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I wish I could say that I had seen more of Clark, or had remembered seeing her, but I don’t. Beginning as a model, and switching to acting in the early '70s, she has worked consistently ever since, even originating the role of Buffy Summers’ mother in the 1992 movie, and most recently playing the mother of Matt Damon’s character in The Informant! She was the only cast member of American Graffiti to be nominated for her performance, playing Debbie Dunham, the big-haired, blonde-haired not-quite ditz, who surprises Terry by hopping into his car, and then keeps on surprising him (and the audience) the rest of the evening.

It was hard for me to get past that wig (it did its job) but in More American Graffiti, she delivers a memorable comic performance that is sold via her rubbery but awesomely warm and open face. I was grateful for the gratuitous split screen simply so I could study her reaction shots in triplicate. As a part-time girlfriend for an oft-jailed hippie who isn’t good enough for her, occasional topless dancer, and full-time wanderlust-er, Debbie is good-hearted but aimless, until an evening in the company of a rock band, threatens to point her in a more focused, but unconventional direction.

The ’66 segment is the most affected and the slightest of the four but it is Clark’s good-natured cheer, when coupled with LeMat’s honest portrayal of a small-town winner looking to break into the big time, that make More American Graffiti more groovy than bummer for me. It is an interesting experiment that might have been a bigger hit if Lucas hadn’t attempted to deny his commercial sensibilities or a more recognized cult classic if it had completely 180-ed and gone whole-hog dark and pessimistic. By being neither fish nor fowl, it perhaps foretold its own fate as a forgotten sequel.

Confession: I fibbed - a little - when I suggested that both of this week’s films had been sight unseen by me until last week. I did see Graffiti Bridge in the theater. I am almost certain. I think. It played for all of about three weeks in November 1990, posting $4.5 million in grosses, or roughly 1/17 what Purple Rain earned. I recall that I did want to see it, and as it wasn’t playing near me in Central Oregon, but was in Portland, where my family would be for a few days during our annual fall vacation away from running our resort, that I specifically made plans to see it at that time. I also recall an empty theater. I could not, however, summon up any memory of actually sitting through the film. After watching the film again, for the first time, I realize that my brain may have taken that memory and performed a highly localized lobotomy on it. I suspect it may attempt another one.

Between 1984 and 1990, Prince officially released seven albums (not counting the-shelved Black Album or projects such as Crystal Ball that did not come to fruition at that point in time), of which four were movie soundtracks (Purple Rain, Parade, Batman, and Graffiti Bridge). During this same epoch, he starred in three musicals (Purple Rain, Under the Cherry Moon, Graffiti Bridge) and a concert movie (Sign O’ the Times), directing all but the first of those. I have to wonder if intending Graffiti Bridge as a sequel to Purple Rain might not have been Prince’s own little personal (and cruel) joke against his corporate masters at Warner Bros. This was, after all ,only two years away from his becoming Glyph/Love Symbol/The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and less than half a decade away from completing his contract with WB, and stepping off into the unknown to release what he wanted when he wanted.

As exhilarating and uplifting as I do find Purple Rain’s concert sequences, there is a cynical part of me that wonders if the film isn’t really something more than a thinly veneered autobiographical rise to fame tale. It could also be seen as either:

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