The Last Picture Show (1971) User Reviews (230)

Last man standing

[gleebs75 · 9/10 · 23 February 2006]

Set in a fictional town in Texas, this film is full of imagery of the dying west and the way of classic American life that people in the small town had become so accustomed to. It opens with the shot of a run down movie theatre, then spans the length of the whole run down town, and ends up focusing on a young kid in a run down truck. The situation appears very grim and rather hopeless.

The film focuses on the life of Sonny, the kid in the run down truck that we are introduced to in the opening. Sonny is a poor boy, who has been somewhat abandoned by his parents. He's friends with the other poor kids in the town—Dwayne, and Billy most notably. Billy is deaf, and a bit on the slow side—he's Sam the Lion's son and Sonny has a real soft spot for him. Sam the Lion pretty much owns the town. We find Sam and Sonny to have a complex relationship, and one that will end up providing a circular theme for the film. Sam owns the town's pool hall, movie theatre, and café and is well-known and loved by everyone. What Sam says, goes, and we get this image of Sam as the kind of old cowboy ruling over the land. The town has a kind of old glory day feel about it—the teenagers go to the movies at night and kiss in the back rows, they make out in cars and all seem rather innocent in their naiveté. However, there are more secrets to the town than are made apparent at first and we realize that this town is far from the perfect image of the west that we have been accustomed to in films up to this point.

For example, Sonny gets into a sexual relationship with his basketball coach's wife when she gets too sad for anything else to make her happy. Jacy, the town's classic blonde, ends up being very sexually confused and troubled due to the odd relationship between her and her drunken mother, who is having an affair. The town rich kids are all messed up, having naked pool parties and sleeping with one another. Basically, it's a town that is the result of a changing society with changing ideals. There are a number of times in the film, where the noise from a television is the only sound the audience hears. It seems as if television is part of the changing values of the town—especially after Sam the Lion dies. Once Sam dies, everything seems to take a turn for the worse. He leaves Sonny the pool hall and leaves the theatre in the hands of the old lady who had basically been running it before. Eventually, she needs to shut down the theatre, and even blames television as the reason why people don't want to go to the theatre anymore. Dwayne goes away to the army, he and Sonny get in a fight, and the preacher's son is even arrested for attempting to molest a little girl. It appears that with the death of the cowboy figure of the town, the whole town goes downhill, and at the same time, Sonny seems to be taking his place. He starts rolling cigarettes like Sam had, has his wild days with Jacy (coincidentally the daughter of Sam's old lover), runs the pool hall, and seems destined to simply follow in Sam's footsteps. The last scene, where Sonny returns to the house of his 40 year old lover, there is a loud laughter coming from the television. The conversation is serious, Mrs. Leachman is on the brink of nervous breakdown, Sonny has just witnessed the death of his friend Billy, Dwayne had just left for Korea, and Jacy was off at college. Sonny is the only one left, the last one standing. And the only sound of laughter coming from the sad house where Sonny is destined to spend the rest of his days with a married woman is coming from the television. The wild, wild west has been reduced to people in their houses wishing to be as happy as the people on the television. Instead, they have been doomed to live unfulfilling lives that will never live up to the standard of life in the old time western films in the closed down Royale theatre.

The Texas Ice Princess

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 13 June 2007]

The Last Picture Show, set in Texas during the early Fifties is about the coming of age of two Texas teens, Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridgesand the young lady who has an effect on both of them, Cybill Shepherd.

Cybill part of what passes for society in this small hole in the wall town that's seen its better days. Her father is rich because of some prosperous oil leases. Her mother Ellen Burstyn is thinking she's discreet in her affair with oil worker Clu Gulager, but there ain't any secrets in that town.

Shepherd is pretty, but spoiled. She flirts from Bridges to Bottoms, gets involved with Randy Quaid, Gulager and others. She breaks up the friendship with Bottoms and Bridges temporarily and causes all kinds of other havoc.

Bottoms is also taken up with his high school coach's wife who also is unhappily married. Cloris Leachman delivers a strong performance there, possibly the best among the female cast members.

However The Last Picture Show is known as the film that brought Ben Johnson an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Johnson drifted into acting, he was a rodeo performer who handled stock in several Hollywood films that John Ford took a liking to. He represented in his roles some of the best traditions of the American west as he does here.

The tragedy is though he represents a way of life that has come and gone. And that it has passed is not for the better.

Peter Bogdanovich as director got all kinds of deserved acclaim for this film that has become a classic. Sad to say Bogdanovich never quite did anything as good as The Last Picture Show.

Almost 40 years later, The Last Picture Show still holds up well today and should not be missed.

Behind the Van of Time

[JamesHitchcock · 8/10 · 26 June 2019]

The title, "The Last Picture Show", refers to the final screening to take place at the only cinema in the small town of Anarene, Texas, before it closes. The significance of this event is that Anarene is a slowly declining settlement where there is little to do and little to keep the townspeople from drifting away; once the cinema is gone there will be even less. In Larry McMurtry's novel on which the film is based the town was called "Thalia", but director Peter Bogdanovich borrowed the name of a genuine Texan ghost town.

The action takes place over about a year in 1951 and 1952 and tells a coming-of-age story about Sonny Crawford and Duane Jackson, two teenage boys in their final year at high school. Other important characters are Duane's girlfriend Jacy Farrow, Ruth Popper, the middle-aged wife of the school's football coach, with whom Sonny begins an affair, and "Sam the Lion", the proprietor not only of the cinema but also of Anarene's pool hall and café which constitute the town's only other facilities for entertainment or social interaction.

Bogdanovich described the film as homage to Howard Hawks' "Red River", which is the film shown in Anarene's "last picture show". It also struck me as an homage to Martin Ritt's "Hud", also set in a small Texas town and also based upon a McMurtry novel. The two films have a similar look, both dominated by shots of the wide-open Texas plains. Both films were shot in black-and-white, something still quite common when "Hud" was made in 1963 but which had become very unusual by 1971, only eight years later.

