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Last Picture Show Larry McMurtry 9780752837215 Books

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Last Picture Show Larry McMurtry 9780752837215 Books

I saw the movie version of this book when it came out in 1971. I was 18 years old at the time and I was blown away by its realistic depiction of sex and what it means to come of age in a small town. It has been one of my favorite movies ever since. But I didn’t get around to reading the novel until this year. Lately, I have been making it a habit of reading the novels that are based on my favorite movies (Paths of Glory, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, etc.). What I find interesting about the movie is how closely it follows the novel. This is not always true with many movies based on popular or unknown novels. Usually Hollywood finds one reason or another to monkey with the plot or the characters to come up with something that might be more acceptable for the audience or the studio’s standards of the times. But Bogdanovich, the director, is faithful to the novel’s description of the characters and, more importantly, the movie’s script adheres very closely to the dialog in the novel. This is obviously a result of having Larry McMurtry, the author of the book, serve as co-writer of the screenplay for the movie. McMurtry has a great ear for the language of West Texas and it comes through brilliantly when spoken by the actors in the movie.
But there are some key differences between the novel and the movie For one thing, the book, written in 1966, five years before the movie was produced, is surprisingly far more explicit about sex. There are many more scenes in the book that describe sex between the characters in very erotic detail. For example, the sex scenes in the book between Sonny and Ruth Popper, the coach’s wife, go into great detail about what they did in bed and how they felt about it. Also, there are several chapters in the book where Sonny and Duane have sex with prostitutes, including on the trip to Mexico, which is not part of the movie. Not only that, but Sonny and Jacy Farrow’s mother wind up having sex near the end of the book after his marriage with Jacy is annulled by her parents. And last but not least, while the characters in the movie talk about having sex with barnyard animals, in the book several of the young boys actually have sex with a heifer in a feedlot during a drunken Saturday night. For reasons that are partly due to the restrictions of Hollywood at the time and for legitimate character modifications, I feel that most of these exclusions of sexual explicitness are understandable and do not take anything away from the integrity of the plot or the characters. In fact, I would argue that some of the restraint in how sex is dealt with between the book and the movie is a result of the maturity of McMurtry as a writer in understanding that suggestibility and implicitness in sex can be more effective in conveying passion than being highly descriptive and explicit. In other words, I don’t feel that the movie is diminished in any way by the “sanitization” of the book. They are both true to their form.
The beauty of the book is the writing style of McMurtry. In my view, no movie can ever capture the voice of a first-rate writer. That is one reason why every movie based on a Hemingway novel always seemed to be a failure. But what makes up for McMurtry’s lyrical voice is the direction and cinematography of Bogdanovich and Robert Surtees. In fact, in my opinion, it is Surtees who steals the show. He brings the lyricism of the novel to life in a way that I have never seen before or since. I don’t think I have ever seen a cinematographer who really seemed able to capture the mood and language of a novel like he did in this movie. It is simply brilliant and McMurtry should be grateful that he was so lucky to have had such a brilliant film making crew to adapt his novel to the screen. The book and the film are both classics of American literature film of the 20th century. Both of them should be appreciated equally. So, my suggestion is to not only see the movie but definitely read the book so you can experience the best in both American literature and film in one story.


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Last Picture Show Larry McMurtry 9780752837215 Books Reviews

Having watched the movie twice (when it was first released, then again last year) I wanted to read the book. O course it is much better than the movie - which is great by itself. I live about 100 miles from the fictional setting of The Last Picture Show. I grew-up about 15 years after the novel is set, in a town only slightly larger than Thalia, Texas. So, I feel that I know these characters. McMurtry is able to draw vivid characters and settings that really speak to the reader. I have recently finished the sequel, Texasville and also highly recommend it to the reader.
I vaguely remember reading the novel The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry, published in 1966, during my formative high school years. Sometime during my college years, I saw the infamous B&W film version, shortly after its release. The film pretty much followed the plot and characterization of the book fairly faithfully, but for a few slight alterations, probably for cinematic effect. Possibly because one of the actresses objected to performing a scene like that in public. There are numerous scenes with adult situations in them. Strictly R-rated raw material in my opinion. The story is about a group of rebellious high school students who live in a small town in Texas in the 1950's. One thing that impressed me then and now are the strong values instilled in the community involving family, friendship, and kinship. You could say that they really know how to circle the wagons. Their lives are permeated by the influence of the wild west in general, cattle ranching in particular, and, of course, the oil industry. They also have a strong sense of patriotism and independence. Many migrate to Dallas and Fort Worth after graduation. Some to Midland and Odessa. There's a thriving Air Force base in the vicinity. Some go to California; some to Mexico. It is all a matter of business and opportunity. You have to start out somewhere in life, whether you work as a ranch-hand on the prairie or rough-neck in the oil fields or enlist in the army. There are two basic facts of life you have to eat and you have to earn a living somehow.
