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Home , 8 Million Ways to Die, At Long Last Love, Caddyshack II, Cloris Leachman, Cloris Leachman credits, Clu Gulager

October 8, 2013 (XXVII:7) Peter Bogdonavich, (1971, 118 min)

Academy Awards—1972—Best in a Supporting Role () —Best Actress in a Supporting Role ()

National Registry—1998

Directed by Written by Larry McMurtry (novel and screenplay) Cinematography by Robert Surtees

Timothy Bottoms ... Sonny Crawford ... Duane Jackson Shepherd ... Jacy Farrow Ben Johnson ... Sam the Lion Cloris Leachman ... Ruth Popper ... Lois Farrow ... Genevieve ... Abilene (b. June 3, 1936 in Wichita Falls, ) — ... Billy 2006—Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for Brokeback ... Lester Marlow Mountain (2005). ... Teacher Shared with Diana Ossana. McMurtry has written 20 and Noble Willingham ... Chester TV shows, including 2005 (screenplay), 2002 “Johnson County War” (TV Movie) (teleplay), 1996 The PETER BOGDANOVICH (director) (b. July 30, 1939 in Kingston, Evening Star (novel), 1995-1996 “: ) has appeared in 40 films and TV shows, including Years” (TV Series) (characters - 22 episodes), 1996 “Dead Man's 2000-2007 “” (TV Series, 14 episodes), 2005-2007 Walk” (TV Mini-Series) (novel and teleplay), 1995 “Streets of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (TV Series), 2006 Infamous, Laredo” (TV Mini-Series) (novel and teleplay), 1994-1995 2004 “” (TV Series), 1979 Saint Jack, 1977 “Lonesome Dove: The Series” (TV Series) (characters, 21 Opening Night, 1966 , and 1958 “Kraft Theatre” episodes), 1995 “Buffalo Girls” (TV Movie) (novel), 1992 (TV Series). In addition to acting, Bogdonavich directed 31 films Falling from Grace (screenplay), 1990 (novel), 1989 and TV shows, among them 2014 Squirrels to the Nuts, 2004 “Lonesome Dove” (TV Mini-Series) (novel), 1988 “The Murder “The Sopranos” (TV Series), 2004 “The Mystery of Natalie of Mary Phagan” (TV Mini-Series) (story), 1983 Terms of Wood” (TV Movie), 1990 Texasville, 1981 , Endearment (novel), 1974 Lovin' Molly (novel "Leaving 1979 Saint Jack, 1976 Nickelodeon, 1975 , Cheyenne"), 1971 The Last Picture Show (novel and screenplay), 1974 Daisy Miller, 1973 Paper Moon, 1972 What's Up, Doc?, and 1963 Hud (novel). 1971 Directed by (Documentary), 1971 The Last Picture Show, 1968 , and 1968 Voyage to the Planet of ROBERT SURTEES (Cinematography) (b. Robert Lee Surtees, Prehistoric Women. August 9, 1906 in Covington, Kentucky—d. January 5, 1985 (age 78) in Monterey, ) Academy Awards—1960— LARRY MCMURTRY (Writer—novel and screenplay) Best Cinematography, Color for Ben-Hur (1959); 1953—Best Cinematography, Black-and-White for The Bad and the Beautiful

Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—2

(1952); 1951—Best Cinematography, Color for King Solomon's Mines (1950). He was the cinematographer for 73 films, ...Jacy Farrow (b. Cybill Lynne Shepherd, including 1978 Same Time, Next Year, 1978 Bloodbrothers, 1977 February 18, 1950 in Memphis, Tennessee) has appeared in 66 The Turning Point, 1976 A Star Is Born, 1975 The Hindenburg, films and TV shows, including 2013 “Law & Order: Special 1975 The Great Waldo Pepper, 1973 The , 1973 Lost Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2012-2013 The Client List (TV Horizon, 1972 The Cowboys, 1971 The Last Picture Show, 1971 Series, 25 episodes), 2012 and the Gypsy, 2009 “Mrs. Summer of '42, 1970 Two Mules for Sister Sara, 1969 The Washington Goes to Smith” (TV Movie), 2009 “High Noon” Arrangement, 1969 Sweet Charity, 1968 Coogan's Bluff, 1967 (TV Movie), 2007-2009 (TV Series, 19 episodes), The Graduate, 1967 Doctor Dolittle, 1966 Lost Command, 1965 2003 “Martha, Inc.: The Story of ” (TV Movie), The Third Day, 1963 PT 109, 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, 1960 1995-1998 Cybill (TV Series, 87 episodes), 1990 Alice, 1990 Cimarron, 1959 Ben-Hur, 1958 The Law and Jake Wade, 1957 Texasville, 1985-1989 Moonlighting (TV Series, 66 episodes), Raintree County, 1957 Les Girls, 1985 “The Long Hot Summer” 1954 Valley of the Kings, 1953 (TV Movie), 1985 “Seduced” , 1952 The Merry (TV Movie), 1984 “Secrets of Widow, 1951 Quo Vadis, 1950 a Married Man” (TV Movie), King Solomon's Mines, 1949 1983-1984 The Yellow Rose Intruder in the Dust, 1945 Our (TV Series, 22 episodes), 1979 Vines Have Tender Grapes, 1944 , 1976 Taxi Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1944 Driver, 1975 At Long Last Two Girls and a Sailor, 1943 Love, 1974 Daisy Miller, 1972 Nursery Rhyme Mysteries, and The Heartbreak Kid, and 1971 1943 Heavenly Music. The Last Picture Show.

