Written by John Minahan. Based on the films AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) and MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1979). The first film was written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck and directed by George Lucas. The second film was written and directed by B. W.L. Norton. The films starred Richard Dreyfuss (AMERICAN GRAFFITI only), Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Charles Martin Smith and Paul Le Mat.
This novelization attempts to combine the two films into one extended story, but truth be told it really doesn't work. Compressing the two films into one book doesn't result in anything except a fair accounting of the dialogue--there isn't time to get into much else.
The first film is a classic coming-of-age story, taking place over one night in 1962. The film remains interesting due to Lucas' visual sensibilities, innovative use of music and goofy sense of humor. The second film is a fair continuation of the characters and retains the first film's parallel story structure, but there is no getting around that it just isn't very interesting.
The most interesting thing about MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI is that it used different film formats and aspect ratios for the different stories. One of these stories takes place in Vietnam. Which brings us to APOCALYPSE NOW.
George Lucas was part of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope in the late 60's early 70's. AZ had a deal with Warner Brothers whereby they would fund a number of low-cost films, so there were a number of ideas for movies in play. One of these was Lucas' idea for a film set in Vietnam called APOCALYPSE NOW. He wanted to film it in 16mm with a small team IN VIETNAM. It's doubtful this ever would have been allowed but hey, stranger things have happened.
The first released film for American Zoetrope was THX-1138, which died a death at the box office and caused Warner Bros. to rescind their funding deal. This left American Zoetrope in a shambles. As part of the financial fallout, APOCALYPSE NOW became an American Zoetrope property. Because Coppola had so much of his money tied up in American Zoetrope he was forced to take work for hire, which led to him doing THE GODFATHER. As part of proving the he could do a 'normal' film with characters people could care about, Lucas did AMERICAN GRAFFITI, based on his original screenplay (rewritten by some friends from College).
As we know, Coppola went on to make APOCALYPSE NOW but Lucas apparently never stopped thinking about it. When a Vietnam story was vetted for MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI, Lucas became very involved. This sequence in the film was filmed in 16mm and, from all reports, was a pretty good indication of what Lucas would have done in the early 70's had he been able to do APOCALYPSE. Lucas helped edit entire sequences of the Vietnam story and was thus able to finally get the idea out of his system. From a filmmaking standpoint it almost makes MORE worth watching. Almost.
Excerpt:
Despite the fact that the parking meter directly in front of the Haight-Ashbury police station was draped with an official-looking red cloth bag marked out of order, there was a big ticket under the windshield wiper of Lance's '56 Olds hippie-mobile. Debbie came out of the station first, smirked when she saw the ticket, began pacing up and down, waiting for Lance to collect his valuables. Her saddlebag-type shoulder purse bulged with the carcass of the dead python that Ralph had magnanimously given her, and she couldn't repress a delighted smile when she thought of her rather ingenious plan for it. When Lance finally came out, still putting on his necklaces, she ran over and gave him a big hug.
He accepted it patiently, then adjusted the necklaces under his hair. "Thanks for springing me, honey."
"That's all right."
"How much was it?"
"Two hundred and twelve."
"You're great. You know that?"
"Do you love me?"
"Does Raggedy Ann have cotton tits?"
"I mean really love me?"
"You know I do." He gave her a big kiss, then went over and pulled the red bag off the parking meter.
"We got to get to the country, Lance. I'm sick of the city."
"For sure."
"You thought any more about what we were talking about?"
He walked to the driver's side. "What was that?"
"About getting married."
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