PDB said:

Buster D said:

Is the DTS-MA 2.0 for American Graffiti as close to the original theatrical audio (4-track stereo) as we can get? I have one of the Pioneer Japan LDs but it's Dolby Surround, so I assume it's mostly the same as the DTS-MA.

Interesting enough, IMDB says it was a 4-track but it predates Dolby Stereo and was too much of a low budget to get a 70mm release. That means only European audiences heard the 4 track on 35mm mag prints. In the US it would of been stereo optical (no matrix).

I was under the impression that stereo optical didn't even exist prior to Dolby. I would be more willing to bet that the original 1973 release was strictly mono - especially because Walter Murch himself has stated point-blank that "American Graffiti was in mono. Apocalypse Now was my first stereo film. All of the films I'd worked on up until that point were mono."

IMDB probably says it was 4-track stereo because the 1978 re-release was remixed in Dolby Stereo. IMDB also claims Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was both mono and 4-track stereo, when in reality it was only ever in mono until it was remixed for the the 1996 re-release.

With few exceptions, most 70s films prior to Star Wars were in mono. I believe that Phantom of the Paradise and Nashville were indeed in 4-track stereo, but IMDB also claims that The Man Who Fell to Earth was in 4-track, yet I can find no evidence that it was ever anything but mono. And while they also say that The Rocky Horror Picture Show had 4-track mag stereo, I have no idea if that's true either.

To be honest, I take any IMDB claims of pre-Star Wars 70s films being in stereo with a grain of salt. Unless there is concrete evidence that a film was exhibited in stereo, I will assume that it was never mixed in anything but mono.