TIMOTHY BOTTOMS...Sonny BEN JOHNSON...Sam the Lion Crawford (b. Timothy James (b. June 13, 1918 in Foraker, Bottoms, August 30, 1951 in Santa Barbara, California) has Shidler, —d. Died: April 8, 1996 in Mesa, ) appeared in 116 films and TV shows, among them 2012 Realm of won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in this film. He the Mole Men, 2011 1 Nighter, 2011 Hello Stranger, 2010 Pound appeared has appeared in 102 films and TV shows, including of Flesh, 2009 Call of the Wild, 2005 The Boy with the X-Ray 1996 The Evening Star, 1994 Outlaws: The Legend of O.B. Eyes, 2001 “That's My Bush!” (TV Series, 8 episodes), 1998 No Taggart, 1991 My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, 1986 Rest for the Wicked, 1998 The Waterfront, 1997 Absolute Force, Let's Get Harry, 1984 Red Dawn, 1984 Champions, 1975 1997 American Hero, 1997 Total Force, 1995 Top Dog, 1991- Breakheart Pass, 1975 Hustle, 1974 The Sugarland Express, 1992 “Land of the Lost” (TV Series, 14 episodes), 1986 Invaders 1973 Dillinger, 1972 The Getaway, 1972 Junior Bonner, 1971 from Mars, 1983 Tin Man, 1981 The High Country, 1981 “East The Last Picture Show, 1962-1971 (TV Series), 1970 of Eden” (TV Mini-Series), 1976 A Small Town in Texas, 1976 Chisum, 1969 The Wild Bunch, 1968 Will Penny, 1962 “Stoney The Story of David (TV Movie), 1973 The Paper Chase, 1973 Burke” (TV Series), 1960-1961 “Laramie” (TV Series), 1961 Winesburg, Ohio (TV Movie), 1972 “Look Homeward, Angel” One-Eyed Jacks, 1957 War Drums, 1955 Oklahoma!, 1953 (TV Movie), 1971 The Last Picture Show, and 1971 Johnny Got Shane, 1950 Rio Grande, 1950 , 1949 She Wore a His Gun. Yellow Ribbon, 1949 Mighty Joe Young, 1948 3 Godfathers, 1946 Badman's Territory, 1944 Nevada, 1944 Tall in the Saddle, JEFF BRIDGES...Duane Jackson (b. Jeffrey Leon Bridges, and 1943 The Outlaw. In addition to acting, Johnson was a December 4, 1949 in , California) won a Best Actor stuntman in 27 films, among them 1955 Oklahoma!, 1948 3 Oscar for (2009). He has appeared in 83 films and Godfathers, 1948 The Kissing Bandit, 1948 Red River, 1948 The TV shows, including 2013 R.I.P.D., 2010 True Grit, 2009 Crazy Gallant Legion, 1948 Fort Apache, 1947 Wyoming, 1947 Heart, 2009 The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009 The Open Road, Ramrod, 1947 Angel and the Badman, 1946 Out California Way, 2008 Iron Man, 2005 Tideland, 2003 Seabiscuit, 2000 The 1946 Smoky, 1946 Badman's Territory, 1946 California Gold Contender, 1998 The Big Lebowski, 1996 The Mirror Has Two Rush, 1945 Santa Fe Saddlemates, 1945 Corpus Christi Bandits, Faces, 1996 White Squall, 1995 Wild Bill, 1993 The Vanishing, 1944 Nevada, 1944 The Old Texas Trail, 1944 Tall in the Saddle, 1992 American Heart, 1991 The Fisher King, 1990 Texasville, 1943 Tarzan's Desert Mystery, 1943 Blazing Guns, 1943 Arizona 1989 The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1988 Tucker: The Man and His Trail, 1943 Bordertown Gun Fighters, 1943 Riders of the Rio Dream, 1987 Nadine, 1986 8 Million Ways to Die, 1984 Grande, 1943 Riders of the Northwest Mounted, 1943 The Starman, 1984 Against All Odds, 1982 TRON, 1981 Cutter's Outlaw, 1940 The Durango Kid, and 1939 The Fighting Gringo. Way, 1980 Heaven's Gate, 1979 Winter Kills, 1978 Somebody Killed Her Husband, 1976 King Kong, 1976 Stay Hungry, 1975 CLORIS LEACHMAN...Ruth Popper (b. April 30, 1926 in Des Rancho Deluxe, 1974 Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, 1973 The Moines, ) won a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Iceman Cometh, 1972 Bad Company, 1972 Fat City, 1971 The Academy Award for her work in this film. She has appeared in Last Picture Show, 1965 “The Loner” (TV Series), 1962-1963 248 films and television shows, including 2013 The Bronx Bull, “The Lloyd Bridges Show” (TV Series), 1958-1960 “Sea Hunt” 2013 Adult World, 2010-2013 “” (TV Series, 61 (TV Series), and 1951 The Company She Keeps. episodes), 2010 Expecting Mary, 2008 New York, I Love You, Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—3

2006 Scary Movie 4, 2005 The Longest Yard, 2004 Spanglish, (TV Series, 13 episodes), 1993 “Tales from the Crypt” (TV 2003 “” (TV Series), 2001-2002 “The Ellen Series), 1991 “” (TV Series), 1990 Texasville, Show” (TV Series, 18 episodes), 1990 “Ferris Bueller” (TV 1989 It Had to Be You, 1988 Sticky Fingers, 1987 “Magnum, Series), 1990 Texasville, 1986-1988 “The Facts of Life” (TV P.I.” (TV Series), 1984 “” (TV Series), 1983 The Series, 48 episodes), 1980 “The Oldest Living Graduate” (TV Funny Farm, 1981-1983 Private Benjamin (TV Series, 34 Movie), 1979 , 1979 “Backstairs at the White episodes), 1980 Private Benjamin, 1978 , House” (TV Mini-Series), 1978 “Long Journey Back” (TV 1976 , 1975 Hustle, 1973 , 1973 “The Movie), 1970-1977 “” (TV Series, 34 Blue Knight” (TV Movie), 1973 Scarecrow, 1972 “McMillan & episodes), 1975-1977 “Phyllis” (TV Series, 48 episodes), 1975 Wife” (TV Series), 1972 “” (TV Series), 1971 “Wonder Woman” (TV Series), 1974 , 1973 The Last Picture Show, 1970 “The Most Deadly Game” (TV Dillinger, 1972 “Rod Serling's ” (TV Series), 1971 Series), 1968 Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (TV Series, 12 The Last Picture Show, 1971 The Steagle, 1970 (TV episodes), 1967 Divorce American Style, and 1966 “The Star Series), 1970 Marcus Welby, M.D. (TV Series), 1970 WUSA, Wagon” (TV Movie). 1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1967 “” (TV Series), 1961-1963 “” (TV Series), CLU GULAGER...Abilene (b. William Martin Gulager, 1962 “Laramie” (TV Series), 1962 “Route 66” (TV Series), 1961 November 16, 1928 in Holdenville, Oklahoma) has appeared in “Twilight Zone” (TV Series), 1960 “Outlaws” (TV Series), 1960 158 films and TV shows, including 2012 Piranha 3DD, 1993 “Johnny Staccato” (TV Series), 1959 “Alcoa Presents: One Step Killing Device, 1992 Eddie Presley, 1991 My Heroes Have Beyond” (TV Series), 1957-1958 “Lassie” (TV Series, 28 Always Been Cowboys, 1987 The Offspring, 1986 “Simon & episodes), 1956 The Rack, 1955 , 1950 “The Simon” (TV Series), 1986 “Magnum, P.I.” (TV Series), 1985 Clock” (TV Series), and 1948 “Knight Rider” (TV Series), “The Ford Theatre Hour” (TV 1982 “CHiPs” (TV Series), 1982 Series). “Quincy M.E.” (TV Series), 1976 “Most Wanted” (TV ELLEN BURSTYN...Lois Series), 1972-1976 “Hawaii Farrow (b. Edna Rae Gillooly, Five-O” (TV Series), 1973-1976 December 7, 1932 in Detroit, “” (TV Series), Michigan) won a Best Actress 1975 “McCloud” (TV Series), in a Leading Role Oscar for 1974 “, We've Got a Alice Doesn't Live Here Problem” (TV Movie), 1974 Anymore (1974). She “Shaft” (TV Series), 1973 “Kung has appeared in 136 films and Fu” (TV Series), 1971 “The television shows, including F.B.I.” (TV Series), 1963-1968 2014 Draft Day, 2013 The Calling, 2013 Wish You Well, 2007- “The Virginian” (TV Series, 104 episodes), 1967 “Sullivan's 2011 “Big Love” (TV Series, 6 episodes), 2008 “Law & Order: Empire” (TV Movie), 1964 The Killers, 1964 “Dr. Kildare” (TV Special Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2006 The Book of Daniel Series), 1960-1962 “The Tall Man” (TV Series, 75 episodes), (TV Series, 8 episodes), 2002 Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya 1959-1960 “ Presents” (TV Series), 1959 “The Sisterhood, 2000-2002 “That's Life” (TV Series, 34 episodes), Untouchables” (TV Series), 1959 “Have Gun - Will Travel” (TV 1998 Playing by Heart, 1995 How to Make an American Quilt, Series), 1959 “Wanted: Dead or Alive” (TV Series), and 1956 1994 “Getting Gotti” (TV Movie), 1993 The Cemetery Club, “The Steel Hour” (TV Series). 1986-1987 “The Ellen Burstyn Show” (TV Series, 13 episodes), 1985 Twice in a Lifetime, 1981 “The People vs. Jean Harris” (TV SAM BOTTOMS...Billy (b. Samuel John Bottoms, October 17, Movie), 1980 Resurrection, 1978 Same Time, Next Year, 1974 1955 in Santa Barbara, California—d. December 16, 2008 (age Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, 1974 Harry and Tonto, 1973 53) in Los Angeles, California) appeared in 52 films and TV The Exorcist, 1972 The King of Marvin Gardens, 1971 The Last shows, including 2007 Finishing the Game: The Search for a Picture Show, 1970 , 1970 Tropic of Cancer, New Bruce Lee, 2005 Shopgirl, 2005 Havoc, 2004 “NYPD Blue” 1969 “The Virginian” (TV Series), 1967 “The Big Valley” (TV (TV Series), 2003 Seabiscuit, 2001 The Unsaid, 1999 Series), 1964 “The Greatest Show on Earth” (TV Series), 1963 “Mercenary II: Thick & Thin” (TV Movie), 1998 “My “Wagon Train” (TV Series), 1963 “The Doctors” (TV Series), Neighbor's Daughter” (TV Movie), 1995 “The X-Files” (TV 1961-1963 “77 Sunset Strip” (TV Series), and 1962 “Ben Casey” Series), 1995 Project Shadowchaser III, 1989-1991 “Murder, (TV Series). She Wrote” (TV Series), 1987 Gardens of Stone, 1981 “East of Eden” (TV Mini-Series), 1980 Bronco Billy, 1979 Apocalypse Eileen Brennan ... Genevieve (b. Verla Eileen Regina Brennen, Now, 1976 The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1974 “Savages” (TV September 3, 1932 in Los Angeles, California—d. Died: July 28, Movie), 1973 Class of '44, and 1971 The Last Picture Show. 2013 (age 80) in Burbank, California) appeared in 121 films and TV shows, including 2011 Naked Run, 2011 The Kings of RANDY QUAID...Lester Marlow (b. Randall Rudy Quaid, Appletown, 1996-2006 7th Heaven (TV Series, 9 episodes), 2002 October 1, 1950 in Houston, Texas) has appeared in 115 TV “Arli$$” (TV Series), 1996 “ER” (TV Series), 1995 “Walker, shows and movies, including 2009 Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Texas Ranger” (TV Series), 1993 All-New Dennis the Menace Coach, 2008 Real Time, 2006 Goya's Ghosts, 2006 Treasure Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—4

