George Lucas took a 180° turn from the stark sci-fi dystopia of THX 1138 with this delightful ensemble comedy about an eventful night in the life of newly minted high school graduates in 1962, which proved to be the year’s surprise smash hit and gave the filmmaker the clout to reinvent the summer movie four years later with Star Wars. The cast of rising young stars includes Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, and an Oscar-nominated Candy Clark, and the wall-to-wall songs on the soundtrack enhance the film’s authentic sense of time and place. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay, and Film Editing.

DIRECTOR: George Lucas. WRITTEN BY: George Lucas, Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck. CAST: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith. 1973. 110 min. USA. Color. Scope. English. 35mm. Print courtesy of the Constellation Center Collection at the Academy Film Archive.

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