The 1973 box office and critical smash American Graffiti epitomized the 1950s nostalgia craze, established the device of interweaving multiple stories, inspired such television series as Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, and boosted the careers of Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark and, most notably, the film's co-writer and director, George Lucas. The story takes place in 1962—the proper if not the chronological end of the 1950s—when both the kids and the country were innocent. The evening depicted was a month before the Cuban missile crisis, a year before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and years before the Vietnam War controversy, hippies, radicals, pot, free love, Nixon, and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). But what makes the film universal is the way Lucas captures the innocence of youth, that ephemeral moment when all options are still open, before irrevocable choices must be...