The film might look like a movie from the fifties or early sixties, but it doesn't sound like one. Something else had changed in those eight years in that American society had become a lot more permissive, and with the end of the Production Code film-makers could be franker and more open about sex. As one might imagine from a film about teenagers, sex is the major preoccupation of Sonny, Duane, Jacy and their contemporaries and something much discussed. There are some scenes, including one in which a mentally handicapped boy loses his virginity to a prostitute and one in which a preacher's son reveals an unhealthy interest in young children, which could never have been included in films made only a few years earlier.

It is sometimes said of Bogdanovich that his early career as a director was harmed by his insistence on casting his then girlfriend, Cybill Shepherd, in roles which were beyond her acting ability. I have not seen all his collaborations with Shepherd, but I must say that this theory is not borne out by "The Last Picture Show". Shepherd, in her film debut, gives a fine performance here. Jacy, who comes from a well-to-do family, is popular and described as "the prettiest girl in Anarene", but this makes her no more than the biggest fish in a particularly small pond. She knows that she is expected to marry a boy from an equally well-off family and settle down as a housewife and mother, but is looking for more than that, in terms of both love and of life in general. She knows that her mother Lois did just what was expected of her and yet has ended up unfulfilled and miserable, failing to find happiness in either her marriage to Jacy's father or in her frequent affairs with other men.

Shepherd's is not the only fine performance here. The whole film is well acted, with too many good performances to single them all out, but mention must be made of Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges as Sonny and Duane, Ben Johnson as Sam, who becomes a sort of father-figure to the town's youth, and Cloris Leachman as Ruth and Ellen Burstyn as Lois, both in their ways lonely, frustrated women.

Films, especially coming-of-age films, made in the seventies and eighties about the fifties and early sixties- "American Graffiti", "Diner", "Grease"- tended to take an affectionately nostalgic look back at the earlier period, seen as the time of a kinder, gentler America before the trauma of Vietnam and its accompanying loss of innocence. There is little affectionate or nostalgic about "The Last Picture Show". We are reminded that if the young men of the early fifties did not have Vietnam they had their own Asian war in the shape of Korea; in the course of the film Duane joins the army before going away to fight. Yet in a way the Army allows him his only chance of escape from Anarene; most of his contemporaries can see few appealing prospects for themselves in the town, which is in a state of both economic and social decline, yet lack the educational qualifications or the financial means to find work elsewhere.

I would not rate the film as highly as "Hud", one of the great films of the sixties; the action can sometimes be difficult to follow because of Bogdanovich's fondness of a non-linear style of storytelling with scenes presented to us out of chronological order. Yet when we bear in mind that this was the work of an inexperienced director in his early thirties, "The Last Picture Show" can be seen as a considerable achievement. The teenage coming-of-age story can at its worst descend into sentimental cliché, but here the format is used to examine the American Dream, a dream which can all too often prove illusory for those living in little towns behind the van of time. 8/10

A Sense Of Realism

[Lechuguilla · 10/10 · 29 January 2006]

This is a character study wherein the main character is a small West Texas town, circa 1951. In the U.S., the early 1950s symbolized a transition from nineteenth century agrarian values to twentieth century urbanism. In the film, various people who live in the town must confront the reality that time moves on. Things change. Assumptions of previous generations give way to the untested assumptions of the future. The film's theme is thus American cultural change, and the personal disillusionment that such change can bring. It is a powerful theme, and the film imparts that theme with logical clarity and emotional frankness.

In the hands of lesser talents, the subject matter of unimportant people doing unimportant things might have yielded a tiresome soap opera. But the film's script is poetic, the direction is skillful, the B&W cinematography is artistic, the casting is perfect, and the performances are superlative.

The story draws heavily from early American individualism. Life here is mostly physical, not mental. Human relationships are direct, immediate, one-on-one. Except for schools, which are given some prominence, cultural institutions exist in the film only vaguely or not at all. For entertainment, people listen to radio, which features the mournful country-western music of Hank Williams. Or, they go to the town's decrepit picture show, where an elderly Miss Mosey kindly returns money to the kids who got there too late to see the cartoons.

If the film has a weakness it is in the presentation of a realism that is incomplete. We see mostly stifling bleakness, though that is ameliorated somewhat by humor. What we don't see are the uplifting influences and the optimism that sustained agrarian generations through hardships and rough times.

Nevertheless, within the film's story parameters, the film does convey an accurate account of what life was like for ordinary folks in West Texas in the early 1950s. I doubt that this film could be made today. Contemporary audiences have been conditioned to expect non-stop action, loudness, glitz, and overblown special effects, all of which are absent, mercifully, from this film.

Low-key, perceptive, bleak, and melancholy, "The Last Picture Show" easily makes my list of Top Ten favorite films of all time.

A Movie Milestone

[EricH-9 · 10/10 · 29 April 1999]

One of my favorite films is The Last Picture Show. It is a film that was directed by Peter Bogdanovitch in 1971, yet almost 30 years later it still seems fresh and alive to me. There is a desolate, spare quality to the 1950's small west Texas town we are invited into and its desolation is apparent to us from the opening scenes. It was filmed in black and white, which enhances the dramatic quality of the town and takes us back to a simpler time. Just as our lives are discontinuous, with jarring scene changes and ridiculous episodes of embarrassing events, so is life presented to us in this small town. The film's purposely jarring editing is transformed in our minds, as we watch, from a disjointed amalgam to a stream of consciousness effect that is very lifelike. One knows, then, that you are entering an alternative world just as real in its way as your own. This movie pulls you in.

There is no musical score in this film in the normal sense. The only time you hear music is when a radio is on or a phonograph is playing in the background. This lack of a musical score dubbed over the film enhances the illusion of reality. Another aspect of this sound editing is the choice of music that is being played by the different characters. Bogdonavitch uses song and artist selection to subtly comment on the character of the person or people who are listening to it. In the case of Sonny the music he selects is always Hank Williams and it alludes to the hardscrabble life and down to earth quality of his character. In contrast at JC's home, the manipulative teenager played by Cybil Sheppard, you hear a cover of a Hank William's song that has all of the life sucked out of it, similar to a Pat Boone cover of an Elvis Presley song. It is a direct comment on JC and her family; her family has grown wealthy by owning oil wells and they pretend they are still the same people as before. It is obvious they are not just by this simple musical selection. It is eloquent in its simplicity.

