Hello, I'm Peter Bogdanovich.
I directed The Last Picture Show and co-wrote the script.
And I'm gonna sit with you and talk to you about it as we watch it together.
We decided to put all the credits at the end.
I think that was based on...
...my affection for Citizen Kane, which also put all the credits at the end.
And this slow pan of the street...
...is also echoed in the ending...
...where we pan back to the theatre.
So the picture kind of begins and ends the same way.
This is the real town.
Archer City, Texas.
About 25 miles from Wichita Falls, which is where we stayed.
And...
...I thought it was good to go from a wide, slow panning shot...
...to a big close-up of-- Almost an insert.
I kind of liked the way that moved.
We set up the fact that his radio is better than his truck...
...because there's no score in the picture.
So all the music you hear...
...comes from radios or jukeboxes...
...or phonographs.
There's a circularity to the picture with the panning shot...
...and then the kid sweeping.
It has a tragic ending...
...with the boy.
So we set it up at the beginning.
This business with the hat, which is in the book...
...was a bit of behaviour that was a way of setting up their relationship.
That“
...saloon...
...or whatever they call this place, Sam's place...
...is the only thing that was torn down.
So it doesn't exist anymore in Archer City, but it was the real thing.
We didn't do anything.
It was so ancient.
That was Ben Johnson. We had a lot of trouble getting Ben to do this picture.
He said there were too many words, but he finally agreed to do it.
Now, that's me as the DJ on the radio.
I'm the DJ in all my movies.
I think I wanted to be a DJ when I was a kid...
...so it's the only chance I had to do it.
And Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart" was actually a big hit...
...at this particular time in the South.
And it was a hit done by Tony Bennett in the North.
I was very specific about what the period was exactly.
This was October of '51
...and the beginning of the football season.
And all this dialogue is mainly from the book.
Larry McMurtry, who wrote the book and who co-wrote the script with me...
...I think, without question, is the best dialogue writer...
...in terms of regional kind of dialogue, since Mark Twain.
He has an infallible ear.
--Had some luck with tackling.
Keeps the other team from scoring quite so often.
And virtually all the dialogue is Larry's.
There's a few lines here and there that I wrote.
The construction is what I worked on.
You don't even care if it was your last game.
You ain't ever gonna get stomped for your own high-school...
Clu Gulager is a very unusual actor.
Very oddball actor.
I had originally wanted Jimmy Dean, not the James Dean.
But Jimmy Dean, the country singer, to play this part.
But the producers preferred somebody more of an actor...
...and so we picked Clu.
I liked what he did in a movie Don Siegel directed called The Killers.
I thought he was really quirky.
All that peeling on the walls behind Ben, that's not done by...
...the set department. That was all real.
The place really looked like this. It was amazing.
I ought to have better sense.
Wouldn't hurt if you had a better hometown.
You mind pointing that at the floor till I get by?
I don't want my eye poked out.
This was Tim Bottoms' second movie.
And Sam Bottoms, who plays Billy...
...it was his first movie.
We'd cast somebody else to play that part of the boy sweeping, Billy...
...but I wasn't sure I liked him. When I came to Texas...
...we saw this kid sitting on the street.
I went over to him, "Who are you?" "I'm Sam Bottom."
"You're Tim's brother? What are you doing?" "I came to visit Tim."
I said, "You wanna be in the picture?"
And he said, "Well, guess so."
I said, "Will you take your braces off?" He said, "Yeah."
And that's how he got in the picture.
This is Jeff Bridges' introduction. It was his first big part.
Hey, why the hell can't you kids learn to tackle?
That was actually my voice. We looped that line.
Jeff's one of the best actors I've ever worked with.
And Ben Johnson was great. He's so authentic.
This truck goes by with a horse in it. I thought that was funny.
That's common on the Western aspect of this.
This was shot on the main-- All this was shot in Archer City...
...everything, except some of the interiors.
--Aren't they? Wish they could tackle.
Those two guys are local residents.
We interviewed a lot of people from Wichita Falls...
...and Archer City.
And we saw about 500 people, and we picked among them.
They'd never acted.
None of these people in this were actors except the obvious ones.
All right, you boys. Cut it out.
I got enough problems without you playing that game...
Eileen Brennan, I'd seen her off-Broadway...
...in a play called Little Mary Sunshine.
And I think this was her first movie.
Which one?
Down payment on breakfast.
Let somebody prosperous play the jukebox.
Nobody prosperous would eat here.
- Well, I ain't very hungry. - Well, I am.
You want the pickup first tonight?
I oughtn't get it first every Saturday...
This little scene plays in one shot.
Sure, I'm sure. Anyways, I got lots of deliveries to make.
- And I have to go clear to Ranger. - Okay.
This whole café, Polly Platt, who did the production design...
...built this café in, I think, a hardware store.
We took it over and built a cafe there because there wasn't one in town.
That guy wasn't an actor, and that joke with him...
...being disgusted with their plan was something I put in.
This desolation is increased, of course, by--
Look at that desolation, that emptiness.
That's all real.
And the black and white accentuated it.
It's the only time we show what Sonny does.
Here's the picture show of the title.
The exterior was shot in Archer City.
And those posters were purposefully picked by me.
Wagon Master and, I think, White Heat or something.
And this actress was an actress from Dallas.
I think she came up-- I can't remember her name now. She's wonderful.
And this...
...interior was shot in a totally different town...
...because the interior of the real picture show had burned out.
So we shot this part in Olney...
...another small town nearby.
This is from Father of the Bride...
...Vincente Minnelli's picture with Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy.
I thought it was such a complete...
...contrast, the kind of dream America.
So different from...
...the reality of Texas, that I thought it made a good contrast.
And then of course, later on, he looks at Elizabeth Taylor...
...wishing he had her instead of poor Charlene.
This was her first movie.
What's happened to you? You look different.
This was a tricky shot. We had to crane up, and we didn't have a crane.
So I can't remember how we did it, but it's a little bumpy, this shot.
We wanted to connect them with Billy...
...in the balcony.
--Dr Gray sent you.
That's right.
We shot the screen in Olney, and then we put in the movie later.
Matted it in later.
I guess I'll get me some of those vitamins.
That always got a laugh when he's looking at Elizabeth Taylor.
This is one of the first big laughs here.
- It's our anniversary. - What?
We've been going steady a year tonight.
Yeah?
"Seems like a lot longer."
--a lot longer.
Big laugh-
You should've got me some anniversary present.
This was tricky. They had to keep their heads down...
...so it wouldn't come into the screen because the matte shot wouldn't work.
This was Cybill's introduction in the picture and her first shot in any movie.
Cybill Shepherd, she was a top model...
...had been on the cover of Glamour about nine times in one year.
Ben had some date.
And she'd done some CoverGirl ads.
And that shot was not her first shot in the picture...
...but it was her first shot in the movie.
--Is neck anyway.
Buckley says that's not too young for them to marry.
This is somewhat recut from the original release.
I actually added a little bit.
Sands of lwo Jima, I picked that movie because it was directed by a man...
...a pioneer named Allan Dwan...
...who I knew, who was like in his 80s when we made this picture.
Wonderful man. I interviewed him for a book...
...and then got to know him.
So it was a little tip of the hat to Allan.
John Wayne picture.
That was Frankie Laine singing.
And what we did was we had--
Whenever it had anything to do with Cybill--
The music issued from something that Cybill had anything to do with...
...we used pop music from the North...
...to show that she didn't really like country music.
She was more of a snob...
...about country music.
And so you'll see through the picture, it's always sort of the northern...
...or eastern kind of music that comes from her side...
...and western for everybody else.
This scene was pretty candid.
And...
...I remember the actress got in trouble with her family about this.
Your hands are like ice!
This was 1970 when we shot this.
It was not common to have this sort of scene.
And...
...it's one of the things that made the picture so surprising was that it had...
...a kind of frankness in terms of the sexuality that hadn't been...
...done at that point in an American movie.
It's more foreign in that sense.
You act plain bored.
Quit! Quit!
You said this was our anniversary.
Let's do something different.
We shot all this in one shot...
...except for the inserts of the radio and the close-up of Timothy.
- Charlene, it was just my hand. - Yeah. One thing leads to another.
My mama told me how that old stuff goes.
We'll have plenty of time for that when we get married.
You wasn't no livelier than me.
Because you ain't good-looking enough.
We actually shot this on the location in the pickup.
Well, anyway, I'm done late.
Let's go on home.
I think we did it in the daytime and then printed it darker for night.
If that's the way you feel about it, I'd just as soon break up, Charlene.
I don't wanna spoil no more anniversaries for you.
That's the way nice girls get treated in this town!
I might've known you wasn't dependable.
You wasn't even in the backfield either.
This jacket's got a hole in the pocket, but don't ask me to sew it for you.
You can give me back my pictures too.
I don't want you showing all the other boys and telling how hot I am.
We did that in two shots. With the insert, that's how we shot it.
Now, this scene at the cafe was not in the original release.
They talk about...
...their parents-- He talks about his father...
...and Jeff's father is mentioned.
In the original, when the picture was first released, this scene was not in it.
Because we'd been cutting it down so the picture would be under two hours.
I was upset because some of the reviews said that...
...they wondered how the kids lived.
Ain't nobody to go with in this...
Where their parents were.
And this scene explained it.
I said to the producers, "You see? We should've kept that scene in."
So literally six months after the picture came out...
...after it got all those great reviews and did a lot of business...
...we put this scene back in, a minute.
And we never announced it, so people went to see it six months later.
They were gonna see the picture was a minute longer.
I don't know. You and Duane both in a boarding house.
Him with the mother, and you with the father. Don't seem right.
And your dad's taking too many pills, you know.
Yeah.
But I'm no one to talk.
I never did get on with Mama. I still don't.
Say, I hear Dan's going back to work soon.
That's an old jukebox from that period...
...as everything else was.
--4000 dollars' worth of doctor bills to pay.
We were really sticklers for keeping it period, 1951
...and '52. It covers a year.
I, The Jury, for teenagers at that time, was a hot book.