Island Kids: The Battle of Treasure Island, 2005 The Ice Wife” (TV Series), 1972 “Bonanza” (TV Series), 1971 The Last Harvest, 2005 Brokeback Mountain, 2003 Black Cadillac, 2001 Picture Show, and 1970 “My Sweet Charlie” (TV Movie). “The Kennedys” (TV Movie), 2000 “The Thin Blue Lie” (TV Movie), 1998 Hard Rain, 1996 Independence Day, 1995 “Streets of Laredo” (TV Mini-Series), 1992 “Frankenstein” (TV Movie), 1985-1991 “” (TV Series, 19 episodes), 1990 Texasville, 1990 Days of Thunder, 1988 II, 1987 “LBJ: The Early Years” (TV Movie), 1985 Fool for Love, 1982 “Inside the Third Reich” (TV Movie), 1981 Heartbeeps, 1981 “Of Mice and Men” (TV Movie), 1980 The Long Riders, 1980 Foxes, 1978 Midnight Express, 1977 The Choirboys, 1976 Bound for Glory, 1976 The Missouri Breaks, 1973 , 1973 Paper Moon, 1972 What's Up, Doc?, and 1971 The Last Picture Show.

JOHN HILLERMAN...Teacher (b. John Benedict Hillerman, December 20, 1932 in Denison, Texas) has appeared in 70 films and TV shows, including 1996 A Very Brady Sequel, 1990 Peter Bogdanovich from World Film Directors, V.II, ed. John “Hands of a Murderer” (TV Movie), 1989 “Around the World in Wakeman. The H.W. Wilson Co. NY, 1988. Entry by Teresa 80 Days” (TV Mini-Series), 1988 “Street of Dreams” (TV Grimesm July 20, 1939-). Movie), 1980-1988 “Magnum, P.I.” (TV Series, 158 episodes), American director, scenarist, produces, and critic [and 1987 “Assault and Matrimony” (TV Movie), 1984 Up the Creek, actor] was born in New York State at Kingston in the Hudson 1982 “Simon & Simon” (TV Series), 1980 “Lou Grant” (TV Valley. He is the son of the Serbian painter Borislav Series), 1980 “Nobody's Perfect” (TV Series), 1980 “Tenspeed Bogdanovich and an Austrian-Jewish mother Herma Robinson. and Brown Shoe” (TV Series), 1980 “” (TV Series), Bogdanovich grew up in and attended the 1980 “Soap” (TV Series), 1976-1978 “Hawaii Five-O” (TV exclusive Collegiate School but seems to have spent most of his Series), 1977-1978 “The Show” (TV Series, 14 childhood at the movies. “When I was a kid I used to live inside episodes), 1977 “Kill Me If You Can” (TV Movie), 1975 The films,” he says, “I used to act out all the parts all week long.” He Day of the Locust, 1975 At Long Last Love, 1974 Chinatown, thinks his “taste was purest” when he was ten and saw Howard 1974 “” (TV Series), 1974 Blazing Saddles, 1973 The Hawks’s Red River (five times) and John Ford’s She Wore a Naked Ape, 1973 Paper Moon, 1973 High Plains Drifter, 1972 Yellow Ribbon (ten times). What's Up, Doc?, 1971 The Last Picture Show, 1971 “Sweet, Thus engaged, Bogdanovich failed to graduate from Sweet Rachel” (TV Movie), 1971 Lawman, and 1970 They Call school or enter college but picked up an eclectic kind of Me Mister Tibbs!. university education by turning up for classes without registering. In this way he learned a little about a great many NOBLE WILLINGHAM...Chester (b. Noble Henry Willingham, things (rather like the Streisand character in what’s Up Doc?). August 31, 1931 in Mineola, Texas—d. January 17, 2004 (age Some of the classes he attended were in film history, though he 72) in Palm Springs, California) appeared in 126 films and maintains that “anything I learned about movies in my early days television shows, among them 2003 Blind Horizon, 2000 South was through osmosis—I just breathed it in.” At the same time, of Heaven, West of Hell, 1993-1999 “Walker, Texas Ranger” more legitimately and regularly, he studied acting with Stella (TV Series, 141 episodes), 1996 Up Close & Personal, 1994 The Adler (1956-59), and appeared in summer productions of Hudsucker Proxy, 1994 Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, 1993 “Tales Shakespeare at Stratford, Connecticut, and in Central Park, with from the Crypt” (TV Series), 1992 Of Mice and Men, 1992 Joseph Papp’s company. “” (TV Series), 1991 City Slickers, 1990 “The It was in the off-Broadway theater at the age of Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson” (TV Movie), 1990 “The nineteen, that Bogdanovich had his first experience as a Young Riders” (TV Series), 1989 Blind Fury, 1989 “: professional director. Significantly, he made his debut with a The Next Generation” (TV Series), 1989 “L.A. Law” (TV production of Clifford Odet’s savage drama about the Hollywood Series), 1983-1986 “The A-Team” (TV Series), 1983 “The studio system, The Big Knife, and he admits that he “used to Dukes of Hazzard” (TV Series), 1983 Independence Day, 1981 direct in theater hoping somebody would discover me for the “CHiPs” (TV Series), 1981 Harry's War, 1981 “” (TV movies.” In 1961 he also worked as director with an upstate New Series), 1980 “WKRP in Cincinnati” (TV Series), 1980 York theatre, The Phoenicia Playhouse. Brubaker, 1979 Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, 1979 Simultaneously, Bogdanovich was rattling another door Norma Rae, 1979 “How the West Was Won” (TV Mini-Series), into the movie industry–though one seldom opened in America– 1979 “Backstairs at the White House” (TV Mini-Series), 1978 as a film critic. Beginning in 1959 he wrote for various New The Boys in Company C, 1977 “Lou Grant” (TV Series), 1975 York magazines, then for specialist journals like Film Culture, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York, 1975 “Cannon” Film Quarterly, and the British magazine Movie, and eventually (TV Series), 1974 “Mary Tyler Moore” (TV Series), 1974 for glossies like Vogue, Esquire, and the Saturday Evening Post. Chinatown, 1973 Paper Moon, 1973 The Thief Who Came to As a young reviewer, his great friends and mentors were Eugene Dinner, 1973 “” (TV Series), 1972 “McMillan & Archer of and of the Village Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—5