The center of the film and the major theme – should you listen to your heart or your libido if the two don't combine in the same person? Perhaps the saddest comment in this film is that too often these two halves to a whole do not come together as a package and people are forced to chose. None of the characters are particularly happy with their mates. Everyone is on the prowl for that perfect person they know they will be happy with. Time and again they think that they've found the perfect person based on their sexual attraction but when they begin to show their authentic selves are then rejected. Those in long term relationships with an emotionally compatible mate but with no sexual interest face an equal dilemma – a lack of excitement and joy – and are destined to be the ones that reject. It exposes both sides of this human dilemma, a duality that can become split and non-integrated, and does it in a sophisticated and lyrical way. Most people experience this split at some time and in this film, as in life, there are no easy answers. That's why I love this film.

And there is Billy, the boy who continually sweeps the street in a hopeless gesture to turn back the inevitable, representing that demented and futile longing for a past that was never quite as good as you remember it. He represents that longing for an illusion that disappears just as we are about to grasp it and the sadness of that. The broom that is never fast enough for the blowing dust of time.

There are few perfect movies and this is one

[bandw · 10/10 · 7 March 2006]

Here is a movie that perfectly captures a time and place. The time is the year between November, 1951 and November, 1952 and the place is Anarene, Texas, a small town in north central Texas. The screenplay was written by Larry McMurtry, in collaboration with director Bogdanovich, based on McMurtry's novel of the same name. Anarene is just south of Archer City, McMurtry's home town where the movie was filmed. McMurtry knows whereof he speaks, the movie has the feeling of total authenticity.

The story centers around two best friends, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges), as they pass from being high school seniors into adult life. Given their backgrounds, coming from broken homes and living in boarding houses, there is little idea that they will go to college. The movie details how the two handle this pivotal and bewildering time from being on the high school football team one year to being on their own without much of a safety net the next. In a wider context the movie is about larger transitions: from youth to adulthood for the young people, from a frustrated and bored middle age to an even less promising future for the older folks, and from a town with some social cohesiveness to a town dealing with the isolating effects of a bankrupt economy and the advent of television. The rather bleak prospects that Sonny and Duane face parallel the prospects of the town. You are made to think about transitions in your own life.

The movie is populated with many finely drawn characters, all acted with supreme skill. There is not a false note struck in the entire movie. By the end we know the characters so well that they seem real. Jeff Bridges was nominated for an Oscar, and I don't understand why Timothy Bottoms was not nominated as well, since his performance is of equal quality. Bottoms plays Sonny with such genuine good-natured charm and honest sincerity that it is hard to believe he is acting. And Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman both won well-deserved Oscars. Kudos all round to the entire cast.

The movie is beautifully filmed in black and white befitting the stark settings and story, and the time period. It is filmed as if it were made in the period portrayed.

If you have ever lived in a small town or if you grew up in the American heartland in the 1950s, this movie will evoke overwhelming nostalgia. But the story is so powerfully told that I think that for everyone it will evoke nostalgia for a time and place, even for that which they may never have known.

The town, as well as the movie, is held together by Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson) who owns the movie theater, the café, and the pool hall. In fact he owns just about everything there is to do in Anarene, except for watching the hapless Anarene High football team ... and sex. It is no wonder then that sex, in its many faceted varieties, plays a big role in this town, and in this movie.

There are so many wonderful and memorable scenes that it would simply require a small volume to recount them. One scene that grabbed me was when Sam and Sonny are at a lake outside of town, ostensibly fishing, and Sam reminiscences about old times, about when he came to the lake twenty years earlier with a lover. Sam makes the comment, "You wouldn't believe how this land has changed." The camera pans the surroundings and it is hard to see how this area could have changed much in the last thousand years, but Sam is clearly attuned to the subtle changes, since memories were impressed on him in a time of strong emotion. We all have clear memories from when and where we have been happy, even if it is a small lake in a desolate flat land. And Sam's specific comment can be taken to apply more generally to the basic theme of the movie. This incredible scene ends with Sam's saying, "Being a decrepit old bag of bones, that's what's ridiculous," and anyone who is not close to tears at that point will never truly appreciate the beauty of this movie.

Seemingly this movie should be depressing, but the effect is more of a melancholic look into the lives of ordinary people who are just trying to play the hands they have been dealt in life.

It wasn't until the movie was over and I was reading the credits that I realized how cleverly the music had been woven into the film. All of the music is from the time period and is a part of the action and not background music. It is played on home radios, car radios, truck radios, 45 rpm players, jukeboxes, and at a community Christmas dance. The Hank Williams song, heard on the radio in Sonny's old truck in the opening scene, "Why Don't You Love Me Like You Used to Do?" sets the tone for the music as well as the movie. There are great songs taken from over a dozen country and western classics from the era. Ruth (Cloris Leachman) is listening to Johnny Standley's quirky, "It's in the Book," (a unique and strangely satirical offering to be popular at any time, let alone reach the pop charts and sell a million records in 1952) during the final scene between her and Sonny.

Why is this movie so special? That's kind of like asking why one likes a certain piece of music or a painting. Everything comes together here in one of those magic moments - the acting, the filming, the story, the music, the editing - to create a simply-told and remarkably affecting work of art.