There was a sex scene at the end that everybody had read...
...and got turned on to. That was what that joke was about.
All this stuff was improvised with the actors when we made the scene.
The messing up the hair and all that stuff.
Setting up Joe Bob. These were all local actors...
...kids who hadn't acted before.
The teacher is John Hillerman. It was his first movie.
He's from Texas.
Went on to become rather well-known in a couple of other movies we made.
But then achieved his biggest fame on Magnum, P.l. with...
...Tom Selleck.
None at all.
I told Cybill to keep looking at herself in the mirror.
She thought that was very funny.
So she did it with-- She did it with a lot of gusto.
Sounded like he wanted...
We put the date behind them. See there, November the 14th, 1951.
That was for folks who pay attention to the year, that's what it was.
All you have to do to be immortal is lead a good Christian life.
Anyone can do it if they love the Lord.
This scene with the dogs out front caused quite a stir...
...among the local people because we had to put lights on the dogs.
And they went a lot further in life than they did in the screen...
...in terms of their lovemaking.
And so people driving by saw two dogs going at it...
...with arc lights pointed at them, so everybody thought:
"What?" And no camera because the camera was inside.
So nobody-- Everybody thought, "What is that?"
We got in a lot of trouble with that.
--And all ye need to know."
Run, you little pissants, run!
This actor was-- He was from Dallas.
He was so right for the part, but he was...
...forgetful about his lines.
You look like a goddamn goose.
Even for a preacher's boy, you ought to be in better shape.
What kind of female are you ever gonna get?
Tough it out! Tough it out!
Run, you little pissants.
And this has the location manager in the picture, Frank Marshall.
He's now a famous producer and director.
Kennedy Marshall productions. This was his second picture for me.
There he is. He turns around. That's Frank.
And he has a little part in the picture, but he was also the location manager.
And worked with me on about six or seven pictures...
...all the early pictures of mine.
He's terrific, all around.
Yeah, I guess.
Tremendous help in making movies was Frank.
I haven't got time to drive her.
Now, if you'll do this for me...
The actor actually did chew tobacco.
It was a pretty repulsive habit.
And we tried to make it as unattractive as possible.
--Stay in there too long.
I've got enough bills to pay already.
This scene in front of the school, driving, this was added later...
...back in...
...the '90s...
...when I had a chance to recut the picture.
I always liked the scene, but it had to go because it wasn't essential.
We were trying to get the picture down below two hours...
...but I always loved the three of them sitting there together...
...early on in the story before all the tragedies hit.
And that was the school song...
...which then comes back at the football game at the end of the picture.
Anarene High School, we love you
And this dog, of course, ran into the shot so we loved that.
That whole scene was not in the original version.
Those french fries weren't cooked enough.
We were in a hurry and didn't wanna wait for them to cook.
Poor Jeff ate raw french fries through the whole scene.
And...
Hey, come on...
She was an actress. Jimmie Sue was an actress from Dallas.
We cast quite a few people in Dallas and Houston.
Gary Chason was the casting guy, the local casting guy.
This is Ellen Burstyn's entrance, one of the best entrances in the picture.
She drives into a close-up, can't ask for more.
Jacy, we're having supper at home tonight.
I expect you there in 15 minutes, you hear?
Okay, Mama. I was just giving the boys a ride.
We shot a lot of the picture with wide-angle lenses, which made--
Which was not that flattering to the actors...
...but gave us a tremendous depth of field.
This scene here, this is from Strike It Rich.
It's a clip from Strike It Rich, which was a popular quiz show at that time.
Collier's magazine was a popular magazine.
It was already gone by the time we made the picture.
And those kind of touches are very important.
I wanted the TV...
...and the songs and everything to be authentic to the period.
This was shot in some house in--
I think it was in Wichita Falls. It might have been in Archer City.
That's the Tony Bennett version of "Cold, Cold Heart" that you're hearing.
Guess you hate me tonight, huh?
We put the cat in this scene...
...so we could do this bit that happens at the end of it.
There's a lot of overlapping dialogue here...
...which the two actresses did very, very well, I thought.
- I don't care about money. Not at all. - In two months, he'll stop flattering you.
You're pretty stupid then.
We had to rehearse that carefully, but it seems so organic.
Scared your daddy into getting rich, beautiful.
There's pictures of Montgomery Clift on the back wall there...
...and Marlon Brando.
Well, you're rich and miserable. I sure don't wanna be like you.
Not much danger of that.
- You slept with him? - Mama!
Go to the doctor sometime and arrange something...
...so you don't have to worry about babies. You have to be careful.
But it's a sin unless you're married. You know I wouldn't do that.
I think Cybill was about 19 when we made this picture. Or 20.
She certainly looks younger than that.
This is the first and only time I think Ellen ever wore her hair down.
She didn't feel comfortable with her hair down. Thought it was thin.
I said, "It looks great."
And I think she looks so glamorous this way.
And nothing to do!
Can I have some of that?
Help yourself. Don't you have any?
Well, yeah, but I feel like smelling good right now.
Don't you ever feel like doing anything right now?
You ought to leave your face just like that.
All you really need now is a little eyebrow pencil.
Cybill was from Tennessee, so she had a Southern accent.
But she had to work on making sure it was a Texas sound.
Now, there was a reverse cut just then, which nobody's ever noticed...
...but it's actually in the wrong screen direction.
If you cut on movement, nobody notices.
This-- We did a lot of takes of this shot of Ellen saying goodbye.
For some reason, this joke with the cat we put in at the last minute.
I thought it was funny.
To show exactly how fond she was of the cat.
You're with us on Strike It Rich and the audience with a heart.
Say, if you like being with our audience, we're on television every day.
That's right. Every day, Monday through Friday, at 11:30 a.m...
This all plays in one shot when she crosses to the phone.
Makes her phone call to Abilene.
And every Wednesday night at 9:00 right back here on television again.
And then goes back. It's all one shot.
--Invite you to write us for tickets.
All you have to do is write to Strike It Rich...
...Box 500...
In those days, it took longer to dial a phone.
- Abilene, you asleep? - No.
Feel like company?
Well, I thought I'd drive out, see how my well is coming.
Drill hard. You're better at oil wells anyway.
Before we continue, I'll remind you to look...
...for one of your favourite programmes. I know it's one of mine.
The whole family always watches The Colgate Comedy Hour.
Ellen got nominated for an Oscar in England and here.
Cloris won here.
Speaking of Cloris, you're about to meet her.
This is where she lived.
This was shot outside Archer City.
I think she's listening to a soap opera.
When the door opens, you hear it.
Yeah. We had to buy the rights to all those things:
the soap operas, the TV shows, the records.
It was quite elaborate.
We had 28 songs in the picture.
--He was gonna drive me himself.
Cloris has this wonderful ability to seem plain.
Then she seemed more glamorous later in the picture...
...very much more beautiful.
She had that ability. She actually won a beauty contest once.
Here's another hit song, "Slow Poke."
The 28 songs, they were all hits from this era.
It's now called a song score, but we had no name for it.
I just didn't want to use a score. I wanted to use music of the period.
It hadn't been done very much in those days, if at all.
I did it on my first film, Targets...
...with cheap music because we couldn't afford it.
This time around, we got some really important singers.
It didn't cost much because nobody had done it.
We had two soundtrack albums.
This shot here, this scene when she says, "Is it something bad?"
"No, it's just something gloomy," or whatever she said.
"Dreary."
That was added. It was not in the original version.
It was added in the '90s when I added about six minutes to the movie.
That little thing when he leaned on the horn by accident was not an accident.
I always thought that was an interesting shot going from Tim to her.
It has a kind of sadness to it which helps to evoke...
...the sadness that she's-- Where she's at.
Tim's very good in this scene.
I guess I'd better be getting back to school.
It was nice of you to drive me.
Well, it beats sitting through civics, ma'am.
We did a lot of shots without a cut just to let them play the scene.
Wouldn't you like to come in and have a soda?
If you can stand me for a few more minutes.
Originally, the line was, "Would you like to come in and have a Coke?"
But Coca-Cola said we couldn't use their product...
...and didn't wanna be mentioned.
So we cut them out of the picture with a vengeance.
There was a Coke machine in a shot where you could hardly see it.
I had them move it out.
Instead, in the scene she says, "You want a Coke?"
And now she says, "Do you want a Dr Pepper?"
Well, Dr Pepper was a product that was quite popular in the South...
...but totally unknown in the North.
Because of this picture, they got a lot of free advertising...
...and became a popular drink in the North as well.
I was just scared to be alone for a minute. I'm sorry I made you come in.
I'll take a Dr Pepper.
"That'll show Coke," we thought.
So she has a Dr Pepper and then this scene...
...will be echoed in the last scene in the picture.
It was an interesting scene because she breaks down.
We tried to play him for comedy...
...because he didn't know what was going on.
In the picture, this scene often got sort of strange laughs.
And then his stomach growled in the scene, which we kept in.
You'll never forgive me, I know.
Go on. You don't have to stay any longer.
Thank you for the Dr Pepper.
I guess you'll be glad when basketball season's over.
Why?
Well, coach probably don't get to stay home much...
...during football...
It's an interesting scene in terms of him totally not understanding.
"You don't know anything about it," she says.
That was one of Larry's great lines.
"You don't know anything about it, do you?" Meaning "life."
He gets to learn, though.
You better go on to basketball practice.
Thanks for the Dr Pepper.
We went out on a close-up of her.
To tell the audience that something else was going on here.
This is Randy Quaid's first scene in a movie.
We found him in Houston.
He came in to read for a different part, and I put him in this one.
Audiences laughed at this moment, and they'd never seen him before.
But Randy was so funny.
Naturally funny.
And...
...for some reason, they laughed at-- This moment right here got a laugh.
- Hi, Jacy. - Oh, hi.
Duane coming?
Say, you know Bobby Sheen, don't you? Over at Wichita Falls?
I met him at the country club.
Well, he's gonna have this midnight swimming party tonight.
This was played without a cut too except when we cut to Duane.
