A SUMMER OF FUN! THE RETURN OF "AMERICAN GRAFFITI"

One of the lovely and nostalgic posters for George Lucas's pre-STAR WARS triumph: AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Image: LUCASFILM/UNIVERSAL.

George Lucas's first "feel good" movie of the seventies, the low budget but soon worldwide commercial hit AMERICAN GRAFFITI, which, on its first release, quickly made stars out of Ron Howard (who would go on to be the main lead of the GRAFFITI-esque series HAPPY DAYS), Richard Dreyfuss, Paul Le Mat and Candy Clark, is on late tonight/early morning on the UK's ITV 1 channel (and coming to Blu-ray States-side in May of this year), and if you've never seen it, with its life story loosely based around George Lucas (who was apparently reminiscent of the film's glasses wearing lovable nerd Terry the Toad (played by Charles Martin Smith)) and all the youngsters that went out car cruising late-night in Modesto, California in the late fifties and early sixties, its well worth catching-its a lovely film (produced by Gary Kurtz), beautifully made (and very documentary style in places-a real Lucas trademark even then), with great performances from everybody (including a young Harrison Ford as a cowboy hat wearing drag-car racer), plus a fantastic, then revolutionary, music soundtrack compendium from all the greats of the time.

Want some cheering up as we approach Spring-time? Then catch AMERICAN GRAFFITI and you'll find it certainly hits the spot!