The Last Picture Show (5/8) Movie CLIP - The Death of Sam the Lion (1971) HD

CLIP DESCRIPTION:
Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) return from Mexico to learn that Sam the Lion passed away.

FILM DESCRIPTION:
Produced by Hollywood iconoclast BBS Productions, film critic-turned-director Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film pays homage to Hollywood's classical age as it chronicles generational rites of passage in Anarene, a fictional one-horse Texas town. In 1951, high school seniors Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) play football, go to the movies at the Royal Theater, hang out at the pool hall owned by local elder statesman Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), and lust after rich tease Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd in her film debut). As the year passes, Sonny learns about the pitfalls and compromises of adulthood through an affair with his coach's wife Ruth (Cloris Leachman) and a thwarted elopement with Jacy after she dumps Duane. Following two tragic deaths, and with Duane gone to Korea and Jacy packed off to college in Dallas, Sonny is left behind in Anarene, wise enough to absorb the life lessons of Sam the Lion and Jacy's mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn). He is determined to honor Sam's legacy as the town's conscience, despite a telling sign of incipient communal disintegration: the closing of the Royal Theater after a final showing of Howard Hawks's Red River. Paying tribute to classical Hollywood directors like Hawks and John Ford, Bogdanovich used old-time cinematographer Robert Surtees and shot The Last Picture Show in crisp black-and-white, with a restrained style devoid of the kind of "new wave" techniques (jump cuts, zooms, and jittery hand-held camerawork) used by such contemporaries as Arthur Penn, Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, and Martin Scorsese. As in such Ford films as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Bogdanovich relies on careful visual composition in deep focus to help communicate the regret over the passing of an era. Hailed as one of the best films by a young director since Citizen Kane (1941), The Last Picture Show premiered at the New York Film Festival and went on to become a hit. It was also nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Larry McMurtry's and Bogdanovich's adaptation of McMurtry's novel. John Ford stalwart Johnson won Supporting Actor and Leachman won Supporting Actress, beating out their cohorts Bridges and Burstyn. For an audience steeped in movie history and caught up in the chaotic 1971 present, The Last Picture Show presented a nostalgic look backward that was not so much an escape from the present as a coming to terms with what the present had lost. Its 1990 sequel Texasville, in which Bridges and Shepherd played later incarnations of their original characters, was not as successful.

CREDITS:
TM & © Sony (1971)
Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Charles Seybert
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Producers: Bob Rafelson, Harold Schneider, Bert Schneider, Stephen J. Friedman
Screenwriters: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry

WHO ARE WE?
The MOVIECLIPS channel is the largest collection of licensed movie clips on the web. Here you will find unforgettable moments, scenes and lines from all your favorite films. Made by movie fans, for movie fans.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MOVIE CHANNELS:

HIT US UP:

[davidnicholson]

This scene is an absolute gut punch, even though I've seen the movie countless times. Sonny was never the same.

[jakdrpr]

This movie was a pure art. It all just worked, right down to the soft breezes and the short moments of silence. Everything fellvtogether perfectly.

[RJCcj]

"He turned around and drove back past the sign, but stopped again. From the road the town looked raw, scraped by the wind, as empty as the country. It didn't look like the town it had been when he was in high school, in the days of Sam the Lion." Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show

[joemadden]

The cut to the stop light at the intersection...

That's fine cinema.

[thunderstruck]

Rip Peter Bogdanovich thanks for some great films that last forever

[countalucard]

This movie had me hooked from the opening scene. Bogdonavich used the town like a canvas he was putting art on.

[russellcampbell]

Sam was the boys' surrogate father. Their genuine grief is juxtaposed to Andy's matter of fact and then resentful attitude.

[barryspeight]

In the 60's and 70's there was a creative period where great art could be found in movies 🎥 like this one, music and even a few TV shows, but it dissapeared to the lowest common denominator. So sad.

[colderbeer]

EVERY scene is so well done in this masterpiece of a film....Bottoms' character Sonny is devastated when he's told that one of his idols has just died....

[countalucard]

That guy was so good. Hard to believe he was just acting.

[joep]

We worship youth so much that we don't appreciate the Sam The Lions amongst us until they are gone. Sadly, soon there will be no WWII veterans left. Ever had a conversation with one of them? We're too busy on social media or getting a tattoo.

[johnperrigo]

My favorite scene is when Sonny is sitting with Cloris Leachman at her kitchen table for the first time. He comes to the realization of what she is talking about when she says "You don't know a thing about it." The film hints subtlety at her husband's homosexuality. Sonny's look when he figures it out is priceless. I'd love to know how many takes it took for that. Such an incredible moment of realness and emotion that is seldom seen on film.

[lowe-quay-shush]

This movie would not have come close to being as good at it was without Peter Bogdonovitch & Polly Platt having the insight to use the real location, locals extras & bit players from the South.

[erickort]

Great movie.i remember watching this movie on turner clasic movie channel years ago

[markfletcher]

You kinda expected his death when they left for Mexico. Still a sad scene.

[Spirit]

Sam the Lion passed away; the boys learn about it.