Voice and Film Culture–auteurist critics who had themselves problems Corman had set him were elegantly solved in been inspired by the young contributors to Cahiers du Cinéma Bogdanovich’s script, which tells two parallel stories….These who, turning to directing, formed the . apparently unconnected stories converge at a drive-in show of Sarris in particular, applying the auteur theory to the Orlock films (including The Terror). The killer, holed up behind Hollywood cinema, had precipitated a revaluation of Hitchcock, the screen starts shooting through it onto the audience. Chaos and Hawks, Preminger, Ford, Ray, and other idols of Bogdanovich’s panic follow until Orlock, present for a final guest appearance, childhood, who had for years been dismissed as studio hacks. On confronts and disarms the young madman. In this scene, as the the contrary, Sarris and his disciples maintained, such men, critics were quick to perceive, a traditional and fundamentally working within a grossly commercial system, had contrived to humane conception of what is frightening was brought face to produce entirely personal works of art in no way inferior to the face with the mindless and truly horrific realities of revered creations of European masters. His eyes thus opened, contemporary violence. Bogdanovich made important contributions of his own to this As a low-budget quickie, Targets has never been widely revaluation in the profiles of Hollywood directors he wrote for distributed but it has achieved a cult reputation and an unusual Esquire and in a series of book-length monographs for the amount of critical attention. Bogdanovich (who appears in the on , , and movie as a brash young filmmaker who wants Orlock for a script Alfred Hitchcock. According he has written), quotes not only to James Monaco, from The Terror but (very briefly) Bogdanovich also “hung out from Howard Hawks’ The with Dan Talbot, whose New Criminal Code (1931). Which Yorker [cinema]…was the gave Karloff his first major role. most exciting repertory house Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin in those days.” have pointed out that “the flat, In 1964, visual surfaces of the shots in Bogdanovich’s off-Broadway Targets” resemble “Hawks’ production of Once in a classical compositions, which unite Lifetime flopped badly. He foreground and background, action felt that he was getting and setting, with equal depth into a nowhere in New York and set single spatial whole. In each case, off for Hollywood in an the unification of the shot into a ancient Ford convertible single texture is used to express a along with the art director direct, continuous tension between whom he had married in 1962. Before long, these elements, particularly characters and environment.” Bogdanovich met the producer at a screening of However, in the opinion of the same critics, the Bay of Angels and was invited to try his hand at a script. Nothing resemblance to Hawks ends there, since while Hawks is always came of this effort, but by 1965 he was heavily involved in primarily interested in character, “Bogdanovich is interested in another Corman project, the biker movie The Wild Angels. his characters’ behavioral patterns as an outgrowth of their Credited as assistant to the director, Bogdanovich says he society”—in Targets we tend to remember the settings better actually rewrote eighty percent of the script, scouted locations, than the characters. Another writer praised the picture for the directed several sequences and the second unit shooting, edited way it “unnervingly conveys the eroding atmosphere of much of the footage, and got himself seriously beaten up on commercial violence” through the use of southern Californian screen. settings—“the spotlessly hygienic, soulless suburbia of glass, Like Coppola, Scorcese, and others who got their start concrete, and fresh white paint that turns the all-American boy with Corman, Bogdanovich remembers the experience with into a mad sniper.” pleasure and gratitude: “I wasn’t setting out to make a work of Over the next three years, while being paid “not to make art. I was just trying to make a movie, and if it turned out to be three pictures,” Bogdanovich worked intermittently on Directed more than that, fine. . . .It was an extraordinary twenty-two-week by John Ford (1971), an uneven but extremely interesting act of picture-making. I haven’t learned as much since.” He was homage commissioned by the . With the somewhat less enthusiastic about his second Corman assignment, success of ’s Easy Rider in 1969, opportunities for which involved the insertion of some half-naked girls into a young directors opened up for a while, and it was the Columbia respectable Russian science-fiction movie to create a Corman subsidiary BBS (which had produced Easy Rider) that backed package called Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, but Bogdanovich’s second feature, The Last Picture Show (1971). after this ordeal he was rewarded with his first directorial BBS gave him complete artistic , even agreeing (albeit assignment, Targets (1968). reluctantly) to his filming the Larry McMurtry novel in Targets was created out of a perfectly characteristic “uncommercial” black and white. Corman brief: Bogdanovich was told that he could do more or The Last Picture show is set in Anarene, a dusty and less what he liked provided that the result cost less than dying small town in Texas in 1951—the last year in high school $125,000, included a role for (who owed Corman of Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms). In the course of the year, two days’ shooting), and incorporated eighteen minutes from The Sonny begins an affair with the school coach’s neglected wife Terror (which Karloff had recently completed for Corman). The (Cloris Leachman) and briefly elopes with the coldly calculating Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—6

