<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/AmericanGraffiti.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1177" title="AmericanGraffiti" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/AmericanGraffiti-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>So much has happened since <a title="American Graffiti" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069704/">"American Graffiti</a>" was released in the summer of 1973 that it's often difficult to remember just how much of an effect George Lucas' first mainstream movie had on both movies and music.

In 1973, videocassette recorders weren't on the market yet and cable television was still a few years away, so if you wanted to see a film more than once you had to pay to see it again and again. It was the first movie of note to use a "golden oldies" soundtrack. In fact, while this might be really hard to believe, there really weren't radio stations focusing on oldies until after this movie was a hit.

I think I saw it seven different times. What was most interesting about that was that it was released at a time when movies didn't open at 3,000 different theatres the same weekend. In 1973, "American Graffiti" played its first couple of months at only one theatre in the Washington, D.C., area.

At least two or three of the times I went were for midnight shows on Saturday night, and what I seem to remember was that some of the so-called "midnight" shows would start as late as 1 a.m., so that when we left the movie it was nearly 3 o'clock in the morning.

<em>"Where were you in '62?"</em>

That was the tagline associated with the movie, and 1962 was in some ways a final year of America's postwar innocence. It was before most of us had ever heard of Vietnam, but even more important, it was the year before John F. Kennedy went to Dallas.

I remember taping it on my first VCR, and then buying the videocassette when it finally came out at a reasonable price. When I switched to DVDs, I bought it as one of the first ones in my collection. I don't think I had watched it for at least 10 years, but today it came out on Blu Ray. I figure this will be the last time I buy it.

It probably won't be the last time I watch it.