The Last Picture Show

Daughter: "She's forty years old!" Mother: "So am I, honey.  It's a rather bitchy age"--The Last Picture Show

This evening I saw Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 movie of Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show (for the second time) at the Revue. It was one of the first movies of the 1970s "nostalgia" genre, but that label doesn't to justice to its realism and honesty.  Its spare, understated style reminded me of old-world directors like Ingmar Bergman.  

The movie introduced several actors who later became famous, including Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, and Cybill Shepherd, who played a tease acting like a fast girl.  Mother once told me that when she was young people in her community would call a fast girl a "clipper." (As in the fast sailing ships.)

They showed it as part of a series of books turned into movies. (In a month or two they're doing The Godfather.) They were giving away some books as prizes, and I won the last one by naming Bogdanovich's first wife whom he left for Shepherd:  Polly Platt, who was this movie's production designer.  I got the last book,  Mark Kingwell's Unruly Voices:  Essays on Democracy, Civility and the Human Imagination.  Even if I'd won earlier and had a choice, I probably would have chosen that one, though Literature Saved My Life also looked interesting.