Celebrate our 20th anniversary this october and November with special cinema-themed films
The Last Picture Show
Critically acclaimed, important cautionary tale to show what we lose when cinemas close.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Cast includes: Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd,
See this film as part of our 20th anniversary - we're screening a collection of cinema-related films during October and November to celebrate the magic of cinema!
118 mins / 1971 / USA
All Sunday morning screenings include a free hot drink and biscuits with your ticket!
This is a cautionary tale to show what we lose when cinemas close. Released in 1971 to critical acclaim and public controversy, The Last Picture Show garnered eight Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and was hailed as the most important work by a young American director since Citizen Kane.
Based on the novel by Larry McMurty, this is a surprisingly frank, bittersweet drama of social and sexual mores in the dusty nowhere town of Anarene, Texas, during 1951-52, a town in decline signified by the closure of its local cinema.
Introspective Timothy Bottoms and outgoing Jeff Bridges are best friends and stalwarts of the school's losing football team. Cybill Shepherd is the blonde teen queen who innocently spreads chaos, ditching long-time boyfriend Bridges to run with a richer, faster set. She steals Bottoms away from an older married woman (Cloris Leachman) which prompts a vicious falling-out between Bottoms and Bridges. The boys are torn between a future somewhere out there beyond the borders of town or making do with their inheritance of a run-down pool hall and a decrepit cinema - the legacy of their friend and mentor, Sam the Lion.
Peter Bogdanovich plays it as a John Ford-style "closing of the frontier" Western, with ugly-beautiful images of a West that has swapped cattle for oil but failed to strike it rich. He delivers a signature line of wistful regret, "nothing's been right since Sam the Lion died".
The film features a talent-laden cast led by Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd and Timothy Bottoms. Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson each won Oscars for their work in supporting roles.
See this film as part of our 20th anniversary - we're screening a collection of cinema-related films during October to celebrate the magic of cinema!
How you can support the Electric Palace:
- Book a ticket to a screening
- Become an official Friend of the Electric Palace
- Hire the cinema for a private party
- Buy a gift voucher
- Donate to the cinema
- Sign up to our enewsletter
- Support us on social media by sharing our posts and events
Thank you.
