cult film freak: richard dreyfuss

Showing posts with label richard dreyfuss. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 1/06/2023 / No comments / classic , cult , jaws , lorraine gary , murray hamilton , richard dreyfuss , robert shaw , roy scheider , seventies , shark , steven spielberg

DOUBLE TRIAD FROM STEVEN SPIELBERG'S MASTERPIECE 'JAWS'

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</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuI19B2xWasR-0vsNcUZbF_NPtUdews4S--j6w6D1CedRywkDkjH0up3kaWgF63YkLgJpW2hC0nFgJCwvxxpzdEAdKSCEpVINr325uwyeENsv0E4W0IBsMYVlk0N2GCWZODAZIIuSi7as9UieEIg3LeglFYnFKzrQosXinKrYZXIEUj-_-Z4mpywbipQ/s1624/Screen%20Shot%202023-01-05%20at%205.18.15%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1624" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuI19B2xWasR-0vsNcUZbF_NPtUdews4S--j6w6D1CedRywkDkjH0up3kaWgF63YkLgJpW2hC0nFgJCwvxxpzdEAdKSCEpVINr325uwyeENsv0E4W0IBsMYVlk0N2GCWZODAZIIuSi7as9UieEIg3LeglFYnFKzrQosXinKrYZXIEUj-_-Z4mpywbipQ/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-01-05%20at%205.18.15%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Defining the three leads of JAWS Year: 1975 Rating: *****<br></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Never has a motion picture made such perfect use of three acts, and three main characters... As Martin Brody, the relatively new Chief of Police in the beachside town of Amity, <u>ROY SCHEIDER</u> solely headlines the first act of JAWS... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Which can be titled <u>ACT 1) WARNING</u>, as he investigates the death of a young female swimmer by what is, despite the eventual coverup, a bonafide SHARK ATTACK. Thus Brody both leads the show <i>and</i> blends into the canvas of the eccentric town, lost in mazy politics concerning keeping the beaches open despite the immanent danger...</p><span></span>

classic, cult, jaws, lorraine gary, murray hamilton, richard dreyfuss, robert shaw, roy scheider, seventies, shark, steven spielberg

DOUBLE TRIAD FROM STEVEN SPIELBERG'S MASTERPIECE 'JAWS'

Defining the three leads of JAWS Year: 1975 Rating: ***** Never has a motion picture made such perfect use of three acts, and three main ch...

VIEWING TWO CUTS OF 'CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND'

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF6CnrUq4H8Mh1lPmY6UdbvfsJHq6XXHPFkru_vPW4a8X1AbC_xfkmw-54EH27h_66mXb67CP_-bcBkyDIhef97p7ryChrHLqMMSq26Ft6LLEUdgySEK-VA6SrhZEDr6LOVD9aue5ZxOH5MpLfw0oR8uch12aQlWio2Y0mXtaaJ9GnAnpMHFPHOxcGQQ/s1306/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.13.06%20PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1306" data-original-width="912" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF6CnrUq4H8Mh1lPmY6UdbvfsJHq6XXHPFkru_vPW4a8X1AbC_xfkmw-54EH27h_66mXb67CP_-bcBkyDIhef97p7ryChrHLqMMSq26Ft6LLEUdgySEK-VA6SrhZEDr6LOVD9aue5ZxOH5MpLfw0oR8uch12aQlWio2Y0mXtaaJ9GnAnpMHFPHOxcGQQ/w279-h400/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.13.06%20PM.png" width="279" /></a></div>At this point, it seems any movie anticipating extra terrestrials will end badly. As in, violently. And not in the human's favor since most science-fiction aliens-on-Earth flicks are about a takeover...<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIvPYsLrXLjkP0wpDkWe9nEb8RcsCsT5zvHAwZPoMs9ZwAkhdJ5HX0wtjvoLW_hAGZDq-Z46JS2bSrws7OlKeTXG23BjsZwgE_EnZcPjjdpm4vg6xviUD1tUZjwiNrlOtMqL1uYkbB0yJdJ7qRYFAesqlt37Woo5XmTekmQUf5CNTn14t9eYqOCoj9A/s1348/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.14.01%20PM.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1348" data-original-width="962" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIvPYsLrXLjkP0wpDkWe9nEb8RcsCsT5zvHAwZPoMs9ZwAkhdJ5HX0wtjvoLW_hAGZDq-Z46JS2bSrws7OlKeTXG23BjsZwgE_EnZcPjjdpm4vg6xviUD1tUZjwiNrlOtMqL1uYkbB0yJdJ7qRYFAesqlt37Woo5XmTekmQUf5CNTn14t9eYqOCoj9A/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.14.01%20PM.jpeg" width="228" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>And yet, Steven Spielberg directed CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND similar to how a disaster film builds to the flashpoint, along with particular scenes similar to the horror genre. Like when the "Spielberg Mom Character"... who are all always tough, independent yet sweet and vulnerable... and her little boy are visited noisily by determined, unseen aliens who make like Santa Clause by trying to sneak in through the.. Well you've probably seen the 1977 smash hit, and it's worth revisiting whenever turning up on the big screen, like recently, during the 40th Anniversary. Although the version shown under big theater lights is Spielberg's Director Cut, which deletes one sequence and, a bit later on, adds another...
The latter giving the future billionaire and newly million dollar director who was not yet thirty-years-old a chance to pay homage to both his cinematic hero, David Lean, who made LAWRENCE OF ARABIA that inspired John Milius's THE WIND AND THE LION, which has style and movement that would leapfrog over to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK...