His folks were gone to Miami, and everybody swam naked.
His folks are gone again, so it'll probably be pretty wild.
Sure wish you could come. Bobby has great parties.
A lot of kids from the club gonna be there.
Gee, Lester, I'd like to go.
I'm gonna have a big problem with Duane though.
Well, don't go off without me. Maybe I can.
Now, when Duane comes up, that all was done in one piece.
So we actually shot this all in one shot...
...and then cut away for that one moment.
Oh, Lester. He's such a bore.
That shot was not quite the way I wanted it, but anyway...
Ellen put this line in when Jackie Lee French says her line.
Merry Christmas.
This is Jackie Lee French. This is Lois Farrow, my boss's wife.
What do you mean, kissing her like that?
I ought to slap your face!
Well, why don't you just kiss my ass?
"Why don't you just kiss my ass?" Ellen put that line in.
It wasn't in the script.
Get yourself a drink, honey. I'll be back.
Hi, Ruth.
Close-up on Ruth becomes a long shot on them...
...and then an even longer shot on Tim.
Tried to keep the shots economical.
This was business. This business with the cookie was business we put in...
...on set.
Trying a running gag with him...
...being mean to Joe Bob.
I always liked this moment when she sees Randy.
Then dances into a close-up.
I always thought it was effective to have somebody walk into their own close-up.
This was a real band. They really played.
We had them come in and do this for us, played a whole bunch of songs.
A thousand barrels.
I always thought it wasn't clear that was her husband.
--Hot in here. Let's go outside.
I don't want drunks...
And now this scene with...
...the father was something I put into the script.
Thought we needed a scene with the father.
This was not an actor. This was Grover Lewis...
...who had an underground reputation as a journalist...
...in sort of offbeat newspapers.
And this scene between his father and Tim...
...was based on something I'd observed...
...between Jerry Lewis and his father...
...where there was a definite lack of communication.
And the silences said more than the words.
So we put that in.
I haven't had a minute to shop.
Hope you like it. I saved up for six months to get it.
Oh, it's just beautiful.
It's just what I've been wanting.
You're so sweet, spending all that money on me.
Oh, you're so sexy, Duane.
I just wish I didn't have to leave you tonight.
Well, you don't.
Oh, I do too. I could just kill my mother!
What do you mean?
She made me promise to go to a swim party in Wichita with Lester Marlow.
Because his folks are rich. Don't be mad.
I ain't mad at you, but goddamn it!
This was a scene they had to rehearse a few times to get this right.
--Do is stay with the man I love.
And this is a kind of--
A surprising sequence in terms of...
...how she plays the scene, which she does to get him to agree to let her go.
She sort of gives him a little bit.
And this was considered pretty shocking in its day.
It got huge laughs though when Jeff reacted to that.
It was an interesting moment.
In fact, most of the sex scenes in this picture were played--
Were sort of sexy, but they were played for laughs.
Or anyway, they got laughs.
There's a quick insert here. She pulls his hand out.
Very organic.
What do you mean, asking my girl for a date?
- You turn me loose! - I will when you're ready to fight.
Let's have it out!
Come on, Marlow.
Here, knock off that shit, boys. This is the Christmas season.
That was a line Larry wrote.
I can't stand here all night protecting your shoeshine.
I love that line.
"Can't stand here all night protecting your shoeshine."
Got a big laugh at the Christmas season.
That was Joe Heathcock, who plays the sheriff.
We found him in Nashville. I went down to see...
...some people in Nashville about playing the Sam the Lion part.
This guy, Joe Heathcock.
"Merry Christmas." That always got a laugh too.
This was a very complicated shot here beginning with Tim.
The camera actually follows him into the other room...
...and turns around.
It looks simple, but it was a complicated shot.
I wanted to connect it and play it all in one piece.
And...
...as I said, it looks fairly simple, but it wasn't.
I did have. We broke up a couple months ago.
Uh, Why?
And it all played in one piece.
I was going with Charlene Duggs.
She thought I got fresh with her. I never did, really.
I guess we broke up because we didn't like each other much to begin with.
I hope you're not sad about it.
I don't think Charlene's near nice enough for you.
And this was a--
We had to have the close-up of the...
...garbage can in the foreground so we knew what they were doing.
And then when they kiss, the camera cranes up.
It wasn't a crane, actually. It was a little dolly.
Some critics said that it was a bit set up, that shot...
...but I didn't see any other way to tell the story...
...except to show us the can.
Otherwise, we wouldn't know what they were doing.
Camera goes up.
That movement sort of mirrors something happening to them.
And now there's a moment here where...
...he kisses her.
And we actually jump to the other side.
Well, you bet.
Which you're not supposed to be able to do.
We did it because it worked on movement.
We better not dawdle here.
And it's such an extreme out. I think it was on movement that it worked.
Well, that was a big hit, "The Thing."
One of those novelty songs.
Now, this was a very controversial scene.
We couldn't find an indoor swimming pool...
...until at a private house, we finally found one...
...at a spa in Wichita Falls.
We had to bring that girl who played Annie-Annie in from Hollywood...
...because we weren't sure we could find anybody to take off their clothes...
...so readily in Archer City.
As it turned out, we found everybody in the scene had a great time.
Took off their clothes and ran around the whole night.
I kept looking at the ceiling. It was a bit embarrassing but, anyway...
For Cybill's scene...
...on the diving board where she takes off her clothes...
...we cleared the set so she didn't have to do it in front of anybody.
Just the director of photography, the camera operator and me.
And, I think, the sound man.
But they really were without any clothes through all this.
Don't pay any attention to Sandy. He's my little brother.
If he gooses you or anything, I'll make him go to bed.
Cybill's nervousness here is very real because she was nervous...
...doing it.
I remember when Steve McQueen saw the picture, an early screening.
He came in to tell me he loved it, in my office at Columbia.
He said, "You only made one mistake in the picture."
I said, "What was that?"
"You never should have out away from the diving board."
I said, "Ever?" He said, "No, ever."
He wanted to stay there for the whole picture, I guess.
This was fairly shocking at the time since Cybill was a cover girl...
...and already rather a known beauty.
So it had a certain salacious appeal, I suppose.
I was so nervous about it, I didn't see anything sexy about it.
I was just nervous for her.
And...
...I remember the camera operator...
...being annoyed that we were taking such precautions about it.
I said, "Why don't you go and do it?
You go up there and take off your clothes. See how you feel."
That quieted him down.
It was interesting how seeing Cybill wet--
She looks like she's 12 years old when she's wet...
...in the pool.
I love the way she played this moment.
Now this scene, which begins on Jeff and pulls back to a wide shot...
...and we have all of them.
This was made up of three different scenes...
...which we-- Which, actually, I put together on the day.
It was three locations and I said, "Let's do it all in one place."
And we kind of combined all the dialogue into one scene...
...and rehearsed it.
It all plays in one shot, so...
--to a swimming party.
...seven actors had to be good in it.
I know where's a heifer. It belongs to my Uncle Hank.
No cut.
- I say a heifer beats nothing. - Pussy's pussy!
I don't want no heifer.
We ought to buy Billy a piece of ass.
That's rather a brutal scene...
...and the scene that follows is one of the most brutal in the picture.
--He just don't talk.
Bet he's still a virgin, though.
Hey, we ought to fix him up with Jimmie Sue.
It'd make no difference to Billy.
In the book there's a scene where they go chasing after a heifer...
...since bestiality is not uncommon down there.
We had it in the original script, and we thought it was a bit too far...
...so we took it out.
You won't be a virgin much longer.
Come on, Billy...
Now this scene, actually, was a difficult scene to shoot...
...because it was a night scene with no source light.
We couldn't figure out how to do it...
...so we finally did it in an abandoned warehouse.
This is interior, but you wouldn't know it.
It was beautifully shot by Robert Surtees.
Come on, Billy. It worked for me.
Damn it, put it to her, boy!
- Get her, Billy. - Come on, Billy. Screw it to her, boy.
You stop that yelling out there.
It ain't even in!
Goddamn!
Goddamn, you stupid little thing!
Couldn't even wait. Look at this mess!
You okay, Billy?
You all right?
It's an interesting scene of teenage brutality.
Everybody played it so well, I thought.
Well, now I know. Idiots as bad as Mexicans.
Don't bother me no more for that crazy thing.
Wouldn't mess with him again for less than three and a half.
Old Ben, I remember he had trouble with...
Didn't want to do the picture...
...because he said there were too many lines and words.
"Too many words, Pete."
Well, we finally talked him into it. I got John Ford to call him.
He and I finally convinced him.
This was a scene he liked.
Old Ben.
--Not to fight with Billy. He don't understand about fighting.
What happened, Sonny?
- It weren't none of us, Sam. - No, it was Jimmie Sue.
Jimmie Sue? How'd he get messed up with her?
We bought him a piece of ass. Thought he was tired of being a virgin.
She got mad about something and bloodied his nose.
You boys get on out of here.
I don't wanna have no more to do with you.
Scaring a poor, unfortunate creature like Billy...
The authority that Ben Johnson had--
The authenticity and authority that Ben Johnson had...
...is well-exemplified in this scene.
He just seems to be speaking from a place of real conviction.
And he's so believable.
I don't want no more of your business.
He was real.
We went to the close-up here at the end when he looks at Tim.
You didn't even have the decency to wash his face.
We saved the close-up for the moment with Tim...
...since that's the most powerful.
That's what we care about in terms of the story.
Now, this continuation, this scene used to end with the light going out.
When we added the footage back in the '90s...
...we put this continuation back in because I thought it was important...
...to show that Jeff-- How Jeff's character behaves.
Lucky I fell asleep. I'd hate not being able to shoot no pool.
His sort of immorality there...
...or amorality there, I thought was interesting as a contrast.
Another nuance to the character.
Every time I see this scene, I'm reminded...
...of what Marlene Dietrich said to me when somebody asked her--
I met her, and somebody with me asked her...
...if she'd seen The Last Picture Show and what she thought of it.
And she said:
"I thought if one more person stripped slowly, I would go crazy."