but beautiful Jacy (played by the former fashion model Cybill of the tragic gap between American innocence and Old World Shelherd). Sonny’s buddy Duane (Jeff Bridges) goes off to fight sophistication. . . . The film is visually elegant and contains some in Korea, and the same crowded year brings the death of Sonny’s fine performances, but most critics agreed that Jamesian subtlety mentor Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), who owned Anarene’s was beyond the capacities of either Bogdanovich or Cybill movie theatre, pool hall, and diner. Sam leaves the pool hall to Shepherd, whose performance as Daisy was found pretty but Sonny, but the movie theatre closes down with a screening of shallow. Daisy Miller was one of the few films produced by the Howard Hawks’ Red River—a film celebrating the frontier Directors’ Company, a short-lived subsidiary of Paramount virtues Sonny had loved and admired in Sam the Lion. As formed in 1972 by Bogdanovich, Coppola, and . Michael Wood wrote, for Sonny and Duane “it is the end of their Bogdanovich’s reputation reached its nadir with At youth, and by implication, of America’s too.” Long Last Love (1975), called “the most egregious of genre Cloris Leachman and Ben Jonson won Oscars for their movies.” With sixteen songs and untrained as performances in The Last Picture Show, while Bogdanovich and either singers or dancers, he set out to make a 1930s Hollywood McMurtry received the New York Film Critics’ award for best musical, compounding his problems by insisting on recording the screenplay. The movie was the American entry in the 1971 songs by direct sound instead of post-production dubbing. and was a great popular and critical enjoys herself parodying a Broadway songstress, success. There was much praise for Robert Surtees’ deep-focus but , in a part that demanded the talents of Fred cinematography, and David Thomson was reminded of Renoir by Astaire dances “with the grace of a wounded buffalo,” and Cybill Bogdanovich’s evident fondness for even the least admirable of Shepherd, as a spoiled society girl, was said to radiate “an his characters. Paul D. Zimmerman went so far as to call The asinine superciliousness.” Derek Malcolm wrote that Last Picture Show “a masterpiece. It is not merely the best Bogdanovich “seems to have no idea of the awful effect he is American movie of a rather dreary year; it is the most impressive creating of amateur night in the mausoleum.” work by a young American director since .” At Long Last Love is said to have lost $6 million, and According to James Bogdanovich had to put up Monaco, Bogdanovich “did not $500,000 of his own before he respond well to the celebrity found backing for Nickelodeon that followed in the wake of (1976), “a romantic adventure” The Last Picture Show. . . .he set in the early days of the played on his success in an movie industry…. embarrassingly egotistical This insubstantial but fashion. He made a fool of entertaining film was another himself on talkshows with failure at the box office—partly, chatty celebrity banter. The film according to Bogdanovich, magazines came to despise him because of the “unspeakable” as an ideological turncoat. way Columbia handled its Hadn’t they been fighting the promotion and distribution. His system of Hollywood royalty for years?” The mixture of envy relationship with Cybill Shepherd broke up at about the same and scorn evident in these comments no doubt partly explains the time and the director, turning down several attractive offers, extreme hostility with which critics have greeted some of retired to lick his wounds and rethink his career: “I had to make a Bogdanovich’s subsequent pictures. And, as Monaco says, “this choice in my life at that particular point as to whether I was exercise in celebrity reached a disastrous climax with going to continue with the large budget Hollywood movie or go Bogdanovich’s well-publicized romance with Cybill Shepherd. back and recapture in integrity which I felt was in danger of This liaison, which ended the director’s marriage to Polly Platt, being lost.” lasted for eight years. During which Bogdanovich made two The result was Saint Jack (1979), an adaptation of Paul unsuccessful attempts to launch Shepherd as a star. First, Theroux’s novel produced by Bogdanovich’s old mentor Roger however, came two films without that handicap. Corman. Made on location in Singapore, …it represented a What’s Up Doc? (1972), scripted by Bogdanovich with return to low-budget, “artisanal” production, with the editing , , and David Newman, was an attempt done at Bogdanovich’s own house in Bel Air…. to revive an extinct genre—the ” of the 1930s. Encouraged perhaps by the positive critical response to …The film is stuffed full of memorable verbal and visual gags, his “new look” (even though the film was again a commercial many of the latter being worked into a wonderfully sustained and failure), Bogdanovich signed up with the newly-established film inventive chase up and down the switchback streets of san division of Time-Life, Inc. to make a musical comedy that would Francisco, ending with a cavalcade of vehicles hurtling like recast the bittersweet romance of At Long Last Love in a lemmings into the Bay….There was also a mixed though contemporary style and setting. They All Laughed (1981), generally favorable reception for Paper Moon (Paramount, starring as a New York private detective and 1973), scripted by Alvin Sargant, and set in the Midwest during as the latest object of his pursuits, professional the Depression…. and otherwise, avoided many of the embarrassments of the Paper Moon, which grossed $30 million on first release, earlier film, notably by highlighting the comedy over the musical was followed by Bogdanovich’s first flop, Daisy Miller (1974), and by playing on the metaphor of the “private eye” adapted by from one of ’s studies Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—7