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<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHIfmqWnpcpwqT2wDm6pW-6AQgySewK_4hTCDwVk6l82revx3FB2E9pDmeO37RCSq6fXG7M2SZ0Uz7dln89nm5s7ru4iP0GVBi86Gf6yfKfZ9Saf9KrOPxhw6cLntsG1v3QgTjy2e6WabtPyMp4XofqoqoI1Tqu12CoagtMGmWhxj4lVV0tDzHIrBaCQ/s1039/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.24.17%20PM.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="1039" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHIfmqWnpcpwqT2wDm6pW-6AQgySewK_4hTCDwVk6l82revx3FB2E9pDmeO37RCSq6fXG7M2SZ0Uz7dln89nm5s7ru4iP0GVBi86Gf6yfKfZ9Saf9KrOPxhw6cLntsG1v3QgTjy2e6WabtPyMp4XofqoqoI1Tqu12CoagtMGmWhxj4lVV0tDzHIrBaCQ/w400-h281/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.24.17%20PM.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>In the Director's Cut we first see him teaching his oldest yet still young son how to do a math problem while an electric train rolls along before them.<br />
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A funny moment that isn't altogether necessary since dad will end up ditching his family for a journey into what could be endless outer space rollercoaster ride... Instead, starting out with a more lonely, disassociated suburban dad starring wanly at the train until the audience, and the character, are domesticated by a surge of bickering kids and an impatient mother/wife: And also in the original theatrical cut that's not on the Director's Cut, Dreyfuss is in a power station that not only proves his job and skills, but will soon differentiate "their" power to ours. Once he's underway searching through a map before the first encounter along the dark road, it was nice to have seen him nervous and awkward at the starting gate.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGecxz6VMlyP8Mtg-_DHZBST8XN84Jm6MJpXYvBIjzvjZPWG1zqzo_VO8XXbT1d_Kn1NKCokq79CcEM1IVoQUbssSnoZg_G7O68A5wTsl9M1dRNbM3GkN4HR06AIxKNhIQRDIYavBuVuUi2XG0MEzL2tG-soO72YBEw3kL8Lbf4pJS5_ROMfc-VUmNgA/s1378/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.19.34%20PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1378" data-original-width="902" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGecxz6VMlyP8Mtg-_DHZBST8XN84Jm6MJpXYvBIjzvjZPWG1zqzo_VO8XXbT1d_Kn1NKCokq79CcEM1IVoQUbssSnoZg_G7O68A5wTsl9M1dRNbM3GkN4HR06AIxKNhIQRDIYavBuVuUi2XG0MEzL2tG-soO72YBEw3kL8Lbf4pJS5_ROMfc-VUmNgA/w261-h400/Screen%20Shot%202023-02-03%20at%206.19.34%20PM.png" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>One cut/deletion that makes a bit more sense has Carl Weathers as a soldier at a busy roadblock towards the end — a bit distracting given that, "It's Apollo Creed!" is bound to happen, silently or otherwise, in the theater. On the other hand, muscular Carl represents one reason not to try breaking through the boundaries....<br />
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blockbuster, bob balaban, carl weathers, cult, melinda dillon, richard dreyfuss, science-fiction, seventies, steven spielberg, teri garr, thriller

VIEWING TWO CUTS OF 'CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND'

At this point, it seems any movie anticipating extra terrestrials will end badly. As in, violently. And not in the human's favor since m...

