The Last Picture Show


The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American drama film directed and co-written by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry.
Set in a small town in north Texas from November 1951 to October 1952, it is about the coming of age of Sonny Crawford and his friend Duane Jackson. The cast also includes Cybill Shepherd in her film debut, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, and Cloris Leachman, and features Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager, and Randy Quaid. For aesthetic reasons, it was shot in black and white, which was unusual for the time. The film features many songs of Hank Williams Sr. and other recording artists.
The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Ben Johnson and Jeff Bridges for Best Supporting Actor, and Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman for Best Supporting Actress, with Johnson and Leachman winning.
In 1998 the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

In 1951 Sonny Crawford and Duane Jackson are high-school seniors and friends in Anarene, Texas, a small declining northern Texas town. Duane is dating Jacy Farrow, who Sonny considers the prettiest girl in town. Sonny breaks up with his girlfriend Charlene Duggs.
At Christmas time Sonny begins an affair with Ruth Popper, the depressed middle-aged wife of his high-school coach, "Coach" Popper. She is lonely because her husband is a closeted homosexual. At the Christmas dance Jacy is invited by Lester Marlow to a naked indoor pool party at the home of Bobby Sheen, a wealthy young man who seems to be a better prospect than Duane. Bobby tells Jacy that he isn't interested in virgins and to come back after she's had sex.
The group of boys take their young, mentally disabled friend, Billy, to a prostitute to lose his virginity, but she hits Billy in the face when he ejaculates prematurely. When Duane and Sonny take Billy back home, Sam "the Lion" tells them that since they cannot even take care of a friend, he is barring them from the pool hall, the movie theater, and the cafe. Duane isn't seen by Sam because he hides in the backseat. At the cafe, Genevieve, the waitress, tells Sonny she knows that Duane was with the group but agrees not to tell Sam.
During the weekend of New Year's Eve, Duane and Sonny go on a weekend road trip to Mexico. Before they drive off, Sam, who has forgiven Sonny, chats with them about their trip, wistfully wishing he still had the stamina to join them, and gives them some extra money. When they return from the trip, hung over and tired, they learn that during their absence Sam died of a stroke on New Year's Eve. In his will, Sam left the movie theater to the woman who ran the concession stand; the café to Genevieve; $1,000 to the preacher's son, Joe Bob Blanton; and the pool hall to Sonny.
Jacy invites Duane to a motel for sex so that she can date Bobby, but Duane is unable to get an erection. She loses her virginity to Duane on their second attempt and then breaks up with him by telephone. When Bobby marries another girl, Jacy is disappointed. Out of boredom, she has sex with Abilene, her mother's lover, though he is cold to her afterward. Jacy then sets her sights on Sonny, who drops Ruth without notice. Duane quarrels with Sonny over Jacy, "his" girl, and hits him in the side of the head with a bottle, blinding him in the left eye. Duane then decides to join the army to fight in Korea.
Jacy suggests to Sonny that they elope in Oklahoma. On their way to their honeymoon on Lake Texoma, they are stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper; Jacy left a note telling her parents all about their plan. The couple are brought back to Anarene. On the trip back, Jacy's mother, Lois, admits to Sonny that she was Sam the Lion's paramour and tells him that he was much better off with Ruth Popper than with Jacy. The marriage of Sonny and Jacy is annulled.
Duane returns to town on leave from the Army before shipping out for Korea. He and Sonny are among the meager group attending the final screening at the movie house, which is closing that day. The next morning, Sonny sees Duane off on the bus. Billy is sweeping the street and is hit and killed by a truck. An upset Sonny seeks comfort from Ruth. Her first reaction is to vent her hurt and anger but then she takes his outstretched hand, saying, "Never you mind, honey. Never you mind."

Cast

Peter Bogdanovich was a 31-year-old stage actor, film essayist, and critic with two small films – Targets and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women – to his directorial credit, all made with his wife and collaborator, Polly Platt. One day while waiting in a cashier's line in a drugstore, he happened to look at the rack of paperbacks and his eye fell on an interesting title, The Last Picture Show. The back of the book said it was about "kids growing up in Texas" and Bogdanovich decided that it did not interest him and put it back. A few weeks later, actor Sal Mineo handed Platt a copy of the book. "I always wanted to be in this," he said, "but I'm a little too old now" and recommended that Platt and Bogdanovich make it into a film. According to Bogdanovich's recollection, Platt said, "I don't know how you make it into a picture, but it's a good book." Bogdanovich, McMurtry, and Platt adapted the novel into the film of the same name.
Stephen Friedman was a lawyer with Columbia Pictures but keen to break into film production as he had bought the film rights to the book, so Bogdanovich hired him as producer.
After discussing the film with Orson Welles, his houseguest at the time, Bogdanovich decided to shoot the film in black and white.
The film was shot in Larry McMurtry's small hometown of Archer City located in northern Texas. McMurtry had renamed the town Thalia in his book; Bogdanovich renamed it Anarene for the film. This name was chosen to correspond to the cowtown of Abilene, Kansas, in Howard Hawks' Red River. Red River, significantly, is the movie, indeed the last picture show, that Sonny and Duane watch at the end of the film.
After shooting the film, Bogdanovich went back to Los Angeles to edit the film on a Moviola. Bogdanovich has said he edited the entire film himself but refused to credit himself as editor, reasoning that director and co-writer was enough. When informed that the Motion Picture Editors Guild required an editor credit, he suggested Donn Cambern who had been editing another film, Drive, He Said in the next office and had helped Bogdanovich, with some purchasing paperwork concerning the film's opticals. Cambern disputes this, stating that Bogdanovich did do an edit of the film, which he screened for a selection of guests, including Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson and himself. The consensus was the film was going to be great, but needed further editing to achieve its full potential. Bogdanovich invited Cambern to edit the film further and Cambern made significant contributions to the film's final form.
Bogdanovich obtained a rare waiver from the Directors Guild of America to have his name appear only at the end of the film, after the actors' credits, as he felt it was more meaningful for the audience to seem their names after their performances.