The lost art of American Cinema

[Jasper-12 · 24 April 1999]

Adapted with director Bogdanovich by Larry McMurtry from his own novel, this film remains true to its source. A modern adaptation would no doubt have adopted the voice-over approach of narrative, but here each scene is played out from a more objective point of view. The book consists of a series of events played out over a protracted period of time, with McMurtry's sparse but effective prose acting as a bridging device between scenes. The translation to the screen loses these links, giving the film a slightly episodic feel which runs counter to modern Hollywood film making practice. This is no bad thing, and in every other aspect the film follows the book almost literally, but watching it now does highlight the difference between the formulaic approach we are now accustomed to, with mise en scene, plot turning points and climaxes crudely and obviously spelt out, as opposed to that of Hollywood's final golden age, where the director was given more of a free reign to stamp his own identity on the film, and audiences were more receptive to different styles. Here the spirit of the novel is captured perfectly; that of the desperation and claustrophobia of small town life, where generation after generation undergo the same rites of passage, living out the same lives of frustration and unrealised dreams. The films strength is that it never forces us to identify with any one character, evenly distributing the amount of screen time over the different generations and, almost like a fly on the wall documentary (though heavily stylised in its powerfully expressive monochrome cinematography). Coupled with some sturdy performances from all of the members of the cast, and some memorable images, ‘The Last Picture' comes across as an enchanting, evocative and accessible portrayal of a lifestyle most of us have never and will never experience. Now surely this is what the art of cinema is all about?

My brief review of the film

[sol- · 10/10 · 10 January 2005]

A heartfelt, unbelievably frank film on teenage sexuality, it manages to capture the intensity and tumult of the feelings of its depicted young characters superbly well. The cast is excellent, playing each character out in a realistic and moving manner. Timothy Bottoms in particular displays one of the most earnest performances of all time, and the rest of the actors and actresses are so good in general that it is hard to single one particular one out. The film is superbly shot in black and white, which helps depict the entrapment of the characters' emotions, and to really purify the desire to express their feelings. Without doubt this is one of most honest character studies ever filmed, and it just gets better on a second viewing.

Entirely too much bored meaningless sex...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 24 September 2023]

... and when the characters aren't having bored meaningless sex, they're talking about bored meaningless sex. No wonder, their lives are bored and meaningless, even the lives of the teens who don't seem to have the imagination to wonder what might be past Oklahoma. The few people who do love each other are in impossible situations where they can never be together, and the thing is just so darn depressing.

But if it is possible to make a film that is so desolate in its content be excellent in every other way, this one accomplishes it. First off, it captures the look of early 1950s Texas with its cinematography and art design with the old refrigerators, fans, automobiles, the dinette sets and TV trays, and the many shots of the barren Texas landscape. I'd say gray landscape, but then everything is gray since it is shot in black and white. Then there is the town that looks largely abandoned to the point I wonder how anyone can scratch out a living there. You'd never know that there was a post-war boom going on in the rest of America by looking at this place.

Finally, there is that cast, just as everybody is starting out - Cybil Shepherd, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, and Randy Quaid. And this film launches Cloris Leachman, who's been around for a long time at this point, into a bit of a career renaissance that lasts through the 1970s.

I'd say this one is probably worth your time, but its content may be tough to sit through.

Sublime

[bix171 · 10/10 · 23 April 2002]

Peter Bogdonovich's great love of film, combined with Larry McMurtry's superior storytelling (he wrote the novel and both collaborated on the script), is in glorious evidence in this elegiac study of life in a small Texas town in the early Fifties. Bogdonovich pays a heartfelt tribute to the America of John Ford and Howard Hawks but the subject matter is contemporary, anguished, appropriate for the time in which it was made. Filmed by the great Robert Surtees in a flat black and white that perfectly evokes the bleakness of rural Texas life and peppered with a fine soundtrack of the popular country hits of the time, Bogdonovich creates a mise en scene understated and keenly observant of the details. It's also filled with McMurtry's trademark mix of humor and pathos. The cast (including Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd, Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman) is letter-perfect but it's Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion who gives the film its center: in an overwhelming (yet masterfully restrained) performance, Johnson unforgettably absorbs the town's despair, loneliness and regret; his short monologue about lost love is delivered with such deceptive simplicity that its power sneaks up on you unawares. One of the great performances and one of the groundbreaking films of the Seventies.

the plot?

[emilezolafan · 6/10 · 9 January 2010]

Clearly an artistically crafted film, loaded with some of the most outstanding acting ever. Very poignant, full of pathos. Several memorable scenes. Oscar-worthy performance from Ben Johnson. But I kept expecting a plot to pop up and make itself seen. Essentially the movie was one scene after another of country people rutting like hogs. Sure, I realize that's one of the themes of the movie, but ultimately, when Sam died the life of the picture went with it. Aside from Sam I couldn't get interested in any other character. There was no tension for me; I was not hanging on the next scene to see what was coming. I figured it would be just more of the same--which it usually was. And then they die empty. No surprises.

It Makes You Sweat

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 6 April 2006]

This is a really outstanding film. It is a director's movie, with every nuance strictly controlled by Bogdonavich. It's a sweaty, sad, depressing sort of film. The vitality of the town has been drained by decades of malaise. The kids feel hopeless. The adults go from person to person and have affairs and experience emptiness. There's some depressing football team that can't tackle. But mostly there is a street with dirt on it and a mentally challenged boy who likes to sweep. It is rife with symbols. This boy is trying to sweep away the dirt that is infesting the town, but he has no effect. As a matter of fact, he is victimized by the other boys in the town--part of their fun. We have the contrast of the rich family in town with the Ellen Burstyn character and, of course, her daughter played by Cybill Shepherd. The boys who are in a hopeless prison of the town's making are like a bunch of horny bulldogs. She is the queen in the town, but that's not much of an honor. These guys are going nowhere and she might just be there, like her mother, 20 years from now. The director builds a world that isn't pleasant, but it's certainly a total depiction of a place without a future. The movie theater represents a last connection with excitement and enjoyment. But nobody goes anymore.

A Classic

[jcoolum · 7/10 · 23 February 2006]

Peter Bogdanovich's signature film, The Last Picture Show, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for directing, encompasses many different themes prevalent in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film touches on many different subjects, such as the youth counterculture and friendship. The film follows the residents in the fictional small town of Anarene, Texas in the early 1950s. The main action revolves around Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and his best friend, Duane (Jeff Bridges). Right from the beginning of the film we realize that the town is small and there is no a lot to do. The kids hang out at the local pool hall ran by an enigmatic man called Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson) and the local theater, which is also owned by Sam. We find out that Sonny, Duane, and their classmates are getting ready to graduate soon and each kid is having trouble deciding what they want to do after school.