Written by James M. Tate / 6/27/2015 / No comments / dick young , horror , photobreak , richard dreyfuss , robert shaw , roy scheider , seventies , shark , steven spielberg , thriller

PARENTHETICAL CAPTURES FROM THE MOTION PICTURE 'JAWS'

dick young, horror, photobreak, richard dreyfuss, robert shaw, roy scheider, seventies, shark, steven spielberg, thriller

PARENTHETICAL CAPTURES FROM THE MOTION PICTURE 'JAWS'

Random Screencaptures from JAWS: Like this KILLER SHARK video game JAWS is celebrating the 40th Anniversary this year, a timeless summer cl...

FIRST CAUGHT-ON-CABLE TRIO OF NUMBER TWOS: COPS & APES

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1987 rating: ***</td></tr>
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<b>BEVERLY HILLS COP 2:</b> First sequel to Martin Brest's popular BEVERLY HILLS COP has Axel Foley returning to the plush So Cal playground from his gritty Detroit mainline. <b>DRIVE: </b>Again it’s personal, although not as severe… Ronny Cox’s Beverly Hills police chief is shot and almost killed by a gang of ruthless thugs who, working from a private gun club, cause high stake havoc. <b>HIGHS:</b> Wherein the first movie relied on Murphy’s resilient wit to get him in and out of situations by pretending to be someone else (like Chevy Chase in the following year’s FLETCH, also scored by Harold Faltermeyer), this time Axel is, for the most part, an intense rogue. Teamed with director Tony Scott, BEVERLY HILLS COP GUN is really an action flick with explosions and gunfights over laughs. And the villains are worthy to be 
sought and killed, including an Amazon woman and two surly creeps.<b> LOWS:</b> Several parts attempt humor but they’re simply… not that funny. Axel’s ruses are too complicated and farfetched. Judge Reinhold’s transition from the naïve Billy Rosewood into a gun freak infatuated with Rambo... Stallone was original cast in the first movie... is  downright awkward. Older grouchy partner John Ashton doesn’t have much to do this time but react to an extremely dated joke about dressing like Gerald Ford. And Paul Reiser's sarcastic Detroit detective has way too much screen time. <b>CLOSURE: </b>This second of three Axel Foley flicks works pretty well thanks to Tony Scott’s edgy high octane makeover. Perhaps this is what the Stallone BEVERLY HILLS COP would have been more like. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1993 rating: **</td></tr>
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<b>ANOTHER STAKOUT:</b> Follow-up to John Badham’s STAKEOUT where Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez played Seattle cops who specialize in… take a wild guess. Rosie O’Donnell is added to the cast, giving the boys a partner who views their quirks that the audience enjoyed the first time around, and now we get everything spoon fed through her eyes. <b>DRIVE: </b>Richard and Rosie pose as a married couple with a mustache-less Emilio as their son, holed up in a mountain home next door to marrieds Dennis Farina and Marcia Strassman, who might know something about an escaped witness. <b>HIGHS: </b>This witness, played by RAGING BULL starlet Cathy Moriarty, is part of a suspenseful prologue seeming part of something more… serious, like the first film. We're introduced to worthy villain Miguel Ferrer... both intense characters are shown sporadically, resulting in a standard chase at the end where Dreyfuss becomes action hero and Badham, returned as director, is more in his element. <b>LOWS:</b> Too many to count, but the trio actually has decent chemistry despite the forced humor, which is not altogether Rosie’s fault… Richard Dreyfuss seems like he’s playing silly for a kindergarten class at times, and Estevez often acts like he’s just learned how. Meanwhile, Rosie tries too hard to compete with the boys – this can be said for both the actress and character. And Madeline Stowe literally phones in her useless appearances. <b>CLOSURE:</b> Plays out like the TV Movie for a STAKEOUT series, which would have surely been cancelled after this "pilot episode."   <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1970 rating: *1/2</td></tr>
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<b>BENEATH PLANET OF THE APES: </b>The second of five of the original PLANET OF THE APES flicks. <b>DRIVE:</b> The restless gorillas are poised for war against a lurking danger in the Forbidden Zone, where a returning Chuck Heston rides with his sexy Jane in the form of Linda Harrison’s human hottie, Nova. <b>HIGHS:</b> Anytime we center on the restless army led by the nefarious General Urko played by Jeff Corey, and an intense James Franciscus is the new astronaut replacing Heston as new kid in town, and his mission is to find the missing American hero… But he hardly bonds with the friendly peace-seeking chimps (no Roddy McDowell, only Kim Hunter), and the ape’s story is merely peripheral to… <b>LOWS:</b> Possibly the worst antagonists in science-fiction history within an underground compound where a group of mutants worship an atomic bomb, a political agenda worn so brightly on the sleeve it becomes the entire costume, and this is no party. <b>CLOSURE:</b> Thankfully in the third and best outing, ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, the finale of this horrendous sequel is, ala time travel, completely abandoned.

