The Last Picture Show

Timothy Bottoms Director: Peter Bogdanovich Peter Bogdanovich

Overview

Peter Bogdanovich's groundbreaking tale of the small-town rites of passage and bittersweet homage to the Hollywood days of yore arrives on DVD in fine form thanks to the folks at Columbia/TriStar Video. Presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen theatrical aspect ratio and featuring a closed-captioned English Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack, this release also offers optional English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai subtitles. Extra features include a making-of documentary entitled "The Last Picture Show: A Look Back," talent files, scene selections, interactive menus, production notes and theatrical trailers.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/30/1999
UPC:	0043396504295
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	R
Source:	Sony Pictures
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital, monaural]
Time:	2:05:00
Sales rank:	13,310

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Timothy Bottoms	Sonny Crawford
Jeff Bridges	Duane Jackson
Cybill Shepherd	Jacy Farrow
Ben Johnson	Sam The Lion
Cloris Leachman	Ruth Popper
Ellen Burstyn	Lois Farrow
Randy Quaid	Lester Marlow
John Hillerman	Teacher
Barclay Doyle	Joe Bob Blanton
Joye Hash	Mrs. Jackson
Charlie Seybert	Andy Fanner
Kimberly Hyde	Annie-Annie Martin
Noble Willingham	Chester
Gordon Hurst	Monroe
Frank Marshall	Tommy Logan
Tom Martin	Larry
Antonia Bogdanovich	Singer (uncredited)
Eileen Brennan	Genevieve
Clu Gulager	Abilene
Sharon Taggart	Charlene Duggs
Joe Heathcock	The Sheriff
Bill Thurman	Coach Popper
Jessie Lee Fulton	Miss Mosey
Gary Brockette	Bobby Sheen
Helena Humann	Jimmie Sue
Loyd Catlett	Leroy
Robert Glenn	Gene Farrow
Samuel Bottoms	Billy

Technical Credits

Peter Bogdanovich

Larry McMurtry

Peter Bogdanovich	Director,Screenwriter
Ross Brown	Casting
Donn Cambern	Editor
Vince Cresciman	Production Designer
Stephen Friedman	Producer
Walter Scott Herndon	Art Director
Nancy McArdle	Costumes/Costume Designer
Larry McMurtry	Screenwriter
Polly Platt	Production Designer
Robert Rubin	Asst. Director
Harold Schneider	Associate Producer
Bert Schneider	Executive Producer
Robert Surtees	Cinematographer

Scene Index

Scene Selections
0. Scene Selections
1. Start [2:06]
2. Sam the Lion [5:34]
3. The Royal [8:58]
4. Coach Popper [1:56]
5. Rig-Wam Drive Inn [1:16]
6. Jacy & Mama [3:29]
7. Mrs. Popper [5:14]
8. Lester & Jacy [1:33]
9. Christmas dance [2:28]
10. Teasing Duane [2:51]
11. Seducing Sonny [2:03]
12. Midnight swim party [3:18]
13. Jimmie Sue [4:47]
14. Praise of older women [10:01]
15. Fishing tank [4:10]
16. "You a virgin?" [5:20]
17. "Sam died" [1:33]
18. The funeral [2:09]
19. Cactus Motel [3:31]
20. Graduation day [11:21]
21. Rescuing Molly [1:17]
22. Jacy & Sonny [4:10]
23. Duane returns [6:33]
24. What Jacy wants [1:15]
25. In Oklahoma [10:29]
26. Red River [5:23]
27. Billy [4:41]
28. With Ruth [8:33]

Menu

Main
Play Movie
Subtitles
   Menu Group #1 with 28 chapter(s) covering 02:06:12
Special Features
   The Last Picture Show: "A Look Back" Documentary
   Theatrical Re-release Featurette
   Theatrical Trailers
      The Last Picture Show
      Arlington Road
      Starman
   Talent Files
      Peter Bogdanovich
      Timothy Bottoms
      Jeff Bridges
      Ellen Burstyn
      Ben Johnson
      Cloris Leachman
      Randy Quaid
      Cybill Shepherd

Editorial Reviews

Peter Bogdanovich's meditative masterpiece The Last Picture Show remains a visually gripping experience, just as it was in 1971 when it was greeted with critical acclaim and eight Academy Award nominations. Based on a novel by Larry McMurtry (adapted for the screen by Bogdanovich and McMurtry), it brilliantly captures the rhythms of life in an isolated, windblown West Texas town during the early 1950s. The coming-of-age story follows a group of local teenagers and adults as they search for meaning and adventure in their sleepy little village. The sublime ensemble cast features Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Ellen Burstyn, and Cybill Shepherd in her film debut. Ben Johnson, as the town's aging patriarch, and Cloris Leachman, as a lonely housewife, turn in superb Oscar-winning supporting performances. Bogdanovich pays homage to Hollywood's golden age with stunning black-and-white cinematography that recalls the work of classic directors such as John Ford. (It also earned cinematographer Robert Surtees the 10th of his eventual 15 Academy Award nominations.) Mournful in tone, The Last Picture Show is a sustained mood piece, a subtle fugue that marries rich character studies with an unforgettable sense of time and place.

Barnes & Noble - Monica McIntyre

Of the new wave of young American directors who emerged in the early 1970s, Peter Bogdanovich displayed the strongest affinity for the Old Masters of Hollywood's Golden Era, particularly Howard Hawks and John Ford, and The Last Picture Show drew more consciously and effectively from their styles than any other film of its day. With its sharply defined black-and-white framing and simple, straightforward camera setups, The Last Picture Show resembles a classic Hawks or Ford picture; but, while those directors used their techniques to tell sweeping tales of the American frontier, Bogdanovich instead examined a tiny Texas town crumbling into dust in the early 1950s. In The Last Picture Show, the cowboys, Indians, and settlers of Stagecoach or Red River have been replaced by wealthy but ineffectual oilmen with bored wives, and high school kids looking for excitement or a future in a town that offers neither. The sole strong adult role model, Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson, a member of Ford's stock company), is a scruffy misfit showing his age and losing his health; if he's the town's last tie to the strong and noble men of the Old West, he's also decaying as fast as the town itself. Anarene has been reduced to a dusty little Peyton Place, where everyone knows everyone else's sordid little secrets and sexual peccadilloes; when Sam the Lion dies, the town loses its last pillar of dignity, with the later closing of the town's only movie house (where Red River is the last feature) serving as the most obvious symbol of its slow, inexorable decline. The strongest people are the ones who can leave, while those who stay behind follow a circle of heartbreak and romantic betrayals. "You can't believe how this town has changed," Sam says at one point to Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms), always the boy who needed his guidance the most, and Johnson gives those words a rueful weight that makes it one of the most telling moments of this sad, sometimes funny, and deeply moving film.

All Movie Guide - Mark Deming