Reception and legacy

Box office

The film earned $13.1 million in domestic rentals in North America.

Critical reception

The Last Picture Show received critical acclaim and maintains a 100% rating at review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 55 critics, with a rating average of 9.12/10. Its consensus states: "Making excellent use of its period and setting, Peter Bogdanovich's small town coming-of-age story is a sad but moving classic filled with impressive performances."
Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars in his original review and named it the best film of 1971. He later added it to his "Great Movies" list, writing that "the film is above all an evocation of mood. It is about a town with no reason to exist, and people with no reason to live there. The only hope is in transgression." Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it a "lovely film" that "rediscovers a time, a place, a film form—and a small but important part of the American experience." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "Like few films in recent years, Peter Bogdanovich's 'The Last Picture Show' ends with us wanting to see more of the people who occupy the small town world that is Anarene, Tex. in 1951. This emotion is not easily achieved. It is a result of a thoro Peyton Place investigation into Anarene's bedrooms, parked cars, football games, movie theater, restaurant, and pool hall." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the film "the most considered, craftsmanlike and elaborate tribute we have yet had to what the movies were and how they figured in our lives." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "an exceedingly well-made and involving narrative film with decent aims, encouraging us to understand and care about its characters, though not to emulate them."

Obscenity controversy

In 1973, largely because of the skinny-dipping party scene, the film was banned in Phoenix, Arizona, when the city attorney notified a drive-in theater manager that the film violated a state obscenity statute. Eventually, a federal court decided that the film was not obscene. Ed Ware, the district attorney of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, managed to block the showing of the film but only temporarily because the theater filed suit successfully to overturn Ware's directive.

Awards and nominations

It ranked No. 19 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. In 2007, the film was ranked No. 95 on the American Film Institute's 10th Anniversary Edition of the 100 greatest American films of all time.
In April 2011, The Last Picture Show was re-released in UK and Irish cinemas, distributed by Park Circus. Total Film magazine gave the film a five-star review, stating: "Peter Bogdanovich's desolate Texan drama is still as stunning now as it was in 1971."

Home media

The film was released by The Criterion Collection in November 2010 as part of their box set, America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. It included a high-definition digital transfer of Peter Bogdanovich's director's cut, two audio commentaries, one from 1991, featuring Bogdanovich and actors Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall; the other from 2009, featuring Bogdanovich "The Last Picture Show": A Look Back, and Picture This, documentaries about the making of the film, A Discussion with Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, a 2009 Q&A, screen tests and location footage, and excerpts from a 1972 television interview with director François Truffaut about the New Hollywood.

Director's cut

In 1992, Bogdanovich re-edited the film to create a "director's cut". This version restores seven minutes of footage that Bogdanovich trimmed from the 1971 release because Columbia imposed a firm 119-minute time limit on the film. With this requirement removed in the 1990s, Bogdanovich used the 127-minute cut on laserdisc, VHS and DVD releases. The original 1971 cut is not currently available on home video, though it was released on VHS and laserdisc through Columbia Tristar Home Video.
There are two substantial scenes restored in the director's cut. The first is a sex scene between Jacy and Abilene that plays in the poolhall after it has closed for the night; it precedes the exterior scene where he drops her off home and she says "What a night. I never thought this would happen." The other major insertion is a scene that plays in Sam's café, where Genevieve watches while an amiable Sonny and a revved-up Duane decide to take their road trip to Mexico; it precedes the exterior scene outside the poolhall when they tell Sam of their plans, the last time they will ever see him.
Several shorter scenes were also restored. One comes between basketball practice in the gym and the exterior at The Rig-Wam drive-in; it has Jacy, Duane and Sonny riding along in her convertible, singing an uptempo rendition of the more solemn school song sung later at the football game. Another finds Sonny cruising the town streets in the pick-up, gazing longingly into Sam's poolhall, café and theater, from which he has been banished. Finally, there is an exterior scene of the auto caravan on its way to the Senior Picnic; as it passes the fishing tank where he had fished with Sam and Billy, Sonny sheds a tear for his departed friend and his lost youth.
Two scenes got slightly longer treatments: Ruth's and Sonny's return from the doctor, and the boys' returning Billy to Sam after his encounter with Jemmie Sue—both had added dialogue. Also, a number of individual shots were put back in, most notably a handsome Gregg Toland-style deep focus shot in front of the Royal Theatre as everyone gets in their cars.

Sequel

Texasville, the 1990 sequel to The Last Picture Show, based on McMurtry's 1987 novel of the same name, was also directed by Bogdanovich, from his own screenplay, without McMurtry this time. The film reunites actors Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid, Sharon Ullrick and Barc Doyle.

In popular culture

's novel Lisey's Story makes repeated references to The Last Picture Show as the main character Scott Landon frequently watches the film throughout the novel during flashbacks.
The 1972 Roxy Music UK hit single Virginia Plain includes the line, "Last Picture Show's down the drive-in."