The Last Picture Show [1971]

Product Details

Director : Peter Bogdanovich
Actor : Cybill Shepherd, Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, Ben Johnson
Format : Anamorphic, Black & White, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
Aspect Ratio : 1.78:1
Binding : DVD
EAN : 5035822297739
Number of Discs : 1
Product Group : DVD
Region Code : 2
Release Date : 2001-11-26
Running Time : 114minutes
Studio : Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

ASIN : B00005N52P

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Based on the novel by Larry McMurty The Last Picture Show is a more bitter than bittersweet drama about growing up and winding down in the dusty nowhere town of Anarene, Texas, during 1951-52. Unusually shot in black and white while the rest of Hollywood was going psychedelic in 1971, it's an interesting contrast with the rock 'n' roll nostalgia of American Graffiti (the films share a key moment in which the boy who is leaving town gives a precious car to his stay-at-home friend and both make oblique references to Vietnam). It visits a recent past already nostalgic for a heroic Western era and discovers that whatever was wonderful has already gone by the time of these teenagers. Introspective Timothy Bottoms and outgoing Jeff Bridges are best friends and stalwarts of the school's losing football team. Cybill Shepherd is the blonde teen queen who innocently spreads chaos, ditching long-time boyfriend Bridges to run with a richer, faster set. She steals Bottoms away from an older married woman (Cloris Leachman) which prompts a vicious falling-out between Bottoms and Bridges. As the kids run around heedless, the town's older generation remember their own wilder days and wonder how they came to be so unhappy. Ben Johnson, in Academy Award-winning form, is "Sam the Lion", the wise old cowboy who runs the movie house and pool hall. He muses about his long-ago affair with Shepherd's feisty mother (Ellen Burstyn), who is currently throwing herself at a callous oilman stud (Clu Gulager). A soap in essence but director Peter Bogdanovich plays it as a John Ford-style "closing of the frontier" Western, with ugly-beautiful images of a West that has swapped cattle for oil but failed to strike it rich. He layers in evocative snatches of Hank Williams among the whistling winds and the whining locals. It perhaps has a tragedy too many in its last act and can't quite work up the tears with an actual martyrdom, but it does deliver a signature line of wistful regret, "nothing's been right since Sam the Lion died".

On the DVD: this is an anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 version of the 121-minute 1974 re-release, with one additional scene for Eileen Brennan's waitress, now labelled "the director's cut". It boasts a great sounding mono track, with alternate soundtracks and subtitles in a bunch of languages; a tiny promo piece from 1974 with a Bogdanovich interview; a solid hour-long retrospective documentary with interviews from a lot of the cast and crew (including future director Frank Marshall, an assistant and bit-player) and some trailers. Oddly, Bogdanovich has done a full-length commentary for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane but not for his own best film. --Kim Newman

Customer Reviews

A Moving Picture (2008-08-09)

Set in a dusty,desolate,fictional town called Anarene,Peter Bogdanovich's 'The Last Picture Show' is a nostalgic and bittersweet tale of growing up in 1950's small town Texas.Filmed entirely in black and white to major effect it follows the lives,trials and tribulations of the habitants of Anarene.The movie begins and ends with slow moving camera shots of the cafe,pool hall and picture house,three buildings which are at the heart of the film.The main characters which drive the movie along are High School graduates Sonny(Timothy Bottoms),Duane(Jeff Bridges) who is to join the US army and posted to Korea and the flirting,teasing Jacy(Cybil Shepard) whose virginity every boy in the town wants to take.Other notable characters are the school basketball coach Popper-who's wife Ruth has an affair with Sonny,Sam The Lion brilliantly played by Ben Johnson who receives an oscar for his role and Billy-a developmentally disabled kid who is cruelly taken towards the end of the film in one of a number of moving scenes.Music also plays a huge part in the film as there aren't many scenes throughout the film when a radio isn't heard in the background playing the music of Hank Williams,Hank Snow and other country singers of the time.'The Last Picture Show' is a brilliant and touching movie.

Yearning, Nostalgic (2006-10-12)

I purchased The Last Picture Show after reading Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls book on 1970's American Filmmakers. It was singled out for praise, which coupled with a great title made me want to know more!It's a very different type of film in style to the rest profiled in the book thanks to Director Peter Bogdanovich's love of Classical American filmmaking. It is set in the late 1950's and is shot (Black and white photography, very atmospheric) in the same manner of movies from that time period. But what makes it really special is the mix of that style with a very 70's tone, frank discussion of sex and great characters.Standout scene is Ben Johnson, playing the Pool hall owner Sam the Lion, recalling an anecdote about a former love ('and if she were here I'd probably be that crazy again in about 2 seconds.') by a river. As the Camera zooms in as he begins the story ('Old times. I'm probably as sentimental as the next...') the light changes dramatically as brilliant sunshine hits the background and as he finishes the story and the camera pulls back and that burst of light fades away. It seems to place him back in that moment.The film is romantic in how it views the Movie House as not only a mecca for the characters, but as something irreplaceable as the sand-blasted town struggles to hold together. It works as a depiction of small town life, the tangled love lives hidden away and also as a love letter to the movies.

A must see for anyone who appreciates good cinema!!! (2006-01-19)

This film is exactly what makes me so happy to say films are my dominant preoccupation in life. It just oozes class and sophistication.

Its a great character study as well as a depiction of teenage sexuality. Its an intelligent and detailed film with great protagonists as they find their way through life in smalltown USA. The acting is stellar from the future star-to-be Jeff Bridges and the attractive Cybill Shepherd.

Its an inventive and fresh film. It has the same style as many other great 70's films like 'Mean Streets' and 'Taxi Driver' - its plot is secondary, the characters drive the story and make the film.

This film is for those people that really acknowledge good filmmaking and want to enhance their cinematic experience. Watch it now if you really, truly love moving pictures.

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