So this is the scene I always thought of she meant.
This was a very difficult scene to shoot.
Tim was very shy about it. Cloris wasn't, but Tim was.
And it led to some difficulties...
...which Cloris had to overcome...
...but it Worked out.
I remember this was--
It had a particularly funny thing happen on television...
...when this film was shown once on network.
It was ABC showed it one time only.
A huge rating. I mean, it was 36 share.
And the problem was how to deal with this scene.
And...
...I had decided that they'd go to bed without taking off all their clothes...
...and take off their underwear once they get in bed...
...which had seemed to me natural. Cloris had an amazing body...
...and probably still does, but she had three kids...
...and she looked like she hadn't ever had a kid. It was amazing.
I remember her telling me to slap her rear end, and it was hard as rock.
Anyway, this happened.
In the television version of this, which I thought was very funny...
...and it never happened again, he goes--
I said, "Let him get on her and then cut to a commercial...
...and when the commercial's over, have him get off," and that's what they did.
And it got, I think, 3000 letters of protest about it.
Now, in the original out of this, she kept looking downward...
...because of the noise of the bed...
...and we shot some shots of springs making noise.
I've always not been sure if I should have left them in...
...to make it clear what she's thinking...
...but I tried it with the springs and it didn't seem to work.
It's one of those decisions.
She's very good in this scene, Cloris, poor thing, she was wonderful in it.
Characters.
And in the television version, we came back to it as he gets off.
I'm sorry I cried.
Just scared, I guess.
He ain't gonna come.
They're probably running plays right now, I bet.
No, not scared of that.
Scared I could never do this, I guess.
Can't seem to do anything without crying about it.
How could you like me?
She won the Oscar for this picture.
I told her she would win the Oscar for the picture...
...and I told her that when she got the part.
And so after every scene, she'd say, "Was that the scene, do you think?"
And I'd say, "I don't know." Then I'll tell you when I told her yes.
This scene was this whole little sequence...
...when he drives by the various places he's been forbidden to go into...
...was added in the 90s again. It was something that had been cut out...
...this sequence.
I thought it was...
Thought it helped to underline the fact...
...that he's now not allowed to go into these establishments.
And that Jeff was.
Winchester '73 was a very popular film of the '50s.
1950, a year before...
...which probably could be still playing here.
It was kind of the epic-making film in terms of the business...
...because Jimmy Stewart had a percentage deal...
...which was the first time an actor had that kind of deal in the modern era.
This shot of the town was actually shot at twilight...
...so that we could see the sky.
We weren't sure if it would come out, but it did.
Tim is eating a peanut patty, which I fell in love with.
It's a Texas delicacy called peanut patties...
...and I couldn't get enough of them, so I must have gained a few pounds...
...just eating peanut patties.
That slow dissolve, that's the first dissolve in the picture.
I hadn't planned to have a dissolve till the end of the movie, but...
...we ended up having to put some more in...
...to bridge time.
Come on in. I ain't gonna throw bottles at you.
L-li-
What have you been doing? You lost weight.
Ain't had any of your cheeseburgers in weeks.
Come on. I'll fix you one.
Even though that wasn't a very nice thing y'all done to Billy.
Can't blame Sam.
- Was that your idea? - No.
Duane's? He was there, wasn't he?
Just didn't have the decency to own up to it.
Don't worry, I won't tell on him. I should, though.
Sure smells good.
One thing I know for sure.
A person can't sneeze in this town...
...without somebody offering a handkerchief.
- What you mean? - Nothing.
We rehearsed quite a bit with the actors.
We rehearsed for two weeks before we started shooting.
One week in Los Angeles, the other week in Archer City...
...and we rehearsed quite a bit.
Also, it was a way of getting the actors to get to know each other.
But we went over the scenes quite a few times.
These will be done in a minute.
Something I think I did more on this picture than any other film subsequent.
That's a Hank Williams hit. "Kaw-Liga," a novelty song.
I remember liking it as a kid myself.
It made it to the North somehow.
I grew up in Manhattan...
...so this was all like a foreign country to me.
Just come in to say hello to Genevieve.
That moment when she puts down the burger...
...I like that kind of moment because it's behaviour...
...as opposed to dialogue.
She-- By putting the burger down that way...
...it's like she's saying to...
To Sam, to let it go.
What are you grinning about?
Chicken-fry me a steak, and try to use meat...
It's all in direction, which I like.
What Howard Hawks used to call oblique dialogue.
Or three-cushion dialogue. I said, "What's three-cushion?"
And he says, "It hits three cushions before it goes in the hole."
Must be pretty near a record.
That line about the score was a huge laugh.
I'm sorry.
I reckon y'all need glasses.
Now hold still.
Want some more cookies?
- More milk? - I'm full.
All the actors got along very well.
That shot of the bed and then going down to the floor...
...was to remind us that the bed made a lot of noise.
I wasn't quite sure if that ever worked right...
...because of having cut out the springs, but I don't know.
Never asked anybody. I think maybe it worked to some people.
This is all in one shot.
I never noticed how ugly this room is.
It played, the scene.
I didn't see any point in cutting into it because it played in one.
- Maybe I'll re-paper it. - Why'd you marry him?
When we shot a scene like this in one shot...
...we didn't cover it. We didn't shoot extra angles of Tim and Cloris...
...in case we wanted to make a change.
I thought that, you know, the decision had to be made...
...we'd make it then.
I remember asking one time a director named Joseph H. Lewis...
...about a rather elaborate shot he'd made in one--
An elaborate thing he'd done in one shot...
...and I asked him if he'd covered it and he said no.
"A man must have courage," he said. I thought that was a great definition.
Now this was the scene for which I think Ben Johnson got the Oscar.
This scene here.
By the tank darn. People thought it was a lake.
It's a tank dam, man-made. It's for cattle.
I thought you boys wanted to fish.
It was a completely overcast day, as you can see in these shots.
It's cloudy, dark, forbidding.
I don't think there's...
And my plan was to shoot the big speech that Ben has...
...in a moment, in one shot.
In fact, most of this played in one shot.
--To clean fish or eat them either.
We shot some point of views from his point of view...
...looking at the land.
I just come out here to get a little scenery.
Too pretty a day to spend in town.
These shots of the tank dam when it pans...
...these were made for Ben's point of view.
First time I seen it, there wasn't a mesquite tree on it.
Or a prickly pear neither.
I used to own this land, you know.
And this big speech was the first take we made.
We'd rehearsed it, and I think I told Ben to add the phrase "old times."
--just as sentimental as the next feller...
It comes to "old times," and then I had him say "old times" again.
Old times.
That was just added on the set that day.
He said, "Old times."
I liked it.
Now, we were shooting this and suddenly the sun came out...
...as you see. Here it is. It came out.
And I didn't know if it would work.
I didn't know if the exposure on the film would be all right...
...with the sun suddenly coming out during the shot.
See the camera dollied in? It was all prepared to be in one shot.
And I didn't want to cut.
And this-- As I say, the sun came out...
...and it was such a wonderful effect.
I turned to the cameraman, who was way far away from me.
He was 20 yards away, and I gestured to him.
I pointed at the sky and pointed at the camera and:
"Would it be okay?" And he shrugged.
You know?
So, of course, I didn't cut.
I let it play.
And this is the first take. He just did it brilliantly.
Of course, Ben was used to doing good work on the first take...
...because John Ford always wanted everything on the first or second take.
And when the sun came out, and went in and came out and went in...
...it was just like a message from heaven...
...that this was gonna be an important shot.
And it was, and then the camera pulled back, and...
Why didn't you ever marry her after your wife died?
And this dialogue goes on...
...and then, suddenly, at a certain point...
...Tim didn't say his line.
Her and her husband was young and miserable with one another...
Coming up right here.
And suddenly there was silence where he was supposed to be saying his line.
I thought, "What the hell's happening?"
That's why that cut is a cutaway...
...because we had to take 30 seconds out while Tim forgot his line.
I was so upset.
Because it meant I couldn't play it all in one shot...
...and I didn't think the sun would do that again, and it didn't.
So this was still the first take.
And we took out the 30, 40 seconds of silence...
...while he was trying to remember his line...
...and put that cutaway in, and then the sun kept coming out again here.
The scene continued. That was actually all one piece...
...with a cut in the middle.
It still makes me jump when I get to it.
Getting old.
Then we did one more take...
...and then the sky opened up and started to pour rain...
...and we had to get out of there.
When we looked at the dailies, there was no contest.
The first take with the sun was great, and so we had to take the pause out.
And it made hash of my master plan, but the accident was worth it.
That's Johnny Ray singing.
He was a big singing star at this moment.
That was one of his big hits.
This is all done in one shot too.
I forgot how many things we did in one piece.
I once asked Orson Welles what he thought the difference was...
...between shooting a scene in one shot or cutting it into pieces...
...and he said, "Well, we used to say...
...that was what distinguished the men from the boys."
So I took that to heart.
Randy got a big laugh on that reaction.
I mean, Cybill's line got a big laugh too.
--You went. Annie-Annie asleep?
Yeah.
This is showing it from her point of view.
She did that reaction very well.
Nice. You a virgin?
Guess I am.
Too bad.
- I don't wanna be, though. - I don't blame you.
Come see me when you're not.
We had one guy, we had the boy, Bobby, look right in the lens.
And she looked next to the lens, so it seemed like her point of view...
...when he's looking to the camera.
This scene, with Eileen Brennan...
...Tim and Jeff, was another scene we added back into the picture in the '90s.
I thought it was important to show why they decide to go to Mexico...
...as opposed to just being totally impulsive.
It comes out of the fact that...
...he's miserable because Jacy's somewhere else.
I like the way he knocked off the straw by accident.
Hey, we go to Mexico.
So we put it back in the '90s...
...when I was allowed to make the picture more than two hours.
Well, I got 40. We can make it. Come on!
I thought it was a nice little scene.
Sort of helped to explain their relationship.
Where?
It used to just go to this.
Then you wondered why they were going to Mexico.
Better come with us, Sam. We're headed for the valley.
