The Last Picture Show
1971 · 119 min
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Written by Larry McMurtry, Peter Bogdanovich. Starring Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman.
High school seniors and best friends, Sonny and Duane, live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating a local beauty, while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife. As graduation nears and both boys contemplate their futures, Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business. Each struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.
Critics 98% · audiences 89% · 8 Oscar nominations, 2 won
What they said about The Last Picture Show
- 1971
rediscovers a time, a place, a film form—and a small but important part of the American experience.
— Vincent Canby, The New York Times - 1971
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.
— Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune - 1971
the most considered, craftsmanlike and elaborate tribute we have yet had to what the movies were and how they figured in our lives.
— Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times - 1971
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.
— Gary Arnold, The Washington Post
How it got made
Going into The Last Picture Show Peter Bogdanovich was a 31-year-old stage actor, film essayist, and critic. Bogdanovich had directed one film, Targets (also known as Before I Die), working with his wife and collaborator, Polly Platt. As Bogdanovich later explained to The Hollywood Reporter, 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", said Mineo, who recommended that Platt and Bogdanovich make it into a film. According to Bogdanovich, Platt said, "I don't know how you make it into a picture, but it's a good book." According to Platt, at a dinner with her and Bogdanovich, producer Bert Schneider "asked Peter what he wanted to direct next, and Peter didn't really have an answer, but I piped up about this great book, The Last Picture Show, and Bert showed some interest." Platt contended that after Schneider agreed to fund the picture through BBS Productions, she convinced Bogdanovich to overcome his hesitations about the source material and commit to the project. 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 proposed film with Orson Welles, his houseguest at the time, Bogdanovich agreed with him that shooting the film in black and white would work aesthetically, which by then was an unusual choice.
Afterwards
The film and its poster are referenced in the title of the 1975 album The Last Record Album by American rock band Little Feat and in the cover illustration by Neon Park.
Irish musician CMAT addressed the breakdown of Bogdanovich's marriage with his wife and collaborator Polly Platt after deciding to leave her for lead actress Cybill Shepard, which occurred during the production of The Last Picture Show, in the song "Peter Bogdanovich", which was released as part of her 2022 debut album If My Wife New I'd Be Dead.
2024 graphic novel The Final Cut by American cartoonist Charles Burns includes illustrations of shots from the pool party scene.