Re: "going to a picture/movie/show" [was: Re: Fewer people visiting the pub]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 07:27:19 +0000, Charles Riggs
<chriggs@éircom.net> said:

> On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:07:30 GMT, Bob Cunningham
> <exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 21:13:43 +0000, Paul Wolff
> ><bounceme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

> >> In message <sqmeo1le0pqm09psngilmv3crm5mjo0u32@xxxxxxx>, Bob Cunningham
> >> <exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

> > [...]

> >> >I remember years ago people referring to a movie as a
> >> >"picture show". If I said that, though, it was probably
> >> >only as a playful affectation of hayseed or childish usage.

> >> The Last Picture Show? What was that about?

> >We saw it.

> >It was about a swimming party where there was a young lady
> >with an absolutely scrumptious figure who walked stark naked
> >out of a swimming pool and toward the camera.
>
> Mildly close, but certainly no cigar. Cybill walked out to the end of
> the diving board scantily clothed. There she did a little striptease
> to show she was one of the boys, lastly throwing her underpants in the
> face of an admiring geek in the pool just before she dove in.

No, the girl I mentioned was not Cybill Shepherd, (playing
Jacy Farrow). I remember Jacy's scene at the swimming
party. Everyone was supposed to strip naked, and Jacy was
quite reluctant to do so. She finally grudgingly agreed,
but was quite embarrassed, and when she started out the
diving board, she went off the side with a nervous giggle
instead of going all the way to the end.

The girl I mentioned walked very gracefully,
unselfconsciously, and at a leisurely pace out of the end of
the pool opposite the diving board. She walked up some
stairs in the pool, emerged facing the camera completely
nude, and continued to fully face the camera as she took
several steps toward it. Her walk and manner reminded one
of a model displaying clothing, except she didn't have any
on. So far as I can remember, the girl who did that made no
other appearance in the film.

The scene could easily have been edited out without
affecting the plot in any way. Maybe you saw an expurgated
version.

> Those were well before the days we'd see a stark naked
> person in a family film,

That was why I was so astonished on seeing full frontal
nudity in this film.

> and, sad to say, we never got to see her body in its
> entirety in that one.

As I remember it, we did see all of the front side of the
body of the girl I mentioned; again, not Cybill Shepherd.

> >I think there was some other stuff in the picture, too.

> I should say.

That was supposed to be a joke. I feigned being so
overwhelmed by the sight of the naked girl that all the rest
of the film escaped my mind. Funny, huh?

There was another scene in the film of a girl who pulled her
top off and fully exposed her breasts to the full view of
the camera. I don't remember her taking a brassiere off, so
she probably wasn't wearing one. She was sitting in the
front seat of a car with her date, and matter-of-factly
removing her top was evidently part of their routine
behavior from previous dates.

They let us know the boyfriend was trying to get a feel of
her crotch. They didn't show it explicitly, but the girl
said something like "Uh uh, stay away from that. My mother
has warned me what can happen if you start messing around
down there".

I think the boyfriend was the same one who was "screwing
that old lady" -- or words to that effect -- Cloris
Leachman's character.

There was another scene where they made it quite clear that
a disgustingly obese, really ugly woman made it a practice
to let all the boys in town screw her in the back seat of a
car at something like twenty-five cents a pop. They didn't
show the sexual acts, but they did show her in the back seat
with the boys talking turns climbing in with her.

> An unforgettable performance by Ben Johnson, for one. It
> is an altogether excellent film that can be enjoyed over
> and over.

Not for me. I have problems of my own. I don't want to go
to a movie to be depressed by other people's sordid lives. I
want a movie that cheers me up.

I suppose it's possible I dreamed the full-nudity scene, but
if I did, I'm glad. Dream or not, it was thoroughly
enjoyable.

A Web page with the heading "The Last Picture Show (1971)",
at ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067328/ ), has the note

MPAA: Rated R for sexuality, nudity and language.

I've thought about renting the movie again to see if I'm
remembering right, but it seems possible I would get an
expurgated version. Movies do get expurgated, and
unexpurgated and expurgated versions do both get shown, as
shown by the following remark at
http://entertainment.signonsandiego.com/profile?fid=22&id=250837
:

The rape in "A Streetcar Named Desire" was
expurgated in one of the Code's last pyrrhic
victories (it's back now in DVD, not a big gain
for a great drama).

That site also has the following remark:

Marks recalls that when "The Last Picture Show"
opened in some drive-ins in 1972, "some people
drove by, just to see the glimpse of a naked
lady in the pool scene".

As I remember, the girl gave us a lot more than a glimpse.

.

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