bagful, eddie murphy, eighties, emilio estevez, franchise, judge reinhold, nineties, richard dreyfuss, sequel, seventies

FIRST CAUGHT-ON-CABLE TRIO OF NUMBER TWOS: COPS & APES

1987 rating: *** BEVERLY HILLS COP 2: First sequel to Martin Brest's popular BEVERLY HILLS COP has Axel Foley returning to the plus...

Written by James M. Tate / 7/29/2013 / No comments / all night , charles martin smith , cindy williams , george lucas , hangout , harrison ford , jody carlson , mackenzie phillips , paul lemat , richard dreyfuss , ron howard , seventies

REEXPERIENCING 'AMERICAN GRAFFITI' ON THE BIG SCREEN

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVrfkN3q5HEfwvSITH8qKJLR9xt3NA0HrbufSZA4yoRi4n6jNSnadvSQYBZ3ZAR44lABF9qRZLQ83WZz3yFruhU5q-iIH6SZQNGosqbnHNRqWFWjE6ZE4txeowkzJKQid84AL91TF4Mkj3imFo28r9HuSDNa_JsjrjfmDZ-CCbvkzAKchXt53j1YYkQ/s1146/Picture%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="1146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVrfkN3q5HEfwvSITH8qKJLR9xt3NA0HrbufSZA4yoRi4n6jNSnadvSQYBZ3ZAR44lABF9qRZLQ83WZz3yFruhU5q-iIH6SZQNGosqbnHNRqWFWjE6ZE4txeowkzJKQid84AL91TF4Mkj3imFo28r9HuSDNa_JsjrjfmDZ-CCbvkzAKchXt53j1YYkQ/s16000/Picture%201.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 1973 cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Paul LeMat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Ron Howard rating: *****</td></tr></tbody></table>
After growing up watching AMERICAN GRAFFITI, and seeing it fifty or more times since childhood, and always on television, there are a few noticeable particularities when viewed in an actual theater on the big screen...<br />
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Producer Francis Ford Coppola’s low budget horror titled DEMENTIA 13, is on the marquee outside Jerry's Cherries Used Car Lot, where Richard Dreyfuss’s Curt Henderson, kidnapped for the night by a gang called The Pharaohs, caused havoc for a local police car by tying a cable to its underbelly: And before that when Curt and his new acquaintances are inside a pinball alley, the Laura Scudder’s brand Potato Chips are in abundance behind the Moose Lodge guys…  <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6FacuYZmqfR3pjz7BWd-Pi6K0ZbNCN50e9JskQWEUKV9dFU08tx21V5GXN8_O994NEhSYQ6XA8iGoUp4aiXPqHOUum43wrmzioYxZUbtmQXAbH1pVvRtION-GUUaN-o5ztF3yH-mwd2krlSUBrJGmkGQQPmcql9aB07kBmk7W414vdGmhuNC5rpWQcw/s1128/Picture%2012.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="1128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6FacuYZmqfR3pjz7BWd-Pi6K0ZbNCN50e9JskQWEUKV9dFU08tx21V5GXN8_O994NEhSYQ6XA8iGoUp4aiXPqHOUum43wrmzioYxZUbtmQXAbH1pVvRtION-GUUaN-o5ztF3yH-mwd2krlSUBrJGmkGQQPmcql9aB07kBmk7W414vdGmhuNC5rpWQcw/s16000/Picture%2012.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Racers Harrison Ford & Paul LeMat's first meeting from AMERICAN GRAFFITI</u><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>And various adult characters: like the poor fella who gets his front bumper bashed, the jerk cop Holstein, the liquor store clerk, the chaperone told to “Kiss A Duck,” really look straight out of the Eisenhower era – okay so JFK was president by this time, but you get the drift…<br />
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The bottom line and the most important thing is that Lucas's AMERICAN GRAFFITI is meant to be viewed the way originally intended, and the bigger the screen the better...   <br />

