This superb and singular film catches not only the charm and tribal energy of the teen-age 1950s but also the listlessness and the resignation that underscored it all like an incessant bass line in one of the rock-'n'-roll songs of the period.
Overview
A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.
Director and cast
- George Lucas Director
- Richard Dreyfuss as Curt Henderson
- Ron Howard as Steve Bolander
- Paul Le Mat as John Milner
- Charles Martin Smith as Terry 'The Toad' Fields
- Cindy Williams as Laurie Henderson
- Candy Clark as Debbie Dunham
- Mackenzie Phillips as Carol
- Wolfman Jack as XERB Disc Jockey
- Bo Hopkins as Joe Young
- Manuel Padilla Jr. as Carlos
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
There is brilliant interplaying and underplaying, of script, performers and direction which will raise howls of laughter from audiences, yet never descends on the screen to overdone mugging, pratfall and other heavy-handed devices normally employed.
A brilliant work of popular art, it redefined nostalgia as a marketable commodity and established a new narrative style, with locale replacing plot, that has since been imitated to the point of ineffectiveness.
The film that launched a thousand careers.
American Graffiti acts almost as a milestone to show us how far (and in many cases how tragically) we have come.
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