To involve the audience in its own voyeurism….Time-Life monographs on (1967), John Ford (1968), and Allan Pictures had gone out of business before the movie was Dwan (1971), and collections of his reviews have been published completed and Fox had then backed off from an agreement to as Pieces of Time (1973) and Picture Shows (1975)…. handle distribution, with the result that Bogdanovich bought back the rights and set up his own production-distribution company, Mark Le Fanu attributes the “collapse” of Moon Pictures. But They All Laughed—and Bogdanovich— Bogdanovich’s career in part to his -on-the-job innocence: like suffered an even greater setback with the well-publicized murder Truffaut, he is “almost excessively good-natured.” But the of , who had gone from being ’s problem, Le Fanu suggested in 1984, “seems to be a wider one–a Playmate of the Year to Bogdanovich's mistress and who was lack of ambition, a lack (we have, finally, to admit it, about this gunned down by her jealous husband after completing a small once-heralded boy prodigy) of basic talent. For a man who part in the film. As Jacqueline Nacach commented, the Stratten knows the history of the cinema as encyclopaedically as affair was “a sorry label for a film that seeks above all not to be Bogdanovich does, what might appear most extraordinary about taken seriously.” his films is their lack of formal audacity.” At this point Bogdanovich once again sought to maintains that Bogdanovich’s films tend to extricate himself from Hollywood. He announced in 1982 that he lack conviction “because in movies conviction comes partly from was going to move to Texas, where there were fewer restrictions the atmosphere–the sense of life surrounding the action–and in on filmmaking. But over the next two years, despite plans for a Bogdanovich’s movies there’s hardly any.” However, Kael goes number of Moon productions to be directed by himself and on, “if he doesn’t have enough film technique for his movies to others, his output was limited to two books, a monograph on have an illusion of life, his images of [loneliness] nevertheless D.W. Griffith and The Killing of the Unicorn, his version of the make direct contact with the audience. He has a real gift for life and death of Dorothy Stratten (already turned into a fiction simple, popular movies; he can tell basic stories that will satisfy a film by ). great many people, and this is not a common talent.” Approached by Universal Pictures with an offer to direct a $9 million production, Bogdanovich more or less made Bogdanovich himself defines his position in terms of his way back into the fold. Mask (1985) was based on the true distance from the American mainstream: “I am American,” he story of southern California teenager afflicted with a grotesquely told journalists at Cannes in 1985, “but I was conceived in deforming bone disease. …In Bogdanovich’s screen version (the Europe. My parents emigrated just before the war. . . . I grew up scenario was rewritten nine times), the relationship between in a very particular family environment: surrounded by painters, Rocky (Eric Stoltz) and his mother Rusty () remains central, poets, intellectuals. Nothing very American. And I don’t see very and there is much play upon paradoxes of appearance and reality, much that interests me in American cinema today. I like which the director sought to relate to the memory of Dorothy Cassavetes, , Ivan Passer. But I’d like to make Stratten as well: “You can’t tell somebody from the way they films in Europe. look, or even from the way they act.” By the time Mask was released, Bopgdanovich was embroiled in yet another dispute with Hollywood. Universal, he charged in a suit to halt the film’s release had cut three key scenes from the film’s final version (on the grounds that it exceeded the length agreed on in the contract) and had overridden his choice of four songs for the soundtrack (in order to avoid a costly precedent on the payment of music royalties). “Mask isn’t a bad film,” he told reporters after losing the legal case. “But it’s missing ten essential minutes, and there are ten minutes of music that disfigure everything.” These reservations were clearly not shared by most viewers though, and the film brought Bogdanovich his first commercial success in ten years. Shown at Cannes (where the director appeared at his own expense and held his own press conference), it earned Cher the award for best actress (shared with Norma Aleandro). For the most part critics reacted to Mask with a kind of grudging praise…. Bogdanovich has been described as an “intelligent, restless, volatile, talkative man” who smokes big cigars (because From Who The Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Orson Welles told him they were economical) and drives a Rolls Film Directors. Peter Bogdanovich. Ballantine. NY 1998 Royce. … In sixth grade, I got the title role of Finian in our Collegiate As well as acting in some of his own movies, he has School production of Finian’s Rainbow, for which my mother appeared in ’ Opening Night, Agnes Varda’s served as uncredited director, the first I can remember: she kept Lion’s Love, and Orson Welles’s unreleased film The Other Side telling me my Irish accent needed work. At the start of that year, of the Wind. Bogdanovich has never entirely relinquished his 1952, at twelve and a half, I began to keep a private card file on critical role; in addition to the Griffith study, he has published every movie I saw: a rating (between Poor and Exceptional), Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—8

some credits (researched at the public library if necessary), at “There are no “old” movies really–only movies you what place I’d seen the film, and some brief comments. If I saw a have already seen and ones you haven’t.” film again, I noted that; if I thought differently of it, I noted that too. I kept the typed file cards religiously through 1970, when I In 1915, when President Wilson was asked for his was thirty and a half and had just finished directing The Last reaction to Griffith’s new picture– was the Picture Show, the film that would make my career. During those first film ever shown at the White House–the president is eighteen years I saw 3,661 features, plus repeated viewings of recorded as having said: “It is like writing history with some of these totalling another 1,066 screenings. There were also lightning.” shorts (one- through four- reelers) and cartoons that added up to another 589 cards. Total, on file: 5,316. Danny Peary: The Last Picture Show (Criterion Notes): When I once pointed out to Welles that he had begun On its twentieth anniversary, Peter Bogdanovich’s Citizen Kane the day I turned one year old, he said, “Oh, shut critically-acclaimed, prize-winning piece is even more up!” impressive thanks to the restoration of seven minutes of additional footage including a crucial sequence (a pool table The first time I came to Hollywood was in January seduction of Cybill Shepherd) that was deleted before the 1961, just as the golden age of movies was coming to an end–by picture’s release. Bogdanovich doesn’t consider this improved my calculations, having lasted fifty years, 1912-1962. When director’s version to be merely a restoration of a landmark film subsequently I bemoaned its passing to Welles, he said: “Well, from the , but something completely new: “the 1990s what do you want? After all, the height of the Renaissance only version of The Last Picture Show.” lasted sixty years!” The final film of this treasured period–and For only his second studio film—Bogdanovich made the most profoundly appropriate in its evocative feeling of the excellent, but little seen, Targets, in 1968—the former film requiem–was John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance critic chanced directing an adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s (1962). Released the same year Marilyn Monroe died, and one elegiac novel about teenagers who come of age in a dying Texas year before the murder of John F. Kennedy, it is a deceptively town in the early fifties. It was such an unlikely project for a simple which concludes, metaphorically, with a U.S. successful movie that it took first-time producer Stephen J. that has buried its heroes in legends that are false, that has built Friedman two years to get financing, with tiny BBS Productions out of the wilderness an illusory garden and left us tragically taking the gamble. Bogdanovich himself was in a gambling longing for the open frontiers and ideals we have lost. mood, eschewing stars for charismatic young newcomers Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Randy Quaid, and his discovery, [Welles] Because it’s only in your twenties and in your Cybill Shepherd, and marvelous character actors, Ben Johnson, seventies and eighties that you do the greatest work. . . . The Cloris Leachman, Clu Gulager, Eileen Brennan, and Ellen enemy of life is middle age. Youth and old age are great times– Burstyn. Even more daring was his decision to make the film in and we must treasure old age and give genius the capacity to black-and-white. Bogdanovich’s choices paid off. The unknown function in old age–and not send them away. . . .And then cast turned in exceptional individual performances and worked Welles cast me in his last (as yet unedited) film, The Other Side brilliantly as an ensemble: Bottoms, Bridges, and Shepherd of the Wind (shot 1970-1976), as the young director who quickly became stars, Johnson and Leachman won Best supplants and outlives ’s old director. Supporting Actor and Actress Oscars, and Burstyn was voted Best Supporting Actress by the New York Film Critics, paving I went to Rome to be produced by , but got fired or her way to stardom. quit before the script was even finished. Sergio and I didn’t get Appreciative audiences and critics thought it most along, and he ended up directing it (Duck, You Sucker!, a.k.a. A appropriate that a dying art form should be used to visualize a Fistful of Dynamite) himself, which is what I knew) would dying town, a dying era, and a dying way of life. Bogdanovich: happen even if I had directed it. “I saw the story as a Texas version of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, which was about the end of a way of life By the end of 1970, I was finishing The Last Picture caused by the coming of the automobile. This was about the end Show, based on a novel which had given me to read; of a way of life caused by the coming of television.” he had always wanted to act in it but felt he was too old by then. Even at the film’s beginning, Anarene, Texas (filming The author, Larry McMurtry, was at this time a little-known actually took place in Archer City) is already much like a ghost Texas writer; although Hud had been based on one of his books, town or graveyard, with constant wind and dust swirling on the I doubt if his novels sold six thousand copies in hard cover. . . . empty streets and into the nearly empty small business We made the film for $1.3 million on location in Texas, received establishments. Ultimately the only movie house in town will eight Academy Award nominations . . . .During the filming, two close down (after showing Red River)—all movie fans will share personal events altered my life forever: my father died suddenly the sense of loss felt by long-time customers Bottoms and of a stroke midway through, and around the same time Cybill Bridges—and the film’s oldest and youngest characters will be Shepherd and I fell in love. When the picture ended, so did my dead. Indeed, the decline of the town, which Bogdanovich marriage to Polly, an extremely sad event, though we still effectively uses as one of his central characters, is emblematic of managed to work together on a couple more films. the personal declines, deaths, and departures of its populace. Our pivotal teenager characters, the sensitive Bottoms, best friend Bridges, and rich-bitch Shepherd, who comes between the boys Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—9

