The Last Picture Show

Plot

In 1951, Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) are high-school seniors and friends in a small, declining Texas town. Duane is dating Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd), the prettiest (and wealthiest) girl in town. Sonny decides to break up with girlfriend Charlene Duggs (Sharon Ullrick).

At Christmastime, Sonny begins an affair with Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman), the depressed, middle-aged wife of his high-school coach, Coach Popper (Bill Thurman). At the Christmas dance, Jacy is invited by Lester Marlow (Randy Quaid) to a naked indoor pool party, at the home of Bobby Sheen (Gary Brockette), a wealthy young man who seems a better prospect than Duane. Bobby tells Jacy he isnt interested in virgins and to come back after shes had sex.

The group of boys take their young intellectually disabled friend, Billy (Sam Bottoms), 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" (Ben Johnson), tells them that since they cannot even take care of a friend, he is barring them from his pool hall, movie theater and cafe. Sonny later sneaks into the cafe and accepts the offer of a free hamburger from the waitress, Genevieve (Eileen Brennan), when Sam walks in and discovers him. Once Sam sees Sonnys genuine affection for Billy he accepts his apology.

Duane and Sonny go on a weekend road trip to Mexico, an event that happens off-screen. Before they drive off, Sam comes to encourage them about their trip and gives them some extra money. In the next scene they return hungover and tired and eventually learn that during their absence Sam has died of a stroke. He left the towns movie theater to the woman who ran the concession stand, the cafe to Genevieve and the pool hall to Sonny.

Jacy invites Duane to a motel for sex but he is unable to perform. She loses her virginity to him on their second attempt and then breaks up with him by phone. When Bobby marries another girl, Jacy is disappointed. Out of boredom, she has sex with Abilene (Clu Gulager), her mothers lover, though he is cold to her after their rendezvous. Jacy then sets her sights on Sonny, who drops Ruth without announcement. Duane quarrels with Sonny over Jacy, "his" girl and hits him over the head with a bottle. Duane then decides to join the Army to fight in Korea.

Jacy suggests to Sonny that they elope. On their way to their honeymoon, 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, Jacys mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn) admits to Sonny she was Sam the Lions paramour and tells him he was much better off with Ruth Popper than with Jacy.

Duane returns to town for a visit, before shipping out for Korea. He and Sonny are among the meager group attending the final screening at the movie house, which is closing down. The next morning, after Sonny sees Duane off on the Trailways bus, Billy is run over and killed as he sweeps the street. An upset Sonny seeks comfort from Ruth. Her first reaction is to vent her hurt and anger but then she takes his outstretched hand.

Casting

Production

Peter Bogdanovich was a 31-year-old stage actor, film essayist and critic with two small films—Targets (1968) (also known as Before I Die) and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)—to his directorial credit. One day while waiting in a cashiers 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 "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 Bogdanovich a copy of the book, "I always wanted to be in this," he said "but Im a little too old now" and recommended that Bogdanovich make it into a film. At the time Bogdanovich was married to Polly Platt and he asked her to read it and her response was, "I dont know how you make it into a picture, but its a good book." Bogdanovich, McMurtry and some sources suggest an uncredited Polly Platt went through the book and wrote a script that tells the story chronologically.

Stephen Friedman was a lawyer with Columbia Pictures but keen to break into film production and 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.

Larry McMurtry was born in the small North Texas town of Archer City. In writing about his hometown he renamed it "Thalia" and in order to film "Thalia", Bogdanovich went back to Archer City. For the film he renamed it Anarene, a name chosen to provide correspondence to the cow-town of Abilene, in Howard Hawks Red River (1948).

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 (1971) in the next office and had helped Bogdanovich, with some purchasing paperwork concerning the films 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 films final form.

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.

Box Office

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

Critical

The Last Picture Show has received critical acclaim and maintains a 100% rating at review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 51 critics, with a rating average of 9.1/10. Its consensus states: Making excellent use of its period and setting, Peter Bogdanovichs 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 collection, writing "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."

Academy Awards

In 1998, The Last Picture Show was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. It also ranked number 19 on Entertainment Weeklys list of the 50 Best High School Movies. In 2007, the film was ranked #95 on the American Film Institutes 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 Bogdanovichs desolate Texan drama is still as stunning now as it was in 1971."

Stephen Kings novel Liseys Story makes repeated references to The Last Picture Show as the main character Scott Landon frequently watches the film throughout the novel during flashbacks.

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, (1999) and Picture This (1990), 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 Francois Truffaut about the New Hollywood.

Directors cut

In 1992, Bogdanovich re-edited the film to create a "directors 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 directors 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 "Whoever would have thought this would happen?" The other major insertion is a scene that plays in Sams cafe, 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 (and being chased by an enthusiastic little dog), 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 Sams poolhall, cafe 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: Ruths and Sonnys 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 is the 1990 sequel to The Last Picture Show, based on McMurtrys 1987 novel of the same name, 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 (nee Taggart) and Barc Doyle.