Jan Dunn Movies

This run-of-the-mill teen romantic comedy's main attraction is 22-year-old Demi Moore as Laura Victor, an aspiring rock singer. The slightly younger Jon Cryer is Charles Cummings, a dedicated photographer who meets Laura, falls in love, and decides that a dedication to furthering her career might further his own amorous designs. Charles is essentially a loser when it comes to women -- and just about anything else except photography. One day Charles captures Laura on film along a San Francisco seashore and is shocked but excited to run into her later while at a North Beach nightclub where she is a performer. Unable to just let her go, he finally convinces her to pose for him, and as a result of that session he comes up with one good photo which he then puts on nearly 200 San Francisco cabs -- using up all his savings in the process. The result consists of offers that have nothing to do with singing -- until one exception occurs. Another new face in the crowd in this conventional movie is Jennifer Tilly (younger sister of Meg Tilly and Oscar-nominated for her role in Bullets Over Broadway), working in her first film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

It's the last night of summer 1962, and the teenagers of Modesto, California, want to have some fun before adult responsibilities close in. Among them are Steve (Ron Howard) and Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), college-bound with mixed feelings about leaving home; nerdy Terry "The Toad" (Charles Martin Smith), who scores a dream date with blonde Debbie (Candy Clark); and John (Paul Le Mat ), a 22-year-old drag racer who wonders how much longer he can stay champion and how he got stuck with 13-year-old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) in his deuce coupe. As D. J. Wolfman Jack spins 41 vintage tunes on the radio throughout the night, Steve ponders a future with girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams), Curt chases a mystery blonde, Terry tries to act cool, and Paul prepares for a race against Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford), but nothing can stop the next day from coming, and with it the vastly different future ushered in by the 1960s. Fresh off The Godfather (1972), producer Francis Ford Coppola had the clout to get his friend George Lucas's project made, but only for $750,000 on a 28-day shooting schedule. Despite technical obstacles, and having to shoot at night, cinematographer Haskell Wexler gave the film the neon-lit aura that Lucas wanted, evoking the authentic look of a suburban strip to go with the authentic sound of rock-n-roll. Universal, which wanted to call the film Another Slow Night in Modesto, thought it was unreleasable. But Lucas' period detail, co-writers Willard Huyck's and Gloria Katz's realistic dialogue, and the film's nostalgia for the pre-Vietnam years apparently appealed to a 1973 audience embroiled in cultural chaos: American Graffiti became the third most popular movie of 1973 (after The Exorcist and The Sting), establishing the reputations of Lucas (whose next film would be Star Wars) and his young cast, and furthering the onset of soundtrack-driven, youth-oriented movies. Although the film helped spark 1970s nostalgia for the 1950s, nothing else would capture the flavor of the era with the same humorous candor and latent sense of foreboding. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide