Modesto Bee Review, by Fred Herman

(NOTE: Fred Herman will reflect on his review of American Graffiti on May 31st at the Graffiti Tribute)

From the Modesto Bee, Sept. 13, 1973:

“AMERICAN GRAFFITI” takes place in a made-up Modesto in fall, 1962, as a made-up Downey High School is holding a “welcome back” dance and the city’s teens are gathering at a made-up drive-in before cruising a made-up 10th Street.

Producer Francis Ford (“The Godfather”) Coppola’s satisfying—even if you were not raised in the valley of the Tuolumne—look at an era is due in this city soon.

This Modesto, actually filmed in Petaluma and San Rafael, is never called by name. But 10th, Paradise Road, Ramona Avenue and Turlock are. And you, dear reader, having kept abreast in The Bee, know that this pre-Vietnam “Everytown” is the all-American city in which director George Lucas, 29, spent his gee-whiz adolescence.

Life revolved around the car, the drive-in, endless cruising as social interaction and nondescript pre-Beatle rock rounds. The “Mel’s Drive-In” of “Graffiti” seems a combination of two long-vanished establishments, one on McHenry where you ordered Cokes and fries via intercom, and one at 9th and L, nearer to where the action was.

As the film opens, four boys whose adventures make up the film’s subplots, gather:

John, aging perennial sophomore and hot rod king, whose girl-seeking efforts throw him together for an evening with Carol, petulant, bitchy but utterly charming pre-teener. With license plate THX 138, an inside joke about Lucas’ first film, John winds up in a drag race that climaxes the picture.

Steve, clean-cut former class president due to leave for college the next day, torn by a desire to stay with his yell leader girl friend. He spends the night breaking up and making up.

“Toad,” pimply bespectacled clown who borrows wheels and picks up a dazzling blonde boozhound. His efforts to get a bottle comprise one hilarious highlight.

Curt, an uncertain bookish type who does not know whether to accept a scholarship. He gets mixed up with a hot rod gang and winds up sabotaging a police car in another powerfully funny scene.

THE STARS ARE nice clean-cut kids whose names probably will not be remembered, although I could make an exception for MacKenzie Phillips, the foul-mouthed teenybopper.

The music sounded monotonous. Of 42 period numbers by 35 groups, I recognized only “Rock Around The Clock,” popularized seven years earlier, and “At The Hop,” a hit from Woodstock, seven years later. But a teen friend assures me all are legitimate “oldies but goodies.”

The rasping tones of Wolfman Jack, playing a disc jockey who imitates Wolfman Jack, glue it all together.

“Graffiti” is worthy of inclusion in a recent deluge of nostalgia flicks, although I hope it will be the last for a while. Try to ignore those ads that put 1962 in the dim, distant past and ask “where were you…?”