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| Bad boy gang members, The Pharaohs intimidate a worried Curt [Richard Dreyfuss] |
By contributing writer, Charlie Lecach
Even though
their low-riding, Flathead powered Mercury is probably far from being the
fastest car in the Valley, the members of the PHARAOHS [Bo Hopkins, Manuel
Padilla, Jr, & Beau Gentry] are among the coolest kids in director, George
Lucas’ 1973 nostalgic film, American Graffiti. These hoods appear to be the
real badass guys who would eventually tie you to their rear bumper and drag you
through Paradise Road or some other abandoned stretch of asphalt in Sonoma
County (where parts of the movie were filmed). At least that’s what they would
like Curt Henderson [Richard Dreyfuss] to believe but besides breaking into a
few pinball machines and ripping off a police car’s rear axle, they don’t seem
to be that bad. Just as most car club members from the 1950’s and 1960’s used
to be in real life: Mostly grown up teenagers with cheap cars, trying to make
them go faster, cruising all night to pick up girls and having fun “as usual.”
Thousands
of these car clubs used to be spread all over the continent back then and it
seems like each small town even hosted a few of them. Sometimes you could run
into bigger organizations but most of the clubs consisted of 5 to 10 friends
who chose a name, a logo, had a few car coats embroidered and some club plaques
cast (quite often in a high school casting and foundry class). In the film, American
Graffiti, PHARAOHS seem to be one of
those smaller groups, as we just know about Joe [Bo Hopkins], Carlos [Manuel Padilla,
Jr.], Ants [Beau Gentry] and most probably Gil Gonzales and Toby Juarez, who are
mentioned in the dialogue.
THE REAL PHARAOHS
During the fifties and sixties, there were many
real car clubs across the USA called the PHARAOHS. Here’s a list of some cities
where they could be found : Alamosa, Bassett, Braintree, Chicago, Eveleth,
Flint, Delano, Deward, Eureka, Hurricane, North Sacramento, Genie, Phoenix, Oakland,
Pocatello, Lake Stevens, Saint Paul, Braintree, Poplar Bluff, Santa Rosa, Del
Mar, Munday, El Monte, Fort Worth, Fowler, Saint Louis County, Glenview, Little
Egypt, Amarillo, Malden, Bassett, Oxnard, Pittsburgh, Raytown, Roseville,
Salinas, Berdoo, Scottsbluff, Minneapolis, South Bend, Spokane, Clifton, Southland,
Swanton, Toledo, Wilmington and a few more.
Back then, some clubs indeed preferred to spell their name PHAROAHS, like in Fremont, Seward, Mount Vernon, Mokes Lake, Tri Cities / WA or Concord. One club is known for spelling its name PHAROS and there was even one FAROS car club in Modesto, California, which was active between 1957 and 1973. Most likely, the name of the car club gang in Graffiti was inspired by the very same FAROS who cruised the streets of Modesto while director, George Lucas was growing up there in the late-1950s and early-1960s.
ORIGINAL
CLUB MEMBERS FEATURED IN THE MOVIE
If you’re
among those Graffiti fans who like to
dissect each image of the movie, you might have noticed some other gangs
hanging around in front of Mels. For example, after having spent the night with
the Pharaohs, Curt [Richard Dreyfuss] is dropped off at the drive-in
(originally located at 140 S. Van Ness Blvd. in San Francisco, CA). As he's walking to his Citroën 2CV Curt passes a
few car buffs wearing club coats. During
this scene, at least two different clubs can be clearly identified: the Quick Changers and the Road Runners, both from Marin County. These
clubs really existed and it’s most likely that some of their members were
used as extras. After all, the few hot rods seen in American Graffiti - other
than Milner’s Deuce which was a movie prop - must have belonged to some real
hot rodders…
Thanks to
Bill Junge for the photos of these car club plaques. Bill has gathered
thousands of images and just finished a new version of his old website, listing
and showing all these cast aluminum plaques, http://carclubplaques.pairsite.com/carclubplaques.htm If you want
him to put you on his list of information to know when the new site will updated,
please drop him a line: clubplaques@frontier.com
~ FIN ~
