AMERICAN GRAFFITI
Showtime 2, 8:05 p.m. ET
Before concocting the futuristic universe of Star Wars, George Lucas directed and co-wrote this 1973 salute to the past: specifically, to the innocent 1950s, and the drive-in, drive-around, rock-music-soaked teen culture. If it sounds a bit like ABC’s Happy Days, which premiered the following year, it should: The stars of American Graffiti include Cindy Williams, who co-starred in the Happy Days spinoff Laverne & Shirley, and Ron Howard, who starred as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. But that character, and series, actually originated with a 1972 segment on the ABC comedy anthology series Love, American Style, which means Happy Days, technically, mined this genre before Lucas and American Graffiti. No matter: Graffiti is the more sophisticated and rewarding treatment, with Richard Dreyfuss as a high-school graduate about to leave for college, enjoying and enduring one final night out with friends and enemies, as are other characters played by Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, Charlie Martin Smith, Mackenzie Phillips, and a very young Harrison Ford. Disc jockey Wolfman Jack is heard throughout, along with the seminal Fifties music he plays – and Suzanne Somers, a few years before Three’s Company, has a small but memorable part (pictured) as an elusive siren of sorts. If you haven’t seen this movie in a while, and you probably haven’t, I’d say grab the chance. The movie, by now, works as an exercise in nostalgia that is itself nostalgic.