Review of The Last Picture Show (1971) by Cole P — 25 Jul 2011

I should say that Stephen King took inspiration from The Last Picture Show when writing Salem's Lot. I cannot validate this but there are definitely similarities; evils that exist in both small towns. However, the major difference is that King personifies his evil with contagious vampires. In The Last Picture Show, there's also vampires, but these ones are impervious to daytime and do a lot more than neck biting.

I'll elaborate. In true 1970's film style, we follow Sonny (Timothy Bottoms who is a dead lookalike of Ryan Reynolds) who weaves in and out of the ghost town like an apparition himself. He's generally uninhibited by temptations on the surface, but transparently, he has a lustful eye for his best friend's girl Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), an insatiable desire for sexual fulfillment (which his current girlfriend will not provide), and is soon caught in a physical affair with the high school coach's wife, Ruth (Cloris Leachman). For how long Sonny was able to abscond with Ruth is never clear, but we identify quickly that everybody in town soon knows about it--except for the coach himself. There, as I put it before, are the evils at work.

A subplot involves Sonny's best friend Dwayne (a young Jeff Bridges) trying to move on in life after his relationship with Jacy crumples. There's nothing striving in the town, so Dwayne might as well flourish elsewhere. He can't be blamed. The town is managed by bigoted elders and debauchery. There are whispers of misappropriation and of sexual abuse, but unless openly exposed, nobody cares to resolve it. Maybe they'll fear exposing themselves.

The Last Picture Show is an exploitation film, released in the early 70's and one of those many risque pictures which took advantage of the lifted censorship laws. But that doesn't equate to a lewd film. It's all carefully done and the sexual scenes are masterfully handled--giving us enough visual realization to believe all of the horrors that are never upended in this quiet little town. At its core, the film yields a theme about a loss of innocence. The ending is a powerful one, proving that even while he was capable of intercourse with Ruth on numerous occasions, he still looks to her as an "adult" when the time comes for him to grieve.

PS. I didn't even get to talking about the character of Sam the Lion, but his role as the monarch of the old town is extremely pivotal in understanding the interrelationships between many of the new and old townsfolk.