- Going where did you say? - Mexico.
This turns out to be Ben's last scene.
And this one moment, which is described in the book...
...jumped out at me, and it's one of the best in the picture for Ben.
This little silent moment of behaviour.
- Need any money? - No, we got plenty.
Well, you'd better take some...
And he says, "You catch the clap, you'll wish you hadn't drunk nothing."
He didn't want to say that. He wanted to say, "catch the miseries"...
...which means diarrhoea. I said, "Ben, it's catch--"
And here the--
We'll just drink beer...
I said, "Say clap, Ben."
He said, "I don't want to say that. My mother might see the picture."
But he finally said it, and it always got a big laugh.
This moment here when he looks at them...
...I always thought that was a powerful little moment.
Oh, Well.
Thinking about his youth, or whatever he's thinking about. Doesn't matter.
Audience puts in the thoughts.
And it's the last time we see him.
Originally in the script, there was a long sequence in Mexico...
...where they look for a whorehouse and all sorts of things...
...and see a pornographic movie. We never shot it.
We decided, while we were in Archer City shooting...
...we started falling further behind and we thought the script was too long.
So Larry actually came to visit one day only on the picture, and we said:
"Larry, we're gonna cut the Mexico sequence out. Let's write something...
...to bridge it," and so he wrote this on a paper napkin...
...during a party that we were having with the cast.
He wrote this little scene on a paper napkin and we put it in the picture.
"Closed."
Closed?
Yeah.
I ain't never seen her closed before.
No, not even for Christmas.
And, of course, we didn't need to see Mexico, and...
...it was better to keep the picture in the same small town.
It helped the feeling of claustrophobia...
...rather than being able to break out, which they did, but...
...they were brought right back again.
This was a hard shot to light the reflection.
Well, it ain't that early.
Must be some kind of holiday.
Sam don't close on holidays.
Maybe he had to go someplace.
I love the black and white. When I first saw the dailies, I thought:
"Oh, my God, this is so good."
Orson Welles used to refer to black and white as "the actor's friend."
"Why do you say that, Orson?"
He said, "Because every performance looks better in black and white.
Name me a great performance in colour," he said.
Why'd Sam close the café?
And, you know, he's right.
The performances do look better in black and white.
There's something about it, that abstraction to it.
Sam died yesterday morning.
And when Tim says "Sam the Lion" here...
...we had to loop it because I wanted him to say it...
...more with a higher intonation.
It's only one of the few lines we looped.
He was quite a feller.
He had his own way of doing things, that's for sure.
They found his will. Craziest thing you ever heard.
He left you the pool hall, Sonny. What do you think about that?
I thought it was interesting to play this off of Sonny, off of Tim...
...rather than to see the actor, who did a really good job.
He was a local guy playing that part.
--A popcorn machine.
And the craziest thing of all...
But I liked in the book, it talked...
...about how Sonny looked at the traffic light...
...and couldn't feel any emotion exactly.
I thought that was more interesting than seeing the guy talking...
...since we could just hear what he said and that did it.
Anyhow, it's done.
They're burying him tomorrow.
This funeral scene, which was done in a few pieces...
...was just-- It just said they were there, actually.
I actually did the shot sequence for this the morning we did it.
And I thought this little thing with the hat that happened at the funeral...
...would be a way of showing that the kid...
...didn't really understand what had happened.
Of course, the funeral scene with Ben's funeral was...
My father had just died, and I went to bury him in Phoenix on the weekend...
...and we came back and we shot this scene, so...
...it had a kind of personal resonance for me.
I also made the decision to put Ellen Burstyn in a white dress...
...for this scene, rather than a black dress.
I don't know why I did that. At the time I didn't know why I did it.
Subsequently, I learned that people wore black...
...and used to black their faces in ancient times...
...as a way of hoping that they wouldn't be recognised by the ghost...
...in case the ghost had something against them.
So I thought:
"I was right. She wore white because...
...she'd want to be recognised by his ghost, so my instinct was correct."
This, of course, is a low-angle shot with a lot of sky...
...so everybody said it was influenced by John Ford, and of course it was.
The senior shot when they're driving to the picnic...
...was something we added in the '90s also.
This entire scene was not in...
...where Tim sees the tank dam and is reminded of Sam.
I thought it was an important scene, but, again, it was out out.
So we put it back in the '90s.
This scene with Jeff and Cybill and this lovemaking scene was...
...of course, a very complicated little scene to shoot.
- I love you. - I love you too.
It's Eddie Fisher singing "Wish You Were Here."
Again, it's Cybill's choice, Jacy's choice of music...
...so it was the pop charts as opposed to the country charts.
It's like he's, like, unveiling the treasure of...
...Sierra Madre or something there, but that's what it was like for a teenager.
I had him take his buttoned shirt, I had him take it over his head...
...which got a laugh, actually.
Cybill was very funny in this sequence.
We worked rather closely on the close-ups.
The eyes had to be opened and closed at a particular time.
It was a little tricky in terms of how to play it.
And she did this awfully well and got big laughs with this.
That tickles. You know I can't stand to be tickled.
Poor Jeff had a difficult scene to play.
I don't know what's wrong.
How could anything be wrong? Just go on and do it.
"Just go on and do it," and she closed her eyes really hard.
Oh, what's the matter with you?
We talked about all this rather in detail because it was all clone in pieces.
You might fall and mash me.
I don't know what happened.
At first, Cybill didn't wanna do any nude scenes, but we convinced her.
I don't know why I ever went with you.
She and I got into a relationship...
...and so it made me more nervous than it made her finally.
--Sit around here and look at you naked?
I thought it was funny to have her naked--
Exactly what he always wanted and all she's doing is yelling at him.
I just wanna cry. I think...
She does this very well, I thought.
I don't know what happened.
Don't go out there! We haven't had time to do it. They'd know.
I don't want one soul to know. You better not tell one soul.
You just pretend it was wonderful!
Well, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened.
If you say that one more time, I'll bite you!
When Jeff comes out and sees...
...the girls sitting there, that got a big laugh.
Amazingly enough.
People put it together that they were all sitting there, waiting for this moment.
It actually got a bigger laugh than this scene, which this shot, this moment...
...which I thought would get a laugh. It did, but not as big as the other.
I just can't describe it.
"I just can't describe it in words."
Then we go to the graduation scene, which was not in the book, but I said:
"They've been in high school. We need a graduation scene."
So we put this in.
Larry said, "Well, they can sing the Texas anthem."
And then we figured we could put this line of Jeff's in...
...about trying to do it again. So it was...
...a little unorthodox to have them singing the Texas state anthem...
...and him saying he wants to sleep with her again. Give him another shot.
And this was shot live, they're really singing.
And Jeff and Cybill-- Jeff's line was recorded live.
They said we couldn't do it, but we did it.
I can do it now. I know I can.
And then he screws up the lyrics.
That was all done live.
That was the Cactus Motel. That really was there.
And this was always a big laugh.
Obviously, it went better for him than it did for her.
Oh, quit prissing! I don't think you did it right anyway.
Oh, poor Jeff. The ultimate put-down.
Come on.
Just an example of making things happen faster.
So I had him lower the present beneath the frame line...
...so we couldn't see how quickly he got it open...
...because you can't do it that fast.
But we didn't wanna wait around for it...
...so we cheated it, and nobody ever said anything.
This was an interesting scene because we had to...
morass-cut between two different...
...places, and the music...
...is different in both places.
So it was kind of a jumble...
...but sort of worked.
Find somebody else to pester. Got a new boyfriend.
- And I can't be talking to you. - Who?
- Bobby Sheen, of course. - Bobby Sheen?
- You crazy? - I certainly am not.
I guess I wanted to go with him all along and never realised it.
Maybe we'll see you in Wichita sometime.
The music in the picture was all from 78 and 45 RPM records...
...that I listened to, oh, at great length.
I must've listened to every song released...
...particularly hit songs, from that period.
He threw those balls and it went through the wall.
We didn't know that was gonna happen.
That shows you how thin the wall was.
But we didn't make a final choice on songs...
...although I listened to all the stuff and made certain selections...
...of what I liked and what I didn't.
I made the choices for the music...
...while I was editing the picture.
I would try a song with a scene and if it didn't work...
...I'd try another song until I found one that adhered to the scene, so to speak.
Hey, listen, you hear they busted up, let me know.
That was Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca...
...on a very popular show called Your Show of Shows.
It was 90 minutes, it was on Sundays...
...and it was very popular, and they were very popular.
I had originally wanted to use a Lucky Strike ad...
...an animated Lucky Strike ad, but they wouldn't let us.
I particularly liked it because it was a commercial.
But we used this instead.
Oh, and this is interesting. This scene.
Cybill and Clu didn't get along, so she's not looking at Clu Gulager...
...in this entire scene. She's looking at me.
Want me to turn the TV off?
Because they didn't get along, so...
...I did it. I just stood there.
I wish I could go to the pool hall. I've always wanted to.
It's terrible, the things girls aren't allowed to do.
The other problem with the Lucky Strike commercial was music...
...which was so expensive, so we put in this, which all it required was laughter.
Won't bother us. Got my own key.
Okay, I will then.
This scene was a bit controversial.
This scene ended with the implication that he was gonna make love to her...
...and we shot sort of, somewhat ominously.
He walked into the shot, she looks at him...
...and that was the end of it...
...but in the original version, in the original release.
But there's a whole other sequence where we had him make love to her.
We shot it in pieces where you actually see no nudity...
...you don't see anything, it's all--
It used to end right there...
...the scene, and this is all added in the '90s.
And it's one of the few times you see that ceiling of that place...
...because it's filled with tobacco and nicotine hanging off the ceiling...
...from all the people smoking for years there.
I thought in the '90s it was good to add this back, even though I'm--
It wasn't absolutely necessary...
...but I thought it was important to see exactly what it was that happened.
The fact that she does all the work...
...or tries to make it romantic, and he makes it unromantic...
...and yet, she has a...
...good time with it...
...I thought told us something about her and made us care about her more.