for a time, may each lose their virginity, but they are so (Cybill Shepherd), Duane’s girl, later sing their high school’s unfulfilled and confused that their rites of passage signal more song, partly in affection, partly in mockery, as they drive in the death of youth and innocence than a new-born maturity. Jacy’s convertible—the three joyfully united in friendship, no Growing up doesn’t seem like such a good prospect to these matter that both boys love this vain and luscious heartbreaker. teenagers when all the adults in town are miserable. Pauline Kael It’s 1951, school’s nearly done, and anything is possible. affectionately wrote: “Concerned with adolescent experience In these moments and others throughout his wistful seen in terms of flatlands anomie—loneliness, ignorance about film, Bogdanovich seems to be making the point that people are sex, confusion about one’s aims in life—the movie has a basic often unaware that the times they are living are the best of times, decency of feeling, with people relating to one another, that simple quotidian rituals and shared moments are what make sometimes on very simple levels, and becoming miserable when the long journey tolerable. Other rituals he depicts include they can’t relate.” Sonny’s visits to Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman), the neglected With a script by Bogdanovich and McMurtry that won wife of the school football coach, for afternoon lovemaking that the New York Film Critics award, The Last Picture Show is a becomes more satisfying with each renewal, and the long hours strange cross between Hud (based on McMurtry’s Horseman, spent in the Royal, Anarene’s little movie theater, and the other Pass By) and Peyton Place. The intertwining relationships, establishments—pool hall, café—run by the grizzled Sam the friction between youths and adults, impulsive actions, confused Lion (Ben Johnson). As time goes by, these validating teenagers, manipulative females, feuds, scandals, affairs, first- experiences slip away or terminate abruptly, leaving Sonny high time and other sneaky sex make it ideal material for an adult and dry, with nothing but Ruth’s anger at his desertion—that and soap. Interestingly, a less sensitive director than Bogdanovich the humbling realization that he has lost what was valuable. could have made an exploitation film using the same script. But Though he hasn’t got the wherewithal to leave Anarene, as it wasn’t his intention to dwell on the sordid goings-on in Duane and Jacy do, the painful rite of passage will serve him Anarene, though he’ll let us well in the future. Maybe. At least, eagerly follow Shepherd into a it will give him plenty of motel room with Bridges and to a bittersweet memories, such as of nude swimming pool party. He his last peaceful experience of was more interested in creating an Sam, his and Billy’s surrogate authentic small-town Texas father, who takes the boys fishing milieu, by paying special attention at the tank and tenderly reminisces to the decor of the various about a love affair. The Last establishments: the country music Picture Show is like a multilayered that constantly plays on the radio, poem in the way it indulges Sam’s and the manners, quirks, dress and nostalgia—and ours for the veteran hairstyles of his characters. You western actor Johnson—while really believe that the people who feeding Sonny’s future reveries populate the screen have lived in about his own past. Anarene all their lives. Bogdanovich was equally successful at The film was revelatory when it opened in October establishing fascinating relationships between various troubled 1971, and it has proved the most assured of Bogdanovich’s characters, male and female, young and old. I think that the uneven career. With its eight Oscar nominations and two wins— “romance” between Bottoms and the older, unhappily married for supporting actors Johnson and Leachman—it became a Leachman, who gives an astonishing performance, is unlike flagship of , though not that sprawling anything else in cinema. movement’s most representative work. It was financed by BBS, It’s true that much of Bogdanovich’s subject matter is which, in its earlier incarnation as , had depressing. Yet with on the soundtrack, exciting dreamed up the Monkees and delivered the countercultural shock talent playing real characters up on the screen, unexpected of Easy Rider, and had just presented the existential angst of Five humor, and Robert Surtees’ lovely black-and-white Easy Pieces. This was the maverick company, run by Bert cinematography sending us back in time, we hardly notice. Schneider, Bob Rafelson, and Steve Blauner, and abetted by , most associated with the seventies revitalization of Graham Fuller: The Last Picture Show: In With the Old American cinema, partially through the rejection of classical (Criterion Notes). modes of storytelling. The Last Picture Show has a foot in both Early in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, as camps, the old and the new. Slow and mournful, it does not seem the wind from the Texas plains whips the small town of Anarene, to have much in common with the work of other directors who the high school senior Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) halts emerged during the decade, especially vivid stylists with urban his recalcitrant pickup truck—Hank Williams is warbling “Why preoccupations like , , Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used to Do)?” on the radio—to Brian De Palma, , and William Friedkin, or a give a ride to his mute young friend Billy (Sam Bottoms). When caustic observer of human foibles like Robert Altman. Yet it Billy sits beside him, Sonny turns his cap backward on his head, fully embraces the new era’s sense of personal artistic vision. a gesture that makes Billy smile and that Sonny will repeat And like the other Raybert/BBS productions, it powerfully several times, and his buddy Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) once, depicts loss, loneliness, the failure of family, and the pipe dream during the course of the movie. Sonny, Duane, and Jacy Farrow of love—themes very much of the time. Sonny is as alienated in Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—10