In the novel, "Lois," is a concerned mother who tries in vain to explain the facts of life and the benefits of a good, solid liberal arts education to her precocious, wide-eyed, and innocent daughter, a high school senior, who doesn't seem to want to listen. Lois tries to lead by example to help her gain an understanding of the ways of the world by involving her in organized social events, such as extra-curricular football game activities and the Christmas dance at the American Legion. Her immediate short-term goal is to enroll her in college in Dallas as soon as she can and get her out of "Dodge" fast.
Meanwhile, some of the local high school boys begin to "sow their oats," so to speak, and begin to explore the more nefarious aspects of the world around them. They want to broaden their horizons. Normally, they are responsible, rugged individuals who work hard in the oil fields and play hard on the football field. A few of the teachers in school try to teach them something relevant, but mostly they learn from the school of "hard knocks." Teaching them anything is like trying to educate a litter of feral hogs all they want to do is root around in the mud, rut, and run wild through the briars and brambles, among the mesquite and cactus. Yet, deep down in your heart, you get the distinct feeling that there is a spark of humanity somewhere inside of them after all. They must shape their own destinies, make their own difficult choices, and take calculated risks. You can only hope and pray that they make the right decisions along the way. It is all part of the growing up process.
Still, there are pros and cons as to how exactly these rites of passage are to be accomplished. By brute strength alone. By survival of the fittest. Where only the strong survive. Maybe under certain conditions. By bullying and coercion. Doubtful. This is totally unacceptable behavior. It will simply no longer be tolerated. This is the reason why we have laws and the constitution. It is a matter of righteousness and fairness. It is only by the grace of God, among other things, that we live together in peace and harmony.
Moreover, by taking advantage of the weak, powerless, and susceptible, some invite legal battles and political action. They are shunned by the church. The moral indignation and retribution becomes overwhelming. They cannot win. They lose face, prestige, and possibly a big law-suit. The prospect of financial ruination looms over the horizon.
R. Royce was out watering his roses in the backyard from a garden hose. The neighbor's calico cat kept him company. The roses had been growing and blooming for about seven years. He lived in a big yellow-brick house on the corner in a small Texas town. Over the years, he had planted the rose bushes in a straight row between an ancient ash and an old hackberry tree. They bloomed periodically throughout April and on into November. The line of roses ran parallel to Bishop drive, a side street on the North side of the property. The residential area where he lived used to be mostly cotton fields in the 1960's. He was the second owner of the house. He planted a second row of roses along the back boundary, perpendicular to the first, between the tall trees which grew there in a long line. The boundary looked like a small inverted v-shaped ridge, and ran for miles in either direction, north and south. Royce planted two sturdy Lacy oaks to replace the ones which had been chopped down before he moved into the neighborhood. He thought the ridge was some sort of geological marvel, even though one of the neighbors said that it was just the edge of the cotton field that had risen up because the ground had never been plowed under. Royce had his doubts, and secretly believed that it conceals an underground spring.
The cat jumped from the lawn-chair on which she rested and began playing with a grasshopper that had begun leaping around the yard under the hackberry tree in the corner of the yard. All at once a dark gray bird of unknown origins flew out of the tree and assaulted the cat in a dive-bombing raid, flying just above the cat's arched back. The cat tried to defend herself and pawed at the air, but was too late. Next the bird flew in front of the cat, tempting the cat further, but she again swatted too late with her paw. The bird repeated its assault on the cat. Again and again the cat swatted too late. The bird was too fast for the cat. The bird vanished for a time. The cat resumed watching Royce water the flower bushes.
Moments later, the bird magically reappeared in the air. The cat alerted and went to pounce on the bird as it flew by. The bird flew a few feet away and landed in the yard nearby. It hopped about, limped along, and held its wing as if it were hurt or injured. It looked as if it were unable to fly. The cat gained confidence and rushed forward, but again the bird flew a short distance away and landed on the lawn.
Along about that time, Royce's lovely neighbor, Nelda appeared. She had been out looking for her cat. She saw what had transpired and explained to Royce that the bird was only pretending to be injured in order to lure the pesky cat away from her nest in the hackberry tree. She would risk her very life to save her offspring if necessary.
Then, Nelda asked Royce if he had noticed the large hawk circling above the tree-tops. "They have been known to swoop down without warning into the yard and carry away small, defenseless animals, such as cats and dogs," she said.
