Its popularity in the film and the TV series prompted another re-release of the song on vinyl, briefly sending Clock back into the Billboard Top 40 for one week in May 1974. It was the song's success in Graffiti that motivated the producers to use Rock Around the Clock as the opening theme for Happy Days for its first two seasons. Haley re-recorded the song numerous times over the years until his death in 1981, but his original version of the song was used in the opening sequence to George Lucas' 1973 film American Graffiti (which also starred Ron Howard) and featured in the film's soundtrack album. By July, Rock Around the Clock had soared to the top of Billboard's "Best Sellers" chart and stayed there for eight consecutive weeks, and had also topped the singles charts in other countries including the UK and Germany. The film and the song became so popular that Decca Records re-released Clock as an A-side single in May of that year. Rock Around the Clock was the song chosen and used in the opening of the film, released by MGM in March 1955. The producers' decision would prove to be a seminal moment in pop music and culture. Actor Glenn Ford, who played the lead character in the film, decided to borrow some of his son Peter's' records, one of which was Rock Around the Clock. In 1955, the producers of the film Blackboard Jungle were looking to include a song in the film that best represented what contemporary teenagers were listening to. Haley's version of Rock Around the Clock was first released in 1954 as the B-side to a single called Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town), and though the single did make the lower half of the Billboard Top 40, it was not considered a success. When Rock Around the Clock was composed in late 1952 it was not intended as a rock-and-roll number the song's initial arrangement resembled a popular Leroy Anderson instrumental called The Syncopated Clock, which was being used as the theme for late night movie shows on CBS-affiliated TV stations across the country.
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