his way as Nicholson’s characters in Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces the film would “cut like butter” because Bogdanovich was and The King of Marvin Gardens, and as Tuesday Weld’s in editing in the camera. ’s , which costarred Nicholson and The screenplay was adapted by Larry McMurtry and Orson Welles. Bogdanovich from McMurtry’s semiautobiographical 1966 Following the decade in which veteran directors like novel, the sexual frankness of which made it a highly appealing Ford, Hawks, Curtiz, Borzage, Anthony Mann, Capra, Milestone, property in 1970. McMurtry had been reared in Archer City, in Stevens, Walsh, Wyler, Siodmak, and Jacques Tourneur made the Panhandle Plains region of Texas. He renamed the town their final features, The Last Picture Show bids farewell, with its Thalia for the novel, and Bogdanovich, who shot the film in symbolic shuttering of the Royal, to Old Hollywood. It achieves Archer City, changed Thalia to Anarene—to rhyme with the this through its lovingly realized classical aesthetic and perfect Abilene of Red River. In contrast to today’s Archer City, period detail, which owe not only to Bogdanovich but also to the sustained by oil, ranching, and McMurtry’s latest bookstore, production/costume designer, Polly Platt (whose marriage to the Anarene in the movie appears to be dying: a tumbleweed rolls director foundered when he began an on-set relationship with ominously across the street near the end. The opening shot that Shepherd). A cineaste influenced by the nouvelle vague, tracks from the Royal reveals how desolate the town is; the Bogdanovich had programmed films and written intelligently answering shot that closes the film ends on the Royal, which has about cinema before making, under a pseudonym, his first closed following Sam’s sudden, offscreen death. Sam was feature, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, followed, Anarene’s bastion of moral authority, as Tom Doniphon (John more auspiciously, by Targets (both 1968). He was a self- Wayne) is in Ford’s analogous The Man Who Shot Liberty described “popularizer” and friend of some of America’s Valance (1962). Ben Johnson earned the role with his dignified preeminent auteurs, including portrayals of Southern-born U.S. Hawks and Ford, on both of cavalrymen in Ford’s She Wore whom he made documentaries. a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio The Last Picture Show would Grande (1950), and the be his Fordian film (as 1972’s protective leader of the Mormon What’s Up, Doc? would be his wagon train in Wagon Master— Hawksian film), and one that serene, canny gentlemen of the paid homage to Hawks in frontier. passing. In looking back to Bogdanovich makes what was timeless in their clear his influences. Early on, we work, however, Bogdanovich see a Wagon Master poster was also addressing what was outside the Royal’s box office. timeless in his own era of social The last movie shown there is, and sexual upheaval. anachronistically, Red River, Welles, who was staying with Bogdanovich at the time whereas in the novel it’s The Kid from Texas (1950), which fails he made The Last Picture Show, contributed too. Their talks to divert Sonny and Duane from their thoughts about Jacy: “It apparently prompted Bogdanovich’s crucial decision to have would have taken Winchester ’73 or Red River or some big Robert Surtees photograph it in black and white, the better to movie like that to have crowded out the memories the boys kept facilitate deep-focus shots and evoke nos­tal­gia for an ebbing having,” McMurtry writes. Sonny and Duane watch as Wayne culture, in the same way Welles had fondly if ruefully recalled and Montgomery Clift start their cattle drive, which will end in the aristocratic Indiana neighborhood of the early 1900s in rancor with their climactic fistfight. The Last Picture Show, too, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). The dusty aura of The Last proceeds to a vicious fight—between Sonny and Duane over Picture Show suggests less the pristine Ambersons, however, Jacy, who soon after weds Sonny, knowing her parents will have than Hawks’s Red River (1948), Ford’s Wagon Master (1950), the marriage annulled before it is consummated. She does it to and Nicholas Ray’s The Lusty Men (1952). The use of long shots, succor her wounded vanity on learning that Sonny has been isolating people in the arid outdoors, depriving them of intimacy, sleeping with Ruth; stripping in front of the Wichita Falls smart was Fordian—one thinks of Lois Farrow (Ellen Burstyn), Jacy’s set at a pool party is a tougher (if more exciting) trial for Jacy mother, taking a lone walk away from Sam’s graveside. “Some than eloping. of the best scenes that you make are in long shot,” Hawks said. “I Jacy has been labeled a femme fatale by some critics. he learned that from Jack Ford. Peter Bogdanovich has done that is fickle, but like Sonny, she is also an innocent finding her way, very successfully in The Last Picture Show, but he sat on my set a naïf, for all her manipulativeness, who defines herself in for two and a half years and on Ford’s for two and a half years, relation to men, including her mom’s lover, the opportunistic oil so he learned a few things.” Surtees had assisted driller Abilene (Clu Gulager)—an Oedipal revenge if ever there early in his career and would have been familiar with his deep- was one. Whatever her caprices, in 1971 many young women focus work on Ford’s and The Grapes of viewers would have cheered her readiness to exper­i­ment Wrath (both 1940), and, of course, on Citizen Kane (1941). sexually with different men; Ruth’s affair with Sonny is equally According to ’s book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, affirming, a better option than permanent lassitude and The Last Picture Show’s lack of master shots flummoxed BBS’s disappoint­ment, if not exactly a feminist statement. Acting on Schneider and Blauner, but Rafelson allayed their fears, saying desire is a salve for several characters’ aimlessness, but not its every manifestation is healthy, or sane: Joe Bob Blanton (Barc Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—11

Doyle), the religious kid, nearly molests a little girl. In the novel, affair are as chilling as the northers that sweep through Anarene. McMurtry matter-of-factly describes the coition of teenage boys All that can be cherished are those fleeting moments of happiness with animals; Bogdanovich necessarily drew the line at bestiality contained in small intimacies. Ruth, newly radiant, wears (though it is referred to in the film). The critic cited Sonny’s shirt after their second tryst (so much better than their this omission and that of Lois’s having sex with Sonny as noisy baptism by bedsprings). The kindhearted café waitress examples of the film’s romanticization of the world of the novel. Genevieve (Eileen Brennan) serves Sonny a healing But these were discreet choices: Sonny’s sleeping with Lois on- cheeseburger. Sam, during the fishing trip, offers Sonny a roll-up screen would have not only diluted the delicacy of his forlorn as if they were a pair of Hawksian cowboys. affair with Ruth but also cost the movie the touch­ing In that same interlude, Sam remembers bringing his girl conversation between Lois and Sonny when she recalls the only to the tank more than twenty years before and swimming with man who knew her worth. It is through Ruth’s and Sam’s her “without no bathin’ suits.” Memory confers a pleasure as upbraidings that Sonny learns about emotional responsibility and precious in the present as the events being recalled. Dazzling, through Lois’s acceptance of her past that he learns about the inventive, and trenchant though much of New Holly­wood was— transience of love. and abrasive and cynical too—nothing else it came up with The Last Picture Show contrives to be both elegiac and matches Sam the Lion’s faraway look as he dwells on his wild brutally realis­tic. The deaths of Sam and Billy, Jacy’s affair with his lost love. Fading out as he is, it’s the last picture inconstancy (sickening to both Duane and Sonny), and the show in his mind’s eye. recognition that Sonny and Ruth will be unable to reignite their

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2013 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVII: October 15 Network 1976 October 22 Bruce Jackson & Diane Christian Death Row 1979 October 29 Jim Jarmusch Dead Man 1995 November 5 Pedro Almodóvar Talk to Her 2002 November 12 Synecdoche, New York 2008 November 19 Wim Wenders Pina 2011 November 26 The Great Gatsby 2013 The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News

Bogdonavich—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW—12

Buffalo Film Seminars Spring 2014 preliminary schedule

Most of these have been booked. We’re still waiting to hear about a few of them. We’ll get the final schedule out to you as soon as we can.

1/28 Josef von Sternberg, Underworld, 1927, 81 minutes 2/4 Jean Cocteau, Orpheus, 1950, 95min 2/11 Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu, 1952, 136 min 2/18 Satyajit Ray, Charluta, 1964, 119 minutes 2/25 Metin Erksan, Dry Summer, 1964, 90 min 3/4 Monte Hellman, Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971, 103 min 3/11 John Cassavetes, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1976, 135 min Spring break March 17-22 3/25 Agnes Varda, Vagabond, 1985, 105 min 4/1 Gabriell Axel, Babette’s Feast, 1987, 104min 4/8 , Vanya on , 1994, 119 min 4/15 , The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, 110 min 4/22 Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, 2005, 120 min 4/29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min 5/6 John Huston, The Dead, 1987 83 min