Duane goes out with the most popular girl in school, Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd), who enjoys the popularity she receives considerably. Things begin to change in the town for all the kids in town. The coach of the basketball team asks Sonny if he could drive his wife to the doctor's office. We see Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman) as a very unhappy woman. Sonny notices this also and the two begin an affair. Meanwhile, Jacy tries to find a man to whom she can lose her virginity. It is apparent that she really does not want to be with Duane anymore after she ditches him on Christmas in order to go to a skinny-dipping party at another guy's house.

All the characters, one way or another, want something more than what they have. Sonny wants a relationship, which he gets with Mrs. Popper, Duane wants his relationship with Jacy to last, and Jacy wants always to be the center of attention. The older characters in the story, Sam, the waitress at the local diner, Genevieve (Eileen Brennan), and Jacy's mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn), reminisce about how things used to be when they were younger and how much things have changed since then. Sonny's world is turned upside down when he learns that Sam has died. The boys always thought Sam to be a kind of mentor. Sam leaves his pool hall to Sonny, who continues to run it. After Duane leaves town, Sonny decides to break off his relationship with Mrs. Popper for a relationship with Jacy. Sonny even gets in a fight over Jacy with Duane when Duane returns. This results in Sonny being injured. Sonny even marries Jacy when she asks him. The marriage does not last long though and we soon find out that Jacy only married Sonny to get attention.

In the end, Jacy leaves to go to college, Duane decides to go into the service to fight in Korea, and the last local business, the movie theater, shuts down. Duane, Sonny, and their friend Billy (Sam Bottoms) watch the very last showing of the very last movie shown at the theater, Red River (1948), a John Wayne Western. At the end of the film, Billy is killed when a truck hits him. Billy was a deaf mute, which is why he never heard the truck coming. Sonny is very distraught because everyone around him has either left, like Duane and Jacy, or died, like Sam and Billy. Sonny gets in his truck and drives away from town. It seems as though he might leave but then he turns around and drives back to town. He goes to see Mrs. Popper, who seems to be the only constant in Sonny's life. First, she rejects him, but eventually decides to forgive him and comfort him.

This film seems to have all the themes of the movies of the time. It has the rebellious counterculture theme that was so prevalent in films such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969). It also contains the affair theme also found in The Graduate (1967) by showing Sonny's affair with Mrs. Popper. It has the theme of friendship also found in Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy (1969). The film also contains the theme of alienation, which pertains to all the aforementioned films. In the end, Sonny is left alone. The only person he has left is Mrs. Popper and his relationship with her is not stable nor is it moral.

The Last Picture Show is a film about changes and how people react to those changes. The town changes so much throughout the movie as do the characters. Sonny does not react to change well at all. He seems very devastated when Sam dies, and he is even more devastated when Billy dies. He does not want Duane to leave and he even marries Jacy in order to keep something constant in his life. The only thing that seems constant to Sonny is his relationship with Mrs. Popper. When things get bad, he goes to her. The film is also about the death of the old west. The last film at the theater shown is a John Wayne western, which signals the end of that fictitious and glorified way of life. The film also deals a lot with nostalgia. Most of the characters have feelings of nostalgia. Duane wanted to keep Jacy and marry her, Jacy wanted to stay the center of attention, and Sam wanted to be young again. All of these characters come to terms with the changes occurring in their life while Sonny does not. When he gets scared, he runs to Mrs. Popper for comfort. The film is very interesting and well worth watching. It has interesting and unique characters, which the actors portray well. Just as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "There is nothing permanent except change." This quote seems to describe the central issues in The Last Picture Show to a tee.

but not for me

[funkyfry · 3/10 · 27 June 2007]

It's sort of hard for me to say it, because I so greatly enjoyed both "Targets" and "Paper Moon", but I thought "The Last Picture show" was a somewhat fascinating but overly self-indulgent film. Its main positive, as far as I'm concerned, is the stunning photography. But for me the film had nothing to offer beyond surface beauty (and a kind of hidden beauty, at that). The characters were very hard to relate to or to care about. Basically you had this very slow pace and this naturalistic style of acting, but it was all there to prop up a very formulaic and predictable story, complete with all the trappings one would expect from any small town melodrama -- everything from the boy cheating with his teacher's wife to the handicapped kid who everyone picks on. It was like "American Graffiti" without the joy of life.

Some might say this film is more realistic -- nowadays a lot of people seem to think that realism is the only virtue a film can possess. But for me the film was simply oppressive, and I want to see it again about as badly as I'd like to spend a few hours in that miserable town the characters live in.

Maybe this film really just belongs to its time -- perhaps if I'd seen it in 1971 I would have been impressed by its novelty, just by seeing something different on the screen. But that would basically assume that I had never seen anything like, say, Godard's "Breathless". Maybe the overt references to classic films would have appealed to the movie geek in me and helped me to overlook some of the film's weaknesses. But in the post-Tarantino world that hardly seems unique or special either.

It is interesting though how he uses the films in the film to give his own film more depth. We see 3 films as I recall in the picture show. First we see Vincente Minnelli's "Father of the Bride" -- Liz Taylor's exquisite looks provide a contrast to Sonny's girlfriend and Minnelli's studied upper-middle class milieu contrasts to the character's "real life" surroundings in a similar way. Later, clips from Howard Hawks' "Red River" emphasize the theme of a broken friendship between a mentor and a protégé. It really just reminds me that Bogdanovich is kissing his own mentor's butt, much as he did if I remember correctly by selecting a Hawks film as part of his own on-screen reverie with Boris Karloff in "Targets". I guess in 1971 this kind of thing was new but looking at it today it just seems self-indulgent, like so much of the rest of this film.

