As a big fan of Peter Bogdanovich's film comedies of the seventies (What's Up Doc?, Paper Moon) I was startled by his range when catching up with his first major hit, 1971's THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.
This is a bleak film, about a group of folks we grow to care about in a very small, VERY quiet and dying town in Texas.
The roads in front of the 5 or 6 stores that comprise "downtown" Anarene are dust covered, wind blown and quiet, much like its citizens.
We meet best friends Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) as they are nearing graduation. Duane is dating the most beautiful girl in town Jacy (Cybill Shepherd, stunning in her very young film debut), whose mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn) is having an affair with Abilene (Clu Gulager).
In fact, it seems like all anyone has to do in this dying town is either make out or have sex, seeking some connection in the very small gathering of humans that comprise the town.
Ben Johnson (Best Supporting Actor for his performance) plays Sam, the owner of the pool hall, grocery store and the old, small movie theatre that provides the only entertainment in town.
Cloris Leachman (Best Supporting Actress for her role) plays the lonely wife of the football coach, who seeks a connection in a potentially very dangerous source.
Randy Quaid shows up as a jaw-droppingly young high schooler offering temptation to Jacy and Sam Bottoms rounds out the cast in a mute role as Sam's impaired son Billy, who spends most days trying to sweep the dust bowl like street in front of the theatre.
Bogdanovich and Larry McMurtry craft a screenplay from McMurty's novel that is impossibly bleak, but captivating. You ache for these characters just trying to carve out some reason for tomorrow in days that are filled with little prospect.
Johnson is terrific and Bridges and Bottoms are impossibly good at their ages here, conveying real emotion and tenderness toward their friends and lost loved ones along the way.
Robert Surtees (Ben Hur, The Sting, The Graduate) photographs the film in stark black and white, which somehow adds to the despair and the harsh landscape.
Bogdanovich never takes the film in a direction that doesn't feel driven by these desperate people and their decisions.
It's adult, sexually frank and brilliant.
Watching poor Billy sweep that blacktop through a winter and a summer, he seemed bent on clearing away the progress that is burying this town and its citizens.
Which makes the downbeat ending even more appropriate and inevitable.
Quiet, slow, riveting in its reality, The Last Picture Show is brilliant and gets an A.
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