It makes her sort of...
...in a strange way, more sympathetic since he's sort of mean to her...
...in a strange kind of sexual...
...seduction scene.
So all this was shot in pieces...
...but shot exactly like this, to go like this.
It was one of the...
...scenes that...
...follows Hitchcock's dictum about, "Cinema is montage."
"Pure cinema," as he would call it, is montage.
And this is all done in pieces so the camera moves in...
...so we don't have to see anything.
I remember it was a rather tricky scene to shoot.
So we put it back in.
I think we had this out and had it in the picture...
...for about a week, back in the '70s, and then I took it out.
I thought we just didn't need it, and I lost confidence in it.
But in the '90s, I thought, "Why not? Let's put it back."
It shows that...
...she finally had some kind of an experience that was effective for her.
Then it turns out to backfire on her.
What a night! I never thought something like this would happen.
How about hopping out?
Which makes his brutality there a little bit stronger even and more unjustified.
I mean, he's just a shit, that's all.
That's me on the radio.
This was an interesting way of telling. She hears the car and fixes up her hair...
...thinking she's gonna see Abilene, and--
Ellen Burstyn, in her autobiography, talks about this moment...
...as being a lesson to her in screen acting...
...because I told her, "Just react."
She had to do three or four reactions in the space of a few moments.
I told her, "Just listen and react," and we'd do it in the cutting.
Bobby was the last one.
Cutting the way we did, it worked.
This scene was tricky because it was a scene...
...that could have been played much more...
...tragically, but I thought...
...it was better to play it lighter.
I thought if we played it too tragically, it'd be too heavy.
I thought Ellen would try to sort of take the sting off of it...
...by being lighter about it.
Right now, I guess Ruth Popper's got...
It's all in one piece, this walk.
Why, sure. Sonny's reasonably good-looking and he's young.
I think sometimes people push these kind of things under the rug...
...as opposed to overdoing it.
It's all one piece that dolly shot and then it moves into a close-up.
That was a big laugh.
"Kind of itchy age." Great line, Larry's.
Pretty easy shot, sheriff.
This little scene used to end with him saying you made me scratch.
--Monroe! You made me scratch.
Sorry, sheriff, but Johnny Clarg's little girl's kind of been kidnapped.
They say the preacher's boy put her in his car two hours ago.
Then when he says the word "molested"...
...we had originally cut to Joe Heathcock...
...looking surprised.
But I kind of liked cutting to Tim...
...so we added the end of this scene back on.
- Gonna molest her or something. - Sonny.
You and some of these boys come with us.
If that's the way it is, no telling what we'll find.
This was all shot outside of Archer City.
And that mesquite and prickly pear that you see...
...all that's dead trees and dead foliage.
That's what it looks like. It's pretty dismal.
This actress was very good.
And this line of dialogue isn't in the script...
...and Larry wrote a very funny line about--
Why don't you get him?
If my husband was here, he'd kill him dead.
--When they pull him out of the car and, "None of this frenzy."
What did you do to that child? We know you done something.
Then she comes over and hits him with a doll.
Filthy!
Here now, grab her. None of this goddamn...
"None of this goddamn frenzy." And they get their hats...
That line was Larry's. A very funny line.
It's the Lord's justice, son.
One of the few shots we did hand-held, this one.
I think we did it hand-held because we were in such a hurry.
Don't even know if you notice. And then this was a sort of...
...a comment on the whole thing.
The girl seems quite happy and nothing seemed to happen.
- He didn't do nothing. - Never had the guts.
- Preacher's boy. - Sheriff figured he done something.
That shot was a bit inspired by The Magnificent Ambersons. ..
...where the townspeople comment on the situation.
This was a tricky shot, it was one piece...
...and you see that sort of tree house in the back between them...
...that was actually the sun right in the lens...
...so we had to build something to block it.
--Never can tell when something terrible's gonna happen.
She puts her hand down, he looks at her hand...
...and then looks up at her.
And she's looking right in the lens.
He's not, but she is.
It's a trick Hitchcock taught me.
Makes it seem more shocking and more his point of view.
The audience doesn't notice it.
--Little scared. Please take me riding.
Well, where will we drive?
Now, the order of these sequences between Cloris...
...waiting for Tim...
...and Tim and Cybill...
...getting it on, so to speak.
The order of these--
The cross-cutting here was different in the original version.
I had had to redo it...
...because we added this scene between Cybill and Tim.
"Have you heard from Duane?
I really feel bad about it. I was the one who had to break up."
We added that. We added this scene.
--Too much against us.
It wasn't easy being the one to break up.
I liked the way Cybill seems both...
...sympathetic and unsympathetic at the same time.
And moves closer to Sonny.
So we added that, that meant change the cross-cutting.
Now this scene, that shot of the car driving in...
...and the scene that follows is the first thing we shot.
Hard to believe. I don't know how we could've done such a thing.
Throwing Cybill into this love scene first thing...
...and, of course, they'd rehearsed the bit, but my God.
I look back on it, I'd never begin a picture with a scene like this.
But this was the first sequence we shot in the movie.
I particularly love Tony Bennett singing "Blue Velvet" here.
Now, this kiss...
...you wouldn't know it, but we shot it in slow-motion.
And I said to Cybill, "No tongues," but she got a little bit of tongue in anyway.
But it was shot in slow-motion, very slightly slowed up...
...so you wouldn't notice it.
I wanted it slow, and there was no way for people...
...to kiss that slowly.
So you can imagine this was the first scene, and Tim is...
...feeling her up under her halter, and it was--
Tim was very excited about this, as the scene went on.
We did it a few times. I think Tim just wanted to keep doing it.
But I can't believe we shot this on the first day of shooting.
Why don't we go to Wichita and get a motel room?
I'm afraid to. I think my folks are watching me.
They know I don't wanna go to college.
All done in one piece.
--Get married.
We'll do it when it's safe.
We got all summer.
We did a high angle there...
...to isolate her.
And this is him feeling...
...annoyed and guilty.
All done with a POV shot and a little moment of thinking.
Now, this next scene...
...which develops into a fight between Jeff and Tim.
This was all shot in, I don't know, I think it was 45 different setups.
And they were planned carefully.
And the actors and I rehearsed the scene quite a bit.
I remember we rehearsed it that previous weekend.
And I told them exactly where the cuts were going to be.
I'd planned it, and I'd told them where the cuts were gonna be.
I actually planned it while we were rehearsing it...
...so that they knew how far it would go without a out...
...and then when the cuts would be.
And it was very carefully planned and the actors knew what we were doing.
It was complicated scene, and we had to do it in one day, so...
We we're very prepared, but every single shot...
...as you see it in the picture, is exactly the way it was shot.
And we did it in sequence. Scene by scene, shot by shot.
And...
Well, after a couple of shots, the cameraman...
...the director of photography and the script supervisor...
...came over and said, "Aren't you gonna shoot a master shot?"
I said, "What's a master--? What do you mean?"
I was so young in the movie business.
I didn't know what he meant. "What's a master shot?"
I had never heard that expression.
"Oh," he says, "That's where you shoot the whole scene in one shot...
...so we can see where they are." I said, "Well, I know where they are."
"They're going around the car, you don't know where they are.
You need to get backs in case you wanna show the audience...
...where they are." I said, "I don't need to do that."
I got into an argument with him.
He was saying, "Well, it won't cut." I said, "Well, of course it will cut."
Well, they were very upset about it. And the script supervisor...
...even wrote on the script pages, "Shot under protest.
The director's been told to shoot a master and he refused to shoot it."
And this was all shot exactly...
...with this cutting planned.
- She's not your girl. - She is my girl!
With this overlapping dialogue and the two-shot...
...and then he walks out of it and goes on. This was all...
...prepared like this.
Well, the footage was shot and it was sent to Hollywood.
And the producers saw it.
Bert Schneider and another producer saw it and said:
"I don't know if this is gonna cut." They said, "There's no master."
They were very upset about it because they couldn't figure out...
...how it was gonna cut when looking at it in dailies.
Bert Schneider called Bob Rafelson, who was one of his partners...
...in the company BBS.
Showed it to Bob. Luckily, Bob was a director.
He saw it and said, "Don't worry.
What he's doing is cutting in the camera. This is gonna cut like butter."
Of course, he was right.
Because it was very carefully planned to be cut exactly the way it's shot.
What you talking about? We was in love.
Oh, you was. She likes me just as much as she ever liked you.
- That's a lie. - I'll stay with her all night too.
- She promised. - You won't either.
I Will. Why Shouldn't I?
They're so good in this scene, both of them.
There's three or four cuts during one line.
That was all planned that way.
Blood in black and white movies, by the way, you use...
...hot chocolate. I mean, chocolate syrup.
This is a scene that had to be played in pieces...
...and so we carefully plotted it out.
I was always very proud of that sequence.
And it was the sequence that almost got me fired.
So I'm doubly proud of it now.
Now here's Hank Williams.
There's a lady in the waiting room.
That's me on the radio again.
It's always me on the radio in my pictures.
I should've made that insert tighter because it's hard to read.
If I had it to do over again, I'd be closer on the piece of paper.
That's the problem with seeing movies you made...
...you can't change.
You see all the things you could do better.
Then we stayed in the long shot for Cloris...
...coming out of the hospital. I wasn't sure that people knew...
...that it was the hospital, but...
It says hospital, but it was at the top of the frame.
Sometimes a long shot is more effective than a close-up.
This was a complicated scene. See that ceiling?
It had a lot of nicotine hanging down from it.
Say, I hear Duane joined the Army.
This was all one shot.
And it was tricky because the camera moves in on Eileen Brennan...
...and goes past Tim.
And Tim actually had to move out of the way during the shot.
She's just like her grandmother.
Which was tricky.
I hadn't ought to talk about them. We was all good friends once.
Tim was a little bit of a method-y actor...
...so he didn't like getting out of the way of the shot, but he had to.
--Little one-room place...
...over the newspaper office.
Lois couldn't afford a flour sack, much less a mink.
I've always had a soft spot for her, though.