Ultimately, I'd rather see another film by Hawks, Ford or Minnelli than to have Bogdanovich's film remind us of why they were so striking in such a less-than-subtle way. Maybe he intends to remind us of the giants whose time had passed -- all he really does is remind us how small he and most of his contemporaries are in relation.

... worthy of its place in the list of great films of the 1970s

[csplus · 10 January 2005]

Perhaps the greatest tragedy to befall any artist is to have their life become more compelling than their work; such is the sad case with Peter Bogdanovich whose meteoric rise to fame was matched only by a truly famous fall from favor and a bewildering journey through tabloid hell. (Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers mined the not inconsiderable drama of the first act of his life to sporadically great comic effect in 1984's Irreconcilable Differences. And his tragic love affair with Playboy model turned actress Dorothy Stratten is fictionalized in Bob Fosse's astonishing, horrifying Star 80 (1983). How many directors become characters in films?)

Bogdanovich's love affair with film is undeniable, though it has, in the past three decades, yielded far more perplexing misfires (The Cat's Meow, At Long Last Love, Nickelodeon) than unqualified successes. That said, The Last Picture Show is an extraordinary accomplishment and worthy of its place in the list of great films of the 1970s.

1971's other important films (Friedkin's The French Connection, Pakula's Klute, Kubrick's Clockwork Orange) are loud, angry, violent and contemporary – in-your-face reflections of a society in which rage and nihilism, engendered by Vietnam and the growing discontent over government corruption, is the currency of communication. The uncertainty coursing through the veins of American pop culture also begat in equal, if not equally graphic, measure a palpable sense of sorrow at the destruction of a simpler way of life (no matter how "true" that memory may be).

Like Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof and Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Last Picture Show is a powerful and poignant evocation of the death of a community and a way of life. Thematically rich and imbued with Bogdanovich's remarkable knowledge and passion for film, the movie works on a dazzling number of levels; and Bogdanovich's use of nostalgia and traditional, archetypal genre conventions both enriches the movie and compounds the heartbreaking loss at the heart of the story.

His deft handling of a cast comprised of then (largely) unknowns (Bridges, Bottoms, Shepherd) is first-rate and he draws forth superb, often sublime performances from everyone (in particular, Johnson, Burstyn and Leachman). There isn't a false note or a misstep in the movie and there is a naturalness here that is not easily achieved or earned. The great production design (by Bogdanovich's then wife and partner Polly Platt whose contributions to his work and her subsequent involvement in the best works of James L. Brooks should not go underestimated) and the achingly beautiful cinematography by the late Robert Surtees are vital to the success (emotionally, intellectually, thematically) of the film.

The Last Picture Show is a truly rare work of surprising depth and emotional resonance; and the heartache for a time and place forever gone and the desperate and quiet struggles of its very real, very human denizens is matched only by the sorrow found in contemplation of Bogdanovich's Icarus-like fall from such exalted heights.

No doubt one of the top 10 best movies ever made.

[dennis-219 · 10/10 · 23 January 2005]

A beautiful and heart wrenching movie that gets better and better as the years go by. I saw this when it came out in 1971, I knew it was good, but I didn't really understand how good or why. Over the years I have gone back and watched it again, and as my life changed I began to relate deeper each time I saw it. Bogdonovich was WAY ahead of the game on this one.

This is one of those rare movies that you can go back every five years and watch for the first time. Myself having been raised in Del Rio, Texas in the late 50's and early sixties, I can attest that this is a totally accurate picture of what coming of age in west Texas was really like for most of us.

An American classic

[DennisLittrell · 10/10 · 31 October 2001]

In this nostalgic, atmospheric study of small town life in the fifties as seen a decade later, filmed on location in Wichita Falls and Archer City, Texas (from a novel by the incomparable Larry McMurtry), the force of slow, inevitable change is symbolized in the showing of the last picture at the local movie house. That last picture show, incidentally, is Howard Hawks' celebrated Western, Red River (1948) starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift.

Well, the movie houses came back to life as multiplexes charging eight bucks a pop, but the Western movie died out, and the boys watching that movie went their separate ways into manhood.

Peter Bogdanovich's direction is episodic and leisurely, naturalistic with just a hint of the maudlin. We get a sense of the North Texas prairie wind blowing through a cattle town where there is not a lot to do and a whole lot of time to do it. Hungry women and a sense of drift. Boredom, gray skies and a lot of dust. You could set 'Anarene, Texas' down any place in southwestern or midwestern America, circa 1951, and you wouldn't have to change much: a main drag, a Texaco gas station, a café, a feed store, flat lands all around, old pickup trucks and a pool hall, youngsters with a restless yearning to grow up, drinking beer out of brown bottles giggling and elbowing each other in the ribs, and the old boys playing dominoes and telling tales of bygone days.

Robert Surtees's stark, yet romantic black and white cinematography, captures well that bygone era. The wide shot of the bus pulling out, taking Duane off to the Korean War with Sonny watching, standing by the Texaco station with the missing letter in the sign, was a tableau in motion, a moment stopped in our minds.

Cybill Shepherd made her debut here as Jacy Farrow, a bored little rich girl playing at love and sexuality. Part of the restorations in the video not shown in theaters in the early seventies includes some footage of her in the buff after stripping on a diving board (!). She is as shallow as she is pretty, and one of the reasons for seeing this film, although in truth her performance, while engaging, was a little uneven.

The rest of the cast was outstanding, in particular Timothy Bottoms whose Sonny Crawford is warm and forgiving, sweet and innocent. Jeff Bridges's Duane Jackson is two-faced, wild and careless, self-centered and probably going to die in Korea. Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman deservedly won Oscars as best supporting actors. Leachman was especially good as the lonely 40-year-old wife of the football coach who has an awkward affair with the 18-year-old Sonny, while Johnson played a lovable, crusty guy that the kids looked up to. Sam Bottoms played the retarded Billy with steady, tragic good humor. Ellen Burstyn as Jacy's terminally bored mother, and Eileen Brennan as the wise waitress with a hand on her hip were also very good.

Memorable, but perhaps too obviously insertional, are the medley of country, pop, and rock and roll tunes from the late forties/early fifties jingling out of car radios and 45 record players throughout the film.