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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhXmC9emnLRQPTtYnssbxieMm03PeHlzJN0E8wy6kxqGx0g-iZTi3SfXxV15v9xqul-5zBP8k-feHuFI2auHb-B7S9roL7MKqo2J-Kq4HzR16MwB6CpAoMS9toUMcjdXAci1YKvNry7II-bo-dvJUg6m8sh4zdHfPQSqAGun4-ucZi3rv68SmbEdWOA/s1123/Picture%2017.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="1123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhXmC9emnLRQPTtYnssbxieMm03PeHlzJN0E8wy6kxqGx0g-iZTi3SfXxV15v9xqul-5zBP8k-feHuFI2auHb-B7S9roL7MKqo2J-Kq4HzR16MwB6CpAoMS9toUMcjdXAci1YKvNry7II-bo-dvJUg6m8sh4zdHfPQSqAGun4-ucZi3rv68SmbEdWOA/s16000/Picture%2017.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Bohan's Holstein refers to Paul LeMat's car as that "thing" like the Death Star guard to Chewbacca</td></tr></tbody></table>Not to toot the old horn, but yours truly notified the theater management… ten minutes before the movie played at Bella Terra in Huntington Beach, California… that the previous screening of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE was all but ruined by a minimal amount of audio… In other words, the sound was so low it hindered the entire experience...<br />
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If GRAFFITI, with wall-to-wall music playing throughout, blaring in and out of cars while providing a subliminally expository narrative, had the same sound problem, and so, once again, a sublime movie, part of the ongoing Landmark Classic Series, would be ruined. And who wants to hear the irritating noise of popcorn bags being ransacked by hungry audience members, or banal comments spoken when you’re trying hard to listen to what’s really important?<br />

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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7m3e6fLYmr_Pv3MHejraPy3LP3m4Saya8LTuKikkA_9bxaDlomFmtUHGYTHxb7Wkd0Fui7aVKof81oZfvens29586ro_TRwYWxb9Dy7WyyhKw4VJkqV_uLY77FaOpT7KGTtnvIFXpbYW7JOu5W7A67T6VVUBYUosU8EyDQ4cQmHBv0zF0SGjvWPtNBA/s1151/Picture%2013.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="1151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7m3e6fLYmr_Pv3MHejraPy3LP3m4Saya8LTuKikkA_9bxaDlomFmtUHGYTHxb7Wkd0Fui7aVKof81oZfvens29586ro_TRwYWxb9Dy7WyyhKw4VJkqV_uLY77FaOpT7KGTtnvIFXpbYW7JOu5W7A67T6VVUBYUosU8EyDQ4cQmHBv0zF0SGjvWPtNBA/s16000/Picture%2013.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cindy Williams and the always-lovely Kathleen Quinlan </td></tr></tbody></table>But it's not all cruising around, there's a love story, kinda... Centering on Steve and his girlfriend Laurie's constant bickering on whether they should remain a couple: after all, Steve is taking off the next morning and long distant relationships rarely work.<br />
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Laurie Henderson, Curt’s sister, is played by Cindy Williams – while it’s difficult <i>not </i>seeing HAPPY DAYS verses LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, the two actors are terrific and do a fantastic job despite a somewhat cliché romantic-quibbling storyline that it took co-writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz to help Lucas with, since he (in his own opinion) wasn’t good at writing about relationships. <br />

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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuRBkGvkxLemIpWEFG04vygbzNzRZfojeTEZROvTTSv3bt2LnJeaqbJv2bZy0qw2OGQ1czJxttbN7WbSCrAPHDR10kErxCMaH_WTIJtgcpBYHNHXSWvw_WTubHSgzKge3QfhoP2vqYufZMDGBCXefv6CPNjZV2bejbt-PCr3bkwzUvJeYEo4gszIXP4A/s1116/Picture%2016.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="1116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuRBkGvkxLemIpWEFG04vygbzNzRZfojeTEZROvTTSv3bt2LnJeaqbJv2bZy0qw2OGQ1czJxttbN7WbSCrAPHDR10kErxCMaH_WTIJtgcpBYHNHXSWvw_WTubHSgzKge3QfhoP2vqYufZMDGBCXefv6CPNjZV2bejbt-PCr3bkwzUvJeYEo4gszIXP4A/s16000/Picture%2016.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ron Howard and Cindy Williams with Kathleen Quinlan's Peg silently instigating</td></tr></tbody></table>While the main actors were kickstarting their careers, Ron Howard, billed as Ronny Howard, who was the biggest name of the lot, had the task of making people forget he was Opie on ANDY GRIFFITH for all those years. Although his story is the least interesting, he succeeded as a teenage actor.<br />
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And then people would know him as Richie Cunningham (HAPPY DAYS was inspired by GRAFFITI but actually spun-off from an episode of LOVE AMERICAN STYLE) until he trailblazed as a successful director later on.<br />