I felt the camera should move in on Eileen...
--the strikes that Gene made.
They offered that rig to him first.
...when she tells this story that sort of sums up...
...the tragedy of her life.
This disappointment, anyway, of her life.
Do you wish y'all had made it?
I love the naiveté of that question.
"You wish you all had made it?"
I guess the Army won't take me now, I just got one good eye.
You wanna go over to Korea and get yourself killed?
You ain't got your senses back yet, what few you ever had.
The café won't run itself. You rest up now.
We had a dialogue coach on the picture...
...who helped the actors with the specific Texas accent.
And they worked on it quite a bit.
And we had tape recordings of the right accent.
That Dr Pepper sign in the background was there.
We didn't put it there.
The Dr Pepper people were very happy.
This cross-cutting between Eileen and Cybill...
I remember they were both so good in that silent moment...
...of disapproval.
She didn't get it.
I mean, Jacy doesn't get it.
"I Can't Help It." Hank Williams. Big sound from last year.
Now here's a brand-new one, just came in from Webb Pierce.
Gonna hear it a lot, I bet.
Oh, I was so worried. I just had to see you.
Oh, I've been missing you.
And I'm a lot better than I was. Here, sit down.
You can't believe how famous we are. We're all anybody talks about in town.
- Yeah, I guess so. - I want us to get married.
- What? - I really do.
Get married?
Just as soon as you want to. Don't you want to?
Oh, yeah.
Most of the clothes in this picture, amazingly enough...
...were bought from an auction--
From a sale that MGM was having.
And a couple of the clothes, like this shirt, I think...
...was worn by Debbie Reynolds in some picture, like I Love Melvin.
- They'll kill me. - They'll get over it.
And, of course, all the picture-- That was a brightly coloured shirt.
It was red and white and blue, I think.
And, of course, in black and white, it looks grey.
But Polly went...
...to the MGM sale...
...and picked out almost all the clothes for the picture...
...in one fell swoop.
Don't do that, Sonny.
Why not?
I always liked this song, "Faded Love"...
...by Bob Wills and the Playboys, I think it was.
It was very, very cold when we shot this.
It was getting on toward the end of the year.
It was very cold. And if you look carefully...
...you'll see Cybill's nose is a bit red on the end...
...because it was so cold and she was sitting...
...in a freezing-- In a summer dress.
They were both freezing.
--To get married. Ain't we?
I guess so.
I wish you didn't have that stupid eyepatch. It's really creepy.
We shot for 10 weeks. Sixty days.
In Archer City.
--Lake Texoma. Have a room to ourself.
My goodness! You're sitting so close, I can barely drive.
We all stayed in Wichita Falls, about 25 minutes from Archer City.
There wasn't enough hotel space...
...in Archer City to accommodate us.
She's very good, Cybill, in this scene. Anticipatory.
She's hoping the police will stop her.
She suddenly changed her mind.
Oh, goodness.
This actor that plays the Oklahoma patrolman...
...he was so good, we used him again...
...as a sheriff's deputy in Paper Moon.
In fact, we used a number of the actors again in Paper Moon.
Newlyweds, ain't you?
Y'all better follow me on in. I think somebody's looking for you.
We got a right to get married. How can you arrest us?
I ain't arresting you. I just want you to come with me.
I don't know what your rights are.
I like the policeman saying, "I don't know what your rights are."
That's Larry's subversive remark.
You think I worked hard so my daughter could end up in a pool hall?
We was gonna get another apartment.
This was shot day-for-night and printed down in order to work.
- Oh, shut up and take her home. - You bet I will!
You take her car. As far as I'm concerned, he can walk!
This is the last time you see Cybill in the picture.
She gives a totally ambiguous look.
And that's the last time you see her.
But it was a night scene that we shot in the daytime.
- Not much of a wedding night, huh? - Nope.
Not much of one.
Here. Have a little drink of bourbon. It'll pick you up.
Take all of it. I'm gonna drive.
You won't believe this...
...but you're lucky we got you clear of her quick as we did.
You'd have been a lot better off staying with Ruth Popper.
Does everybody know about that?
Course.
Sounded like a good deal to me, kiddo. Shouldn't let Jacy turn...
None of the scenes were shot in continuity.
So this was shot in the middle of the schedule, probably.
I guess I treated her terrible.
We shot certain sequences-- We would shoot...
...in continuity when we were in them, of course.
But in terms of the overall picture, we couldn't.
There we had another dog run into the shot. We liked that.
This was Ellen Burstyn's big scene coming up.
And everybody was very concerned about my cut here.
Going from a tracking shot to another tracking shot.
They thought it wouldn't cut.
And I thought it would...
...since I'd seen Hitchcock do it in Torn Curtain.
I thought it would work well.
And it did seem like a continuous movement.
--Been right since Sam the Lion died.
And it worked.
This was Ellen Burstyn's big scene.
She had rehearsed it. She did it so well in rehearsal...
...one time when Ben Johnson was there...
...that she had trouble recreating that moment...
...that she'd had in the rehearsal.
So she's very good in this scene, but it remind--
It taught me the lesson: never to rehearse an emotional scene.
With any kind of...
...depth.
Because the first-time emotion is something you wanna capture.
She's great in the scene, but we had to work hard to get it.
Are you--?
Are you the one he'd take swimming...
...out at the tank?
He told you about that, huh?
Yeah, I was the one.
Ellen has a lot of gravitas in her work.
And this was her first big part in a movie.
--Amity types that thinks that...
And...
...I think one of the best things about it is that she didn't try very hard.
I mean, she tried hard, but it doesn't--
There's no strain in the performance, which is interesting.
Sam the Lion.
Sam the Lion. Nobody knows where he got that name. I gave it to him.
One night...
...it just came to me.
He was so pleased.
I was 22 years old then.
I don't know if I have a favourite scene in the movie.
But I think probably the last scene...
...with Tim and Cloris is probably the most powerful scene...
...in the picture.
Just terrible.
There's a nice moment in this scene where it's done by implication...
...where she looks at him...
...and thinks about sleeping with him, and then rejects the idea.
It's interesting how the audience understood that...
...and it got a big laugh.
Loved you, I mean.
This was a difficult scene to cut because they had a lot of choices.
Because we actually shot a few takes of this.
Here's this moment. She looks at him now, thinks about it.
He looks at her, "What's she thinking?"
"No, I think I'll just go on home."
That was a funny moment because the audience got it.
And it's all by implication.
Think I could--? Think I could learn to drink?
You might. Better keep on practising.
I saw this movie many times with audiences that didn't laugh...
...because there were too few of them.
Twenty-five people do not laugh in a drama.
But if you have 100 people, they laugh.
Now, that was the real band...
...from this high school. These were the real cheerleaders.
And the "A" stood for Archer City.
But that's one of the reasons we changed the name to Anarene.
In the book, it's Thalia.
And here's Frank Marshall running by, number 11.
You'll see a better shot of him shortly.
Boy, we've finally got us a team!
Didn't back in your day, did they, Sonny?
No, we wasn't much good.
Well, you just never learned the fundamentals.
I remember in this scene...
...he had a line, "When was it you graduated?"
Yeah, I helped him with that reading because it was--
I thought it had to be like, "Trying to remember...
...when was you graduated?"
He didn't say it that way and I wanted it that way.
So I told him how I wanted to hear it, and he did it right.
We gave away, I think, a $500 TV or something...
...to get the crowd to show up for the shooting.
They didn't want to be in a movie, but they wanted the 500 bucks.
And that's how we got a crowd scene.
He's a good old boy, ain't he?
Here's the school song.
There's number 11, Frank Marshall. One of our biggest producers now.
This was slightly recut in the '90s.
I recut it, put Frank back.
That's another reason I put the car scene at the beginning...
...when they sing the song as a reverberation here...
...which it didn't have in the original version...
...because it had been cut out.
It was windy that day.
I love the way...
...the trees throw shadows in this scene.
This was a complicated scene with the actors because they had to--
It's the only time you see Duane's mother.
Not too friendly.
Only time you see her...
...but you don't need to see her much more to get the idea.
Hi, how you been?
Oh, pretty ggm
I been thinking all week that I'd run into you.
Yeah.
I heard you was going off to Korea.
Thought I'd get over here and see you...
This was a scene where they really had to...
...basically, play...
...discomfort in each other's presence.
That little look he gives him...
Want to go to the picture show?
...when he's not looking, I thought was interesting.
Yeah, might as well go. Hate to miss the last night.
Hate to miss the last night of the picture show...
...that's where the title comes from.
And I decided to make the last picture show...
...the movie they see, Red River with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift.
In the book, it was a Audie Murphy Western...
...which is a forgettable Western, I think.
The Abilene Kid.
I thought the picture show should go outwith a better...
...you know, scene than that.
And so we showed this...
...famous sequence from Red River...
...when John Wayne says, "Take them to Missouri, Matt."
We had to get permission from John Wayne.
And...
...I think Monty had died by then.
So we just had to get permission from Wayne, Hawks...
...and-- Howard Hawks, and whoever the studio was.
And Dimitri Tiomkin, who wrote the music.
I thought it was a contrast.
Maybe overly obvious, but, nevertheless, when Texas...
...and America had a frontier to tame.
When the adventure meant this kind of adventure.
And now he was going over to Korea and Tim...
...was doomed to that town.
So the adventure was gone.
I thought the contrast was stronger than, "Just show a lousy movie."
And we had to alibi it.
"Saw it here before once." I threw that line in...
...because it was an old movie, like, from '48.
So why is it playing there in '52?
But, you know, I figured they booked it because it was cheap.
Sorry you're closing the show.
Nobody wants to come...
She's very good here in this moment, Miss Mosey.
This was Larry McMurtry's favourite scene.
This little moment here.
Sam had lived, I believe we could've kept it going.
But I just didn't have the know-how.
Won't be much to do in town with the picture show closed.
Yeah.
Well, so long.
Duane.
Obviously, it had certain reverberations for me...
...because I was such a big movie fan.
In fact, when I first saw the paperback...
