In the clip below, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel discuss American Graffiti for the film’s debut on television (starting at the 16:30 mark). Check it out.

What do you think of “American Graffiti”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

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On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley & the Comets recorded the rock and roll classic, “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.” During the recording session, the band spent most of the time on another song. It would be in the final forty minutes of that three-hour session where the band would make history, with a little later help by a 10-year-old kid.

The Rushed Recording Session

The band went in the recording studio for Decca Records that day and worked on the song “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)” for most of the three-hour session. Finally, with forty minutes left, they turned to “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.”

At the start of that forty minutes, the group played “Rock Around the Clock” one time. Then, because the first recording of “Rock Around the Clock” did not sound right, they then ran through a second take, leaving Sammy Davis Jr. in the hallway waiting for his turn in the studio.

Time was running out. So, an engineer was able to put together the two takes to make the classic record we know today.

The Guitar Solo

Because of the rushed nature of the recording of “Rock Around the Clock” the guitarist for the session, Danny Cedrone, did not have time to put together a unique guitar solo for the song. So he stuck in a solo he had used two years earlier with Haley on a song called “Rock This Joint.”

You may hear the familiar solo that Cedrone took from “Rock This Joint” in the video below.

The B-Side Release and Modest Sales

That spring, Decca released “Rock Around the Clock” as the B-side to the song on which the Comets spent most of the recording session, “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town).”

The single “Thirteen Women” and B-side “Rock Around the Clock” had modest sales that year. Perhaps the record would have remained a modest hit if not for a little boy.

Glen Ford’s Son Saves the Song

A 10-year-old named Peter Ford fell in love with the B-side of his new record. Peter eventually played the song for his father, the actor Glen Ford.

Ford was preparing to star in a movie called Blackboard Jungle (1955). Ford took the record, along with some others, from his son’s collection to the movie’s producers (or some accounts have the producers hearing the song at Ford’s home).

“(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” was selected to be played over the opening credits of the film about juvenile delinquency that also starred Sidney Poitier. With the boost from the movie, “Rock Around the Clock” sold more than a million copies in one month in 1955.

“Rock Around the Clock” Lives On

Twenty years later the song was familiar for another generation when it appeared on the soundtrack of American Graffiti (1973) and was used as the opening of the TV series Happy Days (1974-1984) for its first two seasons.

Funny how a rushed job, a 10-year-old kid, and a little luck created one of the most memorable records of the early rock era. It also helped send the late Bill Haley to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And on April 14, 2012, a few days after the fifty-eighth anniversary of the recording of “Rock Around the Clock,” the Comets were finally inducted too.

What do you think of “Rock Around the Clock” and inducting the Comets into the Hall of Fame? Leave your two cents in the comments.