My coming of age year started around summer of 1989, or at least, as soon as I passed my driving test which was June of that year. There was only one thing on my mind when my father very gingerly handed over the keys to ‘Kermit,’ the bright green Fiesta van that he planned to give me. I wanted to act out my favourite film – the film that had changed my life at that point – or at least, it was to be the film which had the greatest impact on the way I viewed my social encounters from that day forth.
The film in question was released in summer of 1973, some 16 years previous to my desire to replay it for real. It was about four young men – two of which, were actually 18 years old when they took the roles, who were spending the last night of their summer vacation together, but the film ends up telling the four stories as vignettes within the film, which of course, come together at the end.
There is not point talking about what the film is about. You know what it’s about, or at least now you do. The most important thing about this film is how it makes you feel. For me, this was simple. It was the way I wanted be, how I wanted my friends to be, the cars I wanted us to drive, the things I wanted us to do and experience.
I had fallen in love with the music years before. My father had been a sincere rock and roll fan, collecting Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran vinyl back in the 50’s. These black, shiny, circular pieces of plastic had been handed down to me (well, I say that, before the age of ten, I had got accustom to sneaking them out for a play while my father was at work.) Eventually, he caught me but felt the need to colour my knowledge further by telling me exactly what they were about – Gene Vincent’s records were about nice looking girls in jeans, dancing, and cars that moved like you were ‘racing with the devil’ something I found out about at the age of 17.
It was true to say that I fell in love with American Graffiti. I was the only one of my ‘gang’ of friends who had taken to rock and roll of that era. The rest of them were into Iron Maiden and heavy rock. I was listening to The Platters in the dark in my bedroom at night and wondering what it would be like to snuggle up with John Milner. Of course, I would forget that the film was made only the year after I was born, and things weren’t like the anymore. But that didn’t faze me.
So, every Saturday night, I would jump into my Fiesta van and hit the local town’s one way system. Of course, Sutton didn’t have a one way system for many years until it’s redevelopment in the mid 1980’s. Once the new strip of road was laid to allow the free flow of traffic during rush hour, we celebrated. Most of us loved the fact that we could now race like the wind round and round and round in a circle all night. For me, it was cruising time. With my AG cassette tape in the makeshift tape player which was a Walkman taped to the inside of the van, and a warm summer’s evening, I could pretend that my van was actually an Thunderbird and drive around this suburb of London, pretending that I was in California.
I still think back to those endless months of nights where the world didn’t have a care for me to worry about, and all I needed to think about was how to make a fiver last in my tank. There is a bit of me that still aches for that. Now a wife and a parent, those days of AG seems even further ago than they actually are. The film, was now made 41 years ago, and the characters way passed the age of innocence that the film had represented. I still have the echo of ‘Since I Don’t Have You’ and the shot of Laurie Henderson pulling over to jump into Bob Falfa’s powerful wheels. I often wonder why she did that. Was it for the company? To make Steve jealous? I my head, she appears to me the most grown up of them all.
A warm smile appears on my face when I remember reading about the little touches that George Lucas added to the film. The number plate of Milner’s custom car, THX 138 was the name of the Lucas’s film prior to AG (adding another ‘1’ to it, of course.) Although many of these references appear in films later on. Almost as it Lucas didn’t want to let go of AG. It was, I think, his best work.
All the characters in the film are easily identifiable. Not only did I actually have hair like Candy Clark, but I wore jeans and a white tee shirt just like Milner. A strange mixture I guess, but for me, I thought it was an excellent representation, even if my friends didn’t get it.
The cassette tape eventually became too tight to play and despite my undying love for it, I would still play it, and attempt with all my might to ignore the whining screech in the background. The van was sold by the time I was almost 19, and a more conservative saloon was put in its place. I went out to work, and the dream faded.
In 2014, at a rock and roll weekend in Norfolk, I wandered into a pop up record market and idly drifted around viewing the vinyl and cd’s from a distance. As I walked aimlessly from stall to stall, something caught my eye. It was AG on dvd. I paused for a second, and then remembered how old I had become and how far away those days were now. I didn’t want to pick it up and look at it, just in case those days were further away still and I felt even older. The stall holder suddenly spoke ‘It’s a classic.’ ‘I know,’ I replied, not looking up. ‘I haven’t seen this for years.’ I was practically wiping the dust of the cover. ‘I’ll take it.’
A week later, at home, in the house that I now own, filled with furniture and things that I have gathered around my side over the decades, and my teenage son upstairs in his own world, I sat down to watch the film again. It seemed dated, yes, but those heady innocent days and nights came rolling back and I wondered if it was actually worth growing away from in the first place. But that’s the nature of the beast. Your best years are the ones you have first and they ones who spend the rest of your life looking back on, wishing they weren’t so far away in the past. The cruelty of life. But there is one thing I am very proud of in my middle age alongside my adolescent son, is that I allowed American Graffiti into my life when it meant the world.
I sit alongside my husband who had never seen it before, and I am proud. Not because of him, but because I let AG in when it mattered the most. Now I can watch this genius collection of youth, dreams and hopes, and say yes. I was there too.
My American Graffiti
Our Editor talks this month about films of the 70's
that have shaped the way
we live, think and feel
Richard Drefuss and Bo Hopkins (above)
By Michelle Hatcher
'...with my walkman tapped to the inside of my van with tape, I could pretend I was cruising a town in California in a Thunderbird...'