The Last Picture Show

It was shot in B&W, which was a daring style decision for 1971. The decision was made partly because Peter Bogdanovich (writer and director) felt that B&W would be more effective to achieve the starkness he wanted, and partly because Bogdanovich's friend Orson Welles suggested that B&W was the only way he could get the depth of field he wanted. Interestingly, the first line of the Time magazine review said that The Last Picture Show was the best film since Welles's Citizen Kane.

Bogdanovich achieved exactly the atmosphere he wanted, not just from the B&W, but also from the fact that he filmed in the actual small town where the novel's story had taken place. The townspeople were not overjoyed at having all their dirty laundry aired, but the film was well-received both critically and by the general public, bringing their town acclaim, not shame.

NUDITY REPORT

Susan Taggart- breasts
Kimberly Hyde - full frontal and rear
Cybill Shepherd - breasts and buns
two unknown females: full frontals
Gary Brockette and Sam Bottoms - buns
Randy Quaid - brief frontal

DVD info from Amazon

Theatrical trailer(s)
New restored director's cut, featuring an additional 8 minutes of footage
Documentary: The Last Picture Show: A Look Back (65 min.)
Theatrical Re-release Featurette
Widescreen anamorphic format

Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges are High School seniors, on the football team, and are best friends in this tiny Texas town in the early 50s. Shepherd plays the rich, attractive girl that both want. The film is peopled with fascinating, and true to life characters, and the 120 minute running time passes quickly. The DVD transfer is very nice. There was no sound track, but, rather, popular country & western tunes accurate to the year the film supposedly takes place in, all delivered from actual radios, jukeboxes, and record players.

The Critics Vote

Nominated for eight Oscars, it won only the two for supporting actors.

Rotten Tomatoes summary. 100% positive.

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 8.0/10

Budget: $1.3 million.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this film is an A. I had seen it twice before, and revisited it to grab some images. I ended up glued to the screen for the entire running time.