Peter Bogdanovich followed this with some hits, including the comedy What's Up Doc (1972) with Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, and Madeline Kahn, and the excellent Paper Moon (1973) with Ryan and Tatum O'Neal, but then tailed off.

I don't think he ever lived up to the promise of this film, an American classic not to be missed.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

I'm glad to have finally seen the entirety of The Last Picture Show just now!

[tavm · 10/10 · 4 February 2021]

Previously, I had seen parts of this critically-acclaimed film on TNT back in the '90s. Now I have watched the whole thing with Mom who was surprised at all the nudity and sex depicted as she's been used to more old-fashioned movies we've seen recently. Me, well, I'm just glad to have finally watched the entire thing so now I can see what the big deal was about concerning story, tone, and creative output mainly on the director's part. The black-and-white photography is the perfect choice to present this particular story in and the actors chosen by Peter Bogdanovich are aces through and through: Cybill Shepard in her debut, Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Randy Quaid, Eileen Brennan, Ellen Burstyn, and especially, eventual Oscar winners Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman. The depiction of a dying town as many of the characters are growing up is quite a compelling drama to make. So on that note, I definitely recommend The Last Picture Show. P.S. This review is dedicated in memory of Ms. Leachman.

...the coffee cup shakes in her hand...

[southpatcher · 10/10 · 19 April 2003]

Without mentioning the beautiful cinematography, the melancholy that lurks beneath the surface of all the characters' lives, the amazingly accurate production design, or the top-notch direction...this movie is a classic to me for one reason: Cloris Leachman's performance in the final scene. I think it's the single greatest "Telling Him Off" scene in film. I am absolutely spellbound by her work. In this final scene, she completely is this woman in the dingy bathrobe, with the uncombed hair and unkempt house. But the appearance is only the icing. The true strength of the performance comes from the words. Her voice is at first passive and compliant, but after a moment of awkward politeness, the coffee cup shakes in her hand, and She unleashes this woman's anger, hurt, frustration, and sadness not only for her failed affair with the young Timothy Bottoms, but for all the years of whatever disappointments she has known in this dying Texas town. The anger passes to calm and a resolution of sorts between herself and Bottoms develops, and she gently takes his hand. Just moments after unleashing her pent-up fury, she has again become a sort of surrogate mother to this messed up boy. Leachman seamlessly careens through a scale of emotions, culminating in one of the most deserved Oscar wins of all time. Yes folks, "Phyllis" really is a hell of an actress.

The Last Picture Show

[FilmFanatic09 · 7/10 · 1 December 2006]

Much like the black and white movies of the 40s and 50s that the characters of "The Last Picture Show" attend, the film itself is one of shadows and the ever-present contrast between light and dark. In this film about adolescent sexual awakening, it is only appropriate that the first sexual encounter in the film take place in a darkened movie theatre. It is a sad piece of irony that the teenagers of this dead-end town, seem not to care, or are oblivious to, the escapism movies can provide. Instead, they utilize the cinema as merely another alternative to the backseat. The characters here are so confined to their homes, they seem unaware of the bigger world out there, even in the context of motion pictures. One of them, Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd in her film debut), will escape off to college, so we later understand why she is the quickest to embrace more worldly pastimes, such as the film's now-notorious salacious pool party.

If the film gets off to a slow start, we forgive it. Surely it is less tedious for the viewers than it is for the residents of the town, who have been forced to endure its monotony for the better part of most of their lives. Particularly saddening is Jacy's mother (Ellen Burstyn), a woman who allows herself to remain trapped by a failed romance and uses alcohol as her escape. It is Cloris Leachman, however, who gives the film's best performance as Ruth Popper, wife of the high school football coach. The resurgence of her sexuality, in the context of an illicit affair with high school athlete Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms), is in a way purer than any of the couplings of the film's adolescent characters. The most heart wrenching moment occurs in a quiet shot of Ruth alone on her bed, all dressed up, but sitting in the knowledge that her lover has abandoned her to become the latest conquest of high school vixen, Jacy.

"The Last Picture Show" is one of those films where we care less about what happens, as opposed to how it happens. Very, very honestly is the manner in which events transpire here. Director Peter Bogdanovich skillfully avoids melodramatic elements that would have resulted in a Texas-set "Peyton Place." When the film ended, I felt at though not a great deal had really happened. Perhaps that's the point. In one sequence near the end of the film, while Sonny Crawford is watching an athletic practice at his former high school, an old man approaches and remarks on how much better the team has become since Sonny graduated. Sonny remarks that he graduated one year ago. He too, like us, knows that not much has changed in that year. Anarene is a town that time just happens to. It will always have its Sonny's and Jacy's. Only now, it won't have a picture show for them to go to on Friday nights. Does this really matter? They never seemed to watch it anyway.

For me, it's one of the best of the 70s

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 26 January 2011]

The 70s is the decade of a number of wonderful movies, and The Last Picture Show is not an exception. It is a poignant, audacious, affectionate and hugely relevant film that for me has never aged or lost its significance. The cinematography and production values are simply superb. The script is beautifully written and evocative, Bogdanovich's direction is exemplary and the story draws me in and never stops. The film also has well-rounded characters that you care fully about, the nostalgic elements are lovingly realised and the re-creation of a long-lost sense of community makes the film so rewarding. The acting is superb, Jeff Bridges is wonderful in his role and so is Cybill Sheppard, but for me it is Cloris Leachman who is simply incredible. Overall, beautiful film and one of the best of its decade. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Slice of Texas life with great cast giving unforgettable performances

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 14 February 2023]

This picture show that introduced America to the forgotten 1950s. It launched the meteoric career of its brilliant new director and its talented cast , winning 2 Academy Awards, and nominations for 8. In 1951, a group of high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied , backwater North Texas town , Anarene City , that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically. Most of the story plays out at the local hangout run by ex-cowboy Dam the Lion (veteran Ben Johnson) . Brusque Duane (Jeff Bridges) is hooked up with spoiled pretty girl Jacy (Cybill Shepherd's film debut ) while Sonny (Joseph Bottoms' film debut ) is having an affair with the coach's neglected wife (Cloris Leachman) . The sensitive Sonny Crawford and tough Duane Jackson are high school seniors, co-captains of the hapless high school football team, and best friends. Along the way , a lot of problems are played out against the backdrop of a town about to close its cinema. Anarene, Texas, 1951 , nothing much has changed...The story of big dreams in a small town. If you missed it the first time, you owe it to yourself now. If you saw it once, remember it again.

