THX 1138
TCM, 10:45 p.m. ET
In 1971, three years after Stanley Kubrick directed and co-wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey, a young filmmaker named George Lucas directed and co-wrote his own sci-fi movie, called THX 1138. It’s about a repressive future where a man and woman decide to rebel, and the man is played by Robert Duvall, a year before Lucas’s filmmaking friend, Francis Ford Coppola, cast him in The Godfather. And two years after filming THX 1138, Lucas directed and co-wrote American Graffiti, which featured, in a small supporting role, another young actor, Harrison Ford. Then, four years after that, Lucas stunned the world in 1977 the way Kubrick had done in 1968, by releasing a little film then titled, simply, Star Wars. Watch the genesis of all that, and the links to Kubrick, tonight, as TCM presents THX.