...sitting in a drugstore, I looked at the title and said:
"That sounds like the title of a movie I should make."
Then I read what it was about. I thought, "I don't know anything about Texas."
And then Sal Mineo gave it to me.
Here's an example of the depth of field where...
...Jeff is in close-up and very sharp, and the background's sharp.
I guess the next piece of ass I get will be yellow.
I wish I was going with you.
That bottle of Pearl Beer, by the way, had an old label on it.
We had to go through enormous pains to get Pearl Beer...
...to make that label again for us for that brief shot.
That's the kind of detail we went into.
Now, this scene was shot in a two-shot and in close-ups.
When I was cutting it, I thought it would play in a two-shot.
I think I was tired of editing by then.
I played it in a two-shot, and it just did not work.
Because it's all about the interplay, so I had to cross-cut.
Yeah, probably does.
I guess there's lots to do down in Dallas.
When Jeff says, "I ain't over her yet"...
...it's one of my favourite moments in the picture, right here.
I ain't over her yet, you know.
I ain't over her yet.
I thought he was great in that moment.
In fact, I got in a fight with Robert Surtees...
...about that moment because we lit it and had it set up...
...and we did a take.
I walked with Jeff and rehearsed with him...
...for about 20 minutes. We came back and shot it.
And Robert Surtees said, "We have to shoot it again. The sun moved, so...
It moved in the 20 minutes you were rehearsing."
I said, "Why didn't you change it before?
He just gave a great performance." So that actually is the second take.
First take was unusable.
He's still just as good, though.
He asks if he made it in the motel room, he never did.
And that's when we cut to the two-shot...
...because then they're friends again. Because he never did sleep with her.
So that makes him feel better.
Such is the pride of men.
I always thought this was a lovely shot...
...when the bus goes in a minute.
Here are the keys.
- So long, buddy. - So long, Duane.
Be careful.
I'll take care of the Mercury.
I'll see you in a year or two if I don't get shot.
That shot of the bus going and Tim standing there...
...that seemed, to me, rather iconic.
Or, rather, symbolic of the whole movie.
The adventure leaves, and he's stuck there.
Now, this scene...
This sequences was one of the more difficult sequences to shoot.
We played the accident off-camera.
And played the entire thing from Tim's point of view.
That was a decision. I thought...
...it was important not to see anything until he sees it.
And so the timing of all this was tricky.
His points of view were all very tricky...
...to get the timing right.
I can't remember if we added the dust.
I think we did. I think we added the smoke.
We had some wind machines here for this.
That jump cut on the-- On the...
...broom was something I got in an argument about.
I said, "Well, Hitchcock did it."
So it worked.
He ought to be in bed.
This is all told from Tim's point of view.
You finally see the death from his point of view.
He looks at the cattle...
...which are caged, then down at the boy.
I asked him to look at the truck. He said he didn't know if he would.
I said, "Well, you gotta look at the truck, otherwise I can't out to it."
He weren't doing nothing.
But look at the sequence, you'll see it's all shown...
...from his point of view, all these looks at the people.
Now, this line that he comes out with, "He was sweeping."
--his ass out of the cold.
Let's go to the café. Ain't had breakfast.
I'd still like to know what he was doing with that broom.
Right here when he says he was sweeping...
...was a very tricky shot.
We had the camera on a truck...
...and I said, "This is like blowing up a bridge.
I don't want this boy to have to do that line twice, this scene."
I said, "if you guys screw up, I'll kill you."
So it was all done in one piece.
From the time he says he was sweeping...
...all through this was one piece of film.
It was the first and only take.
Tim did it wonderfully. Matter of fact, when he finished this scene...
...I went over and--
This shot, when he finished this shot, I went over.
It was one of the only two times in my life where I almost...
...broke down on the set.
I was very moved by the way he played this.
That cutaway was put in afterward.
He really played all this in one moment.
Since it was his brother, it was obviously easier.
And he had to have the cap drop at a certain point...
...so he would-- He did it brilliantly. And I walked over to him.
I put my arm around him, and we walked down the street...
...and didn't say anything for about five minutes.
I never did say anything to him. It just was so powerful.
Y'all got some crazy kids in this town, if you ask me.
And I think this is the last time you see the pool hall.
Which is not there anymore, as I said.
I remember...
...when we were trying to shorten the movie at one point...
...the producer, I think it was Bert Schneider...
...suggested that we end the movie with this sequence.
That he drives out of town...
...and then turns the truck around and drives back...
...and that's the end of the movie.
And...
...I looked at him, I said, "Bert...
...you mean, cut the last scene with Cloris and Tim?"
And he said, "Yeah."
And I said, "Bert, I made the picture because of that scene."
"on," he said. "Okay, all right."
And here we had to double print some of these shots...
...because it was-- I had directed it not slowly enough.
So I actually slowed it down a bit.
Those last few moments.
It's funny how you don't know things until you see it up on that screen...
...particularly when you're making your second picture.
So the producer's wanted the picture to end there.
I didn't think that would be too satisfying. But anyway...
Now, this big scene with Cloris when she explodes at him...
...was a scene that she repeatedly asked me to rehearse.
She wanted to rehearse it with me, and I said:
"I don't wanna see it. You can rehearse it at home by yourself...
...but I don't wanna see it."
"Why not?" I said, "I don't wanna see it till you do it...
...in front of the camera."
I had learned that...
...emotional scenes are better off if it's the first time.
I had learned that lesson by then.
And this was, for me, was the key scene in the picture.
I mean, it's the climax.
And it's a very subtle scene.
Could I have a cup of coffee with you?
In terms of...
...the inner workings of the character's emotions here.
It was a popular record...
...in the '50s called "It's In The Book" by Johnny Standley.
That's what you're hearing. It's not a TV show.
It's actually a record that was a popular hit.
A novelty song.
And I thought it would make a good counterpoint to the scene.
This scene, when she throws the coffee and yells at him...
...is the first take and the only take.
And after she finished, I said, "You just won the Oscar."
She said, "Really?"
And she did.
--Apologising to you?
Why am I always apologising to you, you little bastard?
Three months I've been...
She was shaking when she did this.
It was the first time she'd done it, and she could hardly breathe.
You ought to be sorry!
I wouldn't still be in my bathrobe if not for you.
I'd have my clothes on hours ago.
You're the one made me quit caring if I got dressed or not!
God, she was good in this scene.
--Because your friend got killed...
...you want me to forget what you did and make it all right.
I'm not sorry for you.
You'd have left Billy too, just like you left me.
I bet you left him plenty of nights...
...whenever Jacy whistled.
I wouldn't treat a dog that way.
You thought I was so old and ugly, you didn't owe me any explanation.
You didn't need to be careful of me.
There was nothing I could do about you and her, so why be careful?
You didn't love me.
Look at me.
Actually, when she goes and sits down here at the table...
...she's actually looking at me.
We did an interesting thing here.
We did something they did in silent pictures.
Right after she says this line...
...the rest of this scene is all played in reactions.
I'm around that corner now.
But she was playing this to me, and...
Since she didn't have any dialogue to say...
...it didn't matter what was going on because we could...
...lay it in later. Sounds and so on.
This sequence is exactly-- Very similar to the way...
...it's described in the book where she plays with her hand.
And I thought...
...it was a very interesting way of showing a reconnection.
When she looks up here...
...I was talking to her through this...
...in the way that they used to do it in silent pictures.
When they'd shoot a close-up, they'd often have the director or--
D.W. Griffith was famous for talking his actresses through close-ups.
Emotional close-ups. So I thought, "Well, I'll try it."
So I actually talked her through this.
And told her what I felt she was feeling.
And she played it brilliantly. Oh, my God, she's great in this scene.
And then we put the sound in later.
The book describes it as somebody trying to--
Finding just the right word and she's got it on the tip of her tongue...
...what to say to him, and then she loses it.
And this leads us to the last line in the picture...
...which I thought was moving. It's right from the book.
This is the last close-up. Pulls into a two-shot.
And then we do a 30-foot dissolve, which is very long.
Never you mind...
I love that line. "Never you mind, honey. Never you mind."
And that's the way the book ends.
That line is the last line in the book.
And then we do this 30-foot dissolve...
...with the camera pulling away from them...
...at the same time as the camera's panning the streets.
So it's a panning shot with a dolly shot combined.
I thought it would be effective.
Of course, I didn't know until we saw it put together.
It worked.
And the picture ends...
...the same way it begins, with a shot of the picture show.
Only now, there's no marquee. There's nothing on the marquee.
Because it's closed.
I thought it was such a sad ending and such a moving ending...
...that I thought people would be moved to tears, and so...
...we decided to reprise the cast.
So that it didn't have such an absolutely, deadly tragic ending.
We brought the cast back for a bow...
...so that people could blow their nose...
...and recover from how they felt.
Most people were moved to tears at the end of the picture.
So we put this and I picked a song that was kind of uptempo.
In fact, it's the first song you hear in the picture also.
Hank Williams, "Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do)."
Sharon Taggart, that's who she was. Yeah, she's great.
Amazing how many people in this movie became popular actors.
Was great good luck that we had on this picture.
And with the credits at the end.
And that's the old typeface that John Ford used to use.
It's a little tip of the hat to John Ford. The City Bold, it's called, this typeface.
Robert Surtees is one of the great cameramen.
Won two or three Oscars.
And there's Frank Marshall. Gary Chason did a brilliant job...
...of helping me cast the picture.
And then, in those days...
...nobody had done a score with this much music in it.
So we didn't have to actually give credit to the songs.
We just had to give the credit to the performers...
...and the record company.
Today, this would go on much longer...
...because we'd have to give credit to every single song in the picture.
But we didn't then.
Walt Framer Productions. Walt Framer invested...
...in the first thing I ever directed in the theatre.
A play called The Big Knife, off-Broadway in New York.
Four thousand dollars. It was a huge amount.
It was one-third of the budget.
And so he was very sweet to me when he gave us the right...
...to use the clip from Strike It Rich.
It's been a pleasure talking to you, I hope you've enjoyed the picture.
And see you later.