Seldom if ever was the atmosphere of desolation, decay and despair in a small american town that has had its day better caught than this classic study of dust-blown Texas life in the 1950s , including loss of youth innocence , disillusionment , mayhem and confusion . Dealing with a nostalgic farewell to an innocent age and problems of the some youngsters at the time and some elderly people too . Not much happens , but the roles' lives interwine and develop . An interesting and engaging screenplay by prestigious writer Larry McMurtry , author of the original novel and Peter Bognadovich himself creating a field day for the attractive ensemble cast . With a great main cast , such as : Jeff Bridges as the allegedly tough Duane , Joseph Bottoms as the honest guy , Cybill Shephard as the beautiful girl and stunning support cast , such as : Ben Johnson as fading Westerner Sam the Lion , Ellen Burstyn as Jacy's mother, Cloris Leachman as the mature lover , Randy Quaid , Eileen Brennan , Clu Gulager , Sharon Taggart , John Hillerman , among others . From four performance nominations, Academy Awards were won by veteran Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman.

Gorgeous cinematography in black and white by classic cameraman Robert Surtes , Bognadovich himself claimed he didn't want to pretitify the movie by shooting in color . The motion picture was compellingly directed by Peter Bognadovich. Followed by a weak sequel : Texasville (1990) by Peter Bogdanovich with Cybill Shepherd, Jeff Bridges, Eileen Brennan , Timothy Bottoms, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman , William McNamara , Annie Potts , set in the summer of 1984: 32 years after Duane Jackson captained the high school football team and Jacy Farrow was homecoming queen, the small town of Anarene, Texas prepares for its centennial celebration.

Best Scene Ever - The Tank

[jwread-1 · 10/10 · 29 May 2006]

Sam takes Timothy Bottoms and Billy to the "tank", a man made watering hole for cattle on land that he owned 40 years ago before his "boys was dead" and his "wife lost her mind". While the silent Billy fishes, Sam reminisces about taking a young lady horseback riding out to the tank about 20 years ago. She bet him a silver dollar that she and her her horse could out-swim his across the tank. "She did." Sam guesses that she still has that silver dollar.

Bottoms asks Sam why he didn't marry her. "She was already married". "Young and foolish; A woman like that ...." Then the scene ends with Sam noting that he's "gettin' old".

Ben Johnson won an Oscar for this movie and that scene was why.

Admirable film.

[brefane · 7/10 · 12 July 2007]

This is the film that put Bogdanovich on the map, and it's probably his most notable film. The dead-end existence in a small town is well conveyed, and the film shows how sex is used as an escape and for a sense of connection. The sex in the film pointedly lacks eroticism, and the only couple that finds warmth and connection is Sonny(Timothy Bottoms) and Ruth(Cloris Leachman). Bottoms and Leachman are persuasive and moving, and the film belongs to them. Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, and Ben Johnson are fine but their characters are too often made to spout life's lessons. Shepherd in her first role looks right as Jacy, and Jeff Bridges is likable and convincing as Duane. Though I find the film a bit too drab, the film has integrity in its refusal to romanticize, and rightly avoids the glossiness of Peyton Place(57). However, not all of the characters or situations here are particularly interesting or adequately explored, and many of the townspeople seem to exist only when the principles are around. Jacy's father is barely glimpsed,and ditto Duane's mother and Sonny's father. Though many of the situations and types portrayed here are familiar from TV and film, The Last Picture Show is admirable in that its portrayal is without judgment or glamorization. Worthwhile film with some memorable scenes. Texasville, released 20 years later, is a pointless and unnecessary sequel.

The critics seem to love this film but sadly I simply cannot share their enthusiasm

[jimbo-53-186511 · 2/10 · 29 January 2021]

The Last Picture show focusses on a bunch of high-school students coming-of-age in a northern Texas town in early 1950's America. As is to be expected in this kind of film we get to witness the usual pitfalls and disagreements that are to be expected with a bunch of youngsters approaching adulthood, but I'm sorry to say that I just didn't care all that much for it.

The Last Picture show has a metascore of 93 out of 100, but this average metascore should really be taken in context now that we are in the year 2021. For a start, those high scores and reviews would have been penned in the early 70's when a film like The Last Picture Show may have perhaps been seen as being unique and different. However, watching it today I got very little out of it; Jacy is the prom-queen type of girl who can have any guy she wants and gets bored very easily; the type of character Jacy portrays in this film has become tenapenny over the years, but even taking that factor out of the equation Jacy is hardly an interesting character. The same can be said for much of the supporting cast who either seem to play shallow/one-dimensional people or the stereotypical dumb hick types that a person may envisage lives in the southern US states. The only character of some interest in this film is Sonny, but even his story arc is rather weak and almost feels incomplete by the film's end.

Slight plus points with the film lie with some of the acting (particularly from the ever reliable Jeff Bridges). The black and white cinematography is good and Bogdanovich captures the era well. Unfortunately, that's where the praise ends as far as I'm concerned; I found the pacing of the film to be appalling, nearly all of the characters were either unlikeable or uninteresting and despite its 2 hour running time the film seemed to have very little to say for itself.

Like I say, back in 71 this film may have been unique and different enough to cut the mustard, but nowadays the glacial pacing, mostly one-dimensional uninteresting characters and the somewhat messy storytelling make the film feel like a relic of its time. Judging by the way the critics have gushed over it and its rather respectable current IMDB score of 8.0 out of 10 there is clearly still an audience for this type of film, but it's not for me I'm afraid.