History in Objects is a continuing series exploring Lucasfilm’s legacy stretching from their founding in 1971 to today, and their most recent article takes a look behind the scenes at rare items from a special exhibit inside Lucasfilm celebrating the 50th anniversary of American Graffiti.
At Lucasfilm headquarters in San Francisco, company historians have created a special exhibit display of rare materials from our very first production, American Graffiti, which is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Dozens of pieces of memorabilia, cultural artifacts, and behind-the-scenes items chart the story of Graffiti’s making in 1972 and public reception when it first debuted in 1973. This special edition of our “History in Objects” series explores a handful of these treasures.
REAL LIFE ORIGINS
American Graffiti’s story about a group of teenage friends cruising the streets of their small town on a summer evening was inspired by director George Lucas’ adolescence in Modesto, California. This display includes an original 1962 Downey High School yearbook, showing Lucas’ senior portrait, as well as an original Downey letterman sweater belonging to Lucas’ classmate Randy Hearne (kindly donated by the Hearne family). The late actress Cindy Williams (Laurie Henderson) wore a sweater just like this in the film, though the Downey name was fictionalized to “Dewey.”
CREATING A MOVIE POSTER
Artist Mort Drucker was perhaps best known for his work on MAD Magazine, one of George Lucas’ favorite publications. Hired to create American Graffiti’s theatrical poster, Drucker’s initial design featured Wolfman Jack prominently located at the top of the assemblage. When it became necessary to remove the disc jockey due to clearance issues, Drucker’s work was re-positioned by hand into a new arrangement. Our display includes the final collage that was photographed for Graffiti’s theatrical poster, as well as one of Drucker’s original concept sketches.
MEL’S DRIVE-IN
The original Mel’s Drive-in that appears in American Graffiti opened on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco in 1947. Just a few years after the Lucasfilm production filmed there in 1972, the structure was torn down. Featured in the display are a handful of original items from the Van Ness Mel’s and the chain in general. The t-shirt sporting the slogan “Home of American Graffiti” was worn by the Van Ness Mel’s staff during its last years of operation.
AN “ORIGINAL” SCORE
Both American Graffiti and its 1973 counterpart The Sting featured the groundbreaking use of non-original soundtracks. George Lucas wrote Graffiti’s script with his childhood collection of 45 rpm records, noting specific songs for each scene in the film. Graffiti’s music licensing was a huge undertaking, costing nearly 1/7th of its total budget (some music that Lucas hoped to include, like Elvis Presley’s, was excluded due to the high cost). The resulting American Graffiti double-record soundtrack released by MCA became a top seller. Today, the practice of hiring a music coordinator to help curate existing music for a film’s score is common practice.
Read the article in full with more images here. For those in the US, see an all new remastered version of American Graffiti on the big screen later this month, and a 50th anniversary edition Steelbook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital is released on November 7th.
