La Dernière Séance

***Bleak, trashy B&W drama of life in a fading Texas town in the early 50s with several strong points*** Released in 1971, “The Last Picture Show” is a B&W drama of several teens and adults in a dying Texas town on the windy plains in 1951. Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd play the main high shoolers while Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn appear as the adults. Randy Quaid and Clu Gulage...

I must have watched this movie a few years after it came out, but I had no specific memory of it, no feeling of deja vu of having seen a scene before. It is a good film in many ways, certainly achieving its apparent goal of portraying a bleak landscape of a dying town. The dialogue, which I notice since I write novels that feature a lot of dialogue, is excellent, just what you expect from Larry McMurtry. The acting i...

"Sonny" (Timothy Bottoms) and "Duane" (Jeff Bridges) are best pals in a remote Texan town that offers them little by way of prospects. They both vie for the love interest of "Jacy" (Cybill Shepherd) although she is supposed to be dating "Duane". She comes from the family that passes for wealth in "Anarene" and her mother (Ellen Burstyn) has essentially told her to keep her options open and see which, from an extremel...