He remembered the time they had gone to one of the neighbor's garage sale. The neighbor had noticed Royce had been going over to Nelda's house late in the evening on several occasions. He politely told her, "Oh, I just like to go over there and watch 'HBO' while she gets her exercise." Nelda felt terribly annoyed that her neighbor, a devout, god-fearing woman and a long-time resident of the community would pry into her personal life so. Royce hoped that she hadn't felt insulted, embarrassed, or shocked in any way by the awkward revelation.
He remembered the time he lived in Florida as a young man. While eating a hamburger at Wendy's on the beach one day, after having gone swimming in the ocean, he noticed that two teen-age girls seated nearby were trying to agree on their plans for the rest of the afternoon. One of them leered at passersby, cajoled, and grinned mischievously.
"I'll teach you to be a bitch," she proclaimed loudly and suddenly, to the amusement and delight of her companion, without any warning whatsoever or the slightest provocation, obviously acting out a scene from a soap opera drama, or repeating what she must have recently heard somebody say. You'd think that she would have been an embarrassment to her mother, squealing the way she did.
About that time, their friends showed up, with their surf boards. They were wet and dripping. The girls began to chatter enthusiastically with the surfers. They became animated, jumping up and down, and clowning around. Practicing their techniques. Her mother finished the morning shift at the hamburger stand. "Let's go you little criminals," she said. They all piled into her station wagon. The surfers secured the boards on top with bungee cords.
Royce waited for his girlfriend. She was supposed to meet him there after work. A Marine Corps training officer, she reminded him of a character from a movie flick he'd once seen, "The Last Picture Show." Only she was all grown up now. "Charlene Duggs" was in great physical condition! You might even say that she had "reinvented" herself. She was vivacious, charismatic, out-going, and energetic. The complete package. The real deal. A total make-over. "All I ever needed was to meet a few good men," she once confided in him.
I saw the movie version of this book when it came out in 1971. I was 18 years old at the time and I was blown away by its realistic depiction of sex and what it means to come of age in a small town. It has been one of my favorite movies ever since. But I didn’t get around to reading the novel until this year. Lately, I have been making it a habit of reading the novels that are based on my favorite movies (Paths of Glory, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, etc.). What I find interesting about the movie is how closely it follows the novel. This is not always true with many movies based on popular or unknown novels. Usually Hollywood finds one reason or another to monkey with the plot or the characters to come up with something that might be more acceptable for the audience or the studio’s standards of the times. But Bogdanovich, the director, is faithful to the novel’s description of the characters and, more importantly, the movie’s script adheres very closely to the dialog in the novel. This is obviously a result of having Larry McMurtry, the author of the book, serve as co-writer of the screenplay for the movie. McMurtry has a great ear for the language of West Texas and it comes through brilliantly when spoken by the actors in the movie.
But there are some key differences between the novel and the movie For one thing, the book, written in 1966, five years before the movie was produced, is surprisingly far more explicit about sex. There are many more scenes in the book that describe sex between the characters in very erotic detail. For example, the sex scenes in the book between Sonny and Ruth Popper, the coach’s wife, go into great detail about what they did in bed and how they felt about it. Also, there are several chapters in the book where Sonny and Duane have sex with prostitutes, including on the trip to Mexico, which is not part of the movie. Not only that, but Sonny and Jacy Farrow’s mother wind up having sex near the end of the book after his marriage with Jacy is annulled by her parents. And last but not least, while the characters in the movie talk about having sex with barnyard animals, in the book several of the young boys actually have sex with a heifer in a feedlot during a drunken Saturday night. For reasons that are partly due to the restrictions of Hollywood at the time and for legitimate character modifications, I feel that most of these exclusions of sexual explicitness are understandable and do not take anything away from the integrity of the plot or the characters. In fact, I would argue that some of the restraint in how sex is dealt with between the book and the movie is a result of the maturity of McMurtry as a writer in understanding that suggestibility and implicitness in sex can be more effective in conveying passion than being highly descriptive and explicit. In other words, I don’t feel that the movie is diminished in any way by the “sanitization” of the book. They are both true to their form.
The beauty of the book is the writing style of McMurtry. In my view, no movie can ever capture the voice of a first-rate writer. That is one reason why every movie based on a Hemingway novel always seemed to be a failure. But what makes up for McMurtry’s lyrical voice is the direction and cinematography of Bogdanovich and Robert Surtees. In fact, in my opinion, it is Surtees who steals the show. He brings the lyricism of the novel to life in a way that I have never seen before or since. I don’t think I have ever seen a cinematographer who really seemed able to capture the mood and language of a novel like he did in this movie. It is simply brilliant and McMurtry should be grateful that he was so lucky to have had such a brilliant film making crew to adapt his novel to the screen. The book and the film are both classics of American literature film of the 20th century. Both of them should be appreciated equally. So, my suggestion is to not only see the movie but definitely read the book so you can experience the best in both American literature and film in one story.