Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, and Cybill Shepherd prepare for adulthood in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, September 9, free with museum admission, 7:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
The summer season of the Museum of the Moving Image “See It Big!” series concludes this weekend with two very different films, both shot by cinematographer Robert Surtees: William Wyler’s glorious Ben-Hur, for which he won his third Oscar, and Peter Bogdanovich’s much more subtle The Last Picture Show, a tender-hearted, poignant portrait of sexual awakening and coming-of-age in a sleepy Texas town. Adapted from the Larry McMurtry novel by the author and the director, the film is set in the early 1950s, focusing on Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms), a teenager who works at the local pool hall with Billy (Timothy’s brother Sam), a simple-minded boy who needs special caring. Sonny’s best friend, Duane Jackson (Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges), is dating the prettiest girl in school, Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd, in her film debut), who is getting ready to test out the sexual waters, sneaking away on a date with Lester Marlow (Randy Quaid), who takes her to a naked-swimming party in a wealthier suburb of Wichita Falls. Meanwhile, Sonny breaks up with his girlfriend, Charlene Druggs (Sharon Taggart), and becomes drawn to the sad, unhappy Ruth Popper (an Oscar-winning Cloris Leachman), the wife of his football coach (Bill Thurman). The outstanding all-star cast also features Oscar-nominated Ellen Burstyn as Lois, Jacy’s mother; Eileen Brennan as a waitress in the local diner who makes cheeseburgers for Sonny; Clu Gulager as a working man who has a thing for Lois; Frank Marshall, who went on to become a big-time producer, as high school student Tommy Logan; and Oscar winner Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion, the moral center of the town and owner of the pool hall, diner, and movie theater, which shows such films as Father of the Bride and Red River. Surtees shoots The Last Picture Show in a sentimental black-and-white that gives the film an old-fashioned feel, as if it’s a part of Americana that is fading away. Bogdanovich also chose to have no original score, instead populating the tale with country songs by Hank Williams, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Lefty Frizzell, Tony Bennett, and others singing tales of woe. In many ways the film is the flip side of George Lucas’s 1973 hit American Graffiti, which is set ten years later but looks like it’s from another century; it also has a lot in common with François Truffaut’s 1962 classic Jules and Jim.. Nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, The Last Picture Show is an unforgettable slice-of-life drama that will break your heart over and over again.
Al Pacino burst onto the cinematic landscape in The Panic in Needle Park, his first starring role. Pacino is fabulously unsettling as Bobby, a junkie always looking to score around Sherman Square at 72nd St. and Broadway, known then as Needle Park. Bobby hooks up with Helen (Kitty Winn, who was named Best Actress at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival for her performance), and the two of them do whatever is necessary to stay high as they wander the streets of the city. Director Jerry Schatzberg (Scarecrow, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Street Smart) uses natural sound and light to give the film a more realistic feel, as if you are walking through the streets with Bobby and Helen. Several scenes will break your heart, including the one on the Staten Island Ferry; the powerful screenplay was the first written by novelist Joan Didion. The film launched Pacino’s stellar film career; his next five movies were The Godfather, Scarecrow, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, and Dog Day Afternoon, arguably the best start to an acting career ever. Gritty, realistic, and surprisingly tender, The Panic in Needle Park will be screening September 9, 13, and 17 as part of Anthology Film Archives’ ongoing series From the Pen of . . ., paying tribute to the often underrecognized writers behind some great films, this time around focusing on screenplays written by novelists, including Donald Westlake (Cops and Robbers, The Stepfather), Elmore Leonard (Joe Kidd, Mr. Majestyk), James Salter (Downhill Racer), Richard Matheson (House of Usher), Truman Capote (The Innocents), and others.
In the mid-1980s, George Romero produced a syndicated horror anthology series called Tales from the Darkside, a creepy, often gory combination of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, and, primarily, HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. Actor and screenwriter Henry Oleck’s directorial debut, Serving Up Richard, is like a too long, more graphic Darkside episode, with actors you think you’ve seen before but are not quite sure where, caught up in bizarre situations that might just work until the usually pretty stupid ending ultimately leaves you disappointed. Ross McCall (White Collar) stars as Richard Reubens, a minor Wall Street player who is transferred to Los Angeles, moving to a sunny community with his lovely wife, Karen (Jericho’s Darby Stanchfield). Seeing an ad for an ultracool Mustang, Richard doesn’t listen to his wife and instead goes to check it out — and winds up locked in a cage by a crazy cannibal couple, anthropologist Everett Hutchins (24’s Jude Ciccolella) and his very strange, perpetually ailing wife, Glory (executive producer and former ballerina Susan Priver). While off on one of his many trips, Everett learned that eating healthy humans is good for sick people, so he regularly finds meals for his darling love, the pale-skinned, agoraphobic Glory. But when Glory takes a liking to Richard as a person, the Wall Street hunk thinks he might be able to negotiate his way out of this mess and avoid winding up on the menu. Originally titled The Guest Room, Serving Up Richard starts out as a surprisingly appealing appetizer, setting the table with some tasty tidbits. The main course keeps things looking up for a while, but as it goes on and on, it grows cold and silly, throwing in some very bad jokes and ridiculously over-the-top scenes. And the dessert — well, like the most mediocre Tales from the Darkside episode (was there any other kind?), the finale is a major letdown. However, McCall hangs tough through it all, doing a good job of holding the audience’s interest as the plot goes off the deep end. (Add half a star if you thought Tales from the Darkside was anything but mediocre.)
