‘The Last Picture Show’ at 50: The First, And Last, Movie Of Its Kind

Last month marked the 50th anniversary of The Last Picture Show, a title which either floods you with memories or makes you say “oh yeah, I’ve heard that’s supposed to be good. Should I watch it?”

If you are in the second camp (or, no shame, haven’t heard of it at all), I am here to tell you that, yes, you absolutely should watch this movie. And despite its advanced age (with a visual, black-and-white style that deliberately makes it look even more olde timey), it’s a tale that will always be relevant. Moreover, it’s fun—it’s mostly just hot young famous people being naked all the time. (Aha! Suddenly you are interested.)

Let’s break this down.

WHO: The Last Picture Show was the film that propelled the wunderkind film dweeb Peter Bogdanovich from critic/scholar/programmer to King of Hollywood. (Yes, he’d already made Targets but that wasn’t nominated for eight Academy Awards.) If the online film culture of today existed in 1971, Bogdanovich, who famously befriended earlier auteurs like Orson Welles and John Ford, would be the type of guy to have “stans.” (Considering his later supporting role on the ever-popular series The Sopranos, as Dr. Melfi’s therapist Dr. Kupferberg, maybe he does.)

Bogdanovich co-wrote the script with the semi-autobiographical book’s author, Larry McMurtry, whose other works were adapted into the films Hud, Terms of Endearment, and the miniseries Lonesome Dove.

The film’s lead, high school kid Sonny Crawford, is played by Timothy Bottoms, who isn’t exactly a household name, but is just terrific here. His co-stars include Jeff Bridges, Randy Quaid (in his first role), Ellen Burstyn (nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar), Eileen Brennen (from Clue!) and a few surprising faces we need to discuss.

For classic cinephiles, it’s all about Ben Johnson, legendary cowboy actor and John Wayne sidekick whose credits date to the late 1930s. His performance as Sam the Lion, the wise and brokenhearted elder statesman who runs the town pool hall, diner, and movie theater, is the emotional core of this tender film. Johnson, who was known more for action than for actual “acting” had to have his arm-twisted to star in a movie with so much dialogue. Bogdanovich pleaded with him, suggesting that if he took the part he’d win the Academy Award. He was right.

Comedy fans may do a double-take when they see who is playing the sad and lonely Ruth Popper. Yes, that is Frau Blücher from Young Frankenstein. Cloris Leachman (later on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) is extraordinary as the housewife who seduces Timothy Bottoms, and also won an Academy Award for the performance.

But then there’s the appearance you can’t not talk about, Cybill Shepherd in her first film. Director Bogdanovich, cinematographer Robert Surtees, and costume designer Polly Platt (more on her in a bit) all knew they had lightning in a bottle here. The only reasonable thing to say about Shepherd in The Last Picture Show is she’s the reason God invented cameras.

WHAT: It’s 1951 and we’re in a Texas oil town outside Wichita Falls. There is nothing to do except grouse about how lousy the school football team is and sleep with your neighbors.

Yes, this “prestige picture” is just about one of the horniest movies you’ll ever see. It’s wall to wall coupling, and in ways you may not immediately predict. Yes, there are resonant themes about loneliness, social facades, and hypocritical values, but on the surface, this movie is basically about getting it on.

WHERE: We’re in hardcore Texas, flat Texas, dry Texas, with tumbleweeds and high winds and absolutely nothing going on. (Hence the activity mentioned above.)

The Last Picture Show famously crossed from fiction to reality when, shooting on location, 31-year-old director Bogdanovich became intimate with his 20-year-old star Cybill Shepherd. (He first spotted her on the cover of Glamour magazine.)

Unfortunately for all parties involved, Bogdanovich’s wife, Polly Platt, was on set the whole time, working as production designer (and wearing other hats). The two continued to work together on follow-up films What’s Up Doc? and Paper Moon because Hollywood in the 1970s was a wild place.

WHEN: Though released in 1971, at the height of rebellious “New Hollywood” (think Easy Rider or Taxi Driver) the film has the look of a generation earlier embedded in its DNA. It’s shot in black and white, with uncharacteristic-for-the-movement longer takes without much camera movement, and on as many real locations as possible. There’s a grit to what they are shooting, but that doesn’t mean the framing isn’t gorgeous. Then you add the salty language and nudity, it makes for a disquieting effect. You feel like you are really watching something from the early 1950s, but it isn’t like any other movie in that setting before or since.

WHY: Why should you watch it? Okay, enough joking around about the racy scenes—what lingers are the characters. It’s a remarkable portrait of a group of desperate people each searching for happiness when they know there’s nothing waiting for them over the next hill. (In this part of Texas, there are no hills!) This movie is bleak as hell, at least for me, but it isn’t depressing, and it certainly isn’t looking down at these people. What it is, is caring. It’s a film that doesn’t really have any true villains, just people who make mistakes.

Fifty years later, it is even more of a curiosity. It’s rare to find movies that basically in a category of one. The Last Picture Show was the first, and last, of its kind.

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets about Phish and Star Trek at @JHoffman.

Where to stream The Last Picture Show