So much nudity for 71 - The Last Picture Show (1971) Discussion

[–] barfly4404 13 years ago

If anything nudity was more common in major films back then.

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[–] catlover11 13 years ago

what ?!?!?! no way was it

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[–] Eightythreeyearoldguy 13 years ago

Released from the Hayes code, movies of that time injected sex and nudity into a lot of movies, and then relaxed as such elements became old hat.

Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] catlover11 13 years ago

well, considering the fact I'm 58, I would't call myself a kid. And considering the fact your user name is binge drinking is amazing, that just about says it all for the kind of person you are

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] mmsbk 13 years ago

Well exactly, but maybe catlover didn't go to movies then or only ones with parental approval . I'm a bit older than him, and I remember well the startling movies around then, with nudity and drug use far beyond the later 80;s for instance

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[–] aj1111 13 years ago

It depends on how you define movies. There is more nudity on cable (which didn't exist in 1971 and in the culture and obviously the internet) today but less in full length feature films that get theatrical releases. Foreign films had a much bigger presence than then now and Europeans have a much more relaxed attitude about nudity. And it was much more visible in many of those films. Still Cybill Shepard's full frontal nudity on the diving board was daring and a risk for a young actress just starting her career. By the way, The Last Picture Show is easily one of the best movies ever made. Too bad Bogdanovich's career has did not live up to his early promise. I think a number of his films Nickelodeon, and Saint Jack in particular stand up pretty well, however.

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[–] HuggyBear1 13 years ago

You will notice this in many movies from that time.

Compare "Carrie" with "Valentine"

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous....

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[–] Kompressor_Fan 13 years ago

I think what creates the misconception amongst younger people about how much nudity was common back then is that most of the 1971 movies they have watched were probably the TV versions, and edited for content.

Seventyeightyearold is right. Although I'm not 78, I'm old enough to remember this was the trend at the time. But let me add, Last Picture Show was controversial back then. In fact, it was banned as obscene in Little Rock Arkansas at the time.

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[–] kurtlodernot 13 years ago

Yes, I agree with the post above. Movies had just been released from the Hayes code, the "R" rating was only about three years old, so filmmakers seemed to enjoy pushing the envelope as far as they could during this time with all the new freedoms they suddenly had.

Like Cliff Clavin, my brain is full of useless trivia

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[–] tehck 13 years ago

That's odd because I saw it in Little Rock when it was released, where I also saw 'A Clockwork Orange, 'The Last House on the Left,' 'The Cheerleaders,' and pretty much anything else that was in circulation. I guess you never patronized the Chicot Cinema theater before it converted to x-rated porn. For many years, a movie theater was the only place to see 'The Last Picture Show.' Recall that it wasn't available on videotape until the early 90s.

As for nudity in the early 1970s, there was plenty of it. That dam was pretty much closed in Hollywood until about 1967 or 68, but once it broke there quickly was a flood of "openess" in movies like MASH, A Clockwork Orange, Carnal Knowledge, Don't Look Now, The Wicker Man, Macbeth, Bluebeard, Frenzy, Last Tango in Paris, Catch-22, Women in Love, and many, many more mainstream films with big-name stars and directors. Compare for example, Sam Peckinpah's 1971 film Straw Dogs with the 2011 remake. The star of the original, Susan George, has multiple, extended topless scenes while Kate Bosworth only teases with wet t-shirts.

I saw a documentary on PBS a few years back in which one of the people being interviewed made an interesting comment; "everything you think happened in the 60s actually happened in the 70s." Having come of age in that era, I immediately understood what she was saying and recognized she was right. The early 1970s was a watershed in American cinema. The taboo barriers had been broken through in the 1960s and the experimental phase was over. For a brief moment, filmmakers had more control over their creations than they ever would again. Now when movies are made by committees in service to corporation stockholders, we see a lot more safe, formulaic filmmaking than we did in those days. Certainly there are still good movies coming out, but could "The Last Picture Show" get a greenlight today? I doubt it.

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[–] jac91604 13 years ago

I think Boogie Nights is correct, some people are going by films they have seen on TV which were heavily edited.

It wasn't uncommon at all for films in the early 70s to have nudity.

I'm surprised considering the OP's age that they didn't know this.

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[–] dalldorfw 13 years ago

Yeah, whoever heard of nudity in a movie from the seventies?

Hey catlover, tell me if this tune sounds familiar; "Deep throat. Deeper then deep your throat. Deep throat. Don't rock the boat. Don't get your goat. That's all she wrote..."

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[–] jwalsh67 13 years ago

That boy in the pool was really cute (the little brother).

He who conquers himself is mightier than he who conquers a city.

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[–] rob2661 13 years ago

Do you mean in elapsed time on film or in variety of different boobies shown?

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[–] mstanley-1 13 years ago

This can all be researched. After it is, all concerned will discover that films had more nudity and sex in them in the 70's than in 2012, more graphic violence (as opposed to cartoon violence of action movies of now) and were more inherently honest. The exception would be the small independent films of the last decade.

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[–] vpilutis 13 years ago

They didn't call 1969 sexy 69 for nothing

See some stars here
http://www.vbphoto.biz/

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] SimplemindedSociety 12 years ago

since the (hard-core)porn revolution hit in 72', I wouldn't say nudity one year earlier was rare.

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[–] einsteinfile 12 years ago

In reading all of the user reviews and messages on this board, I've rarely read any notice of the different versions of this classic film released to home video....especially as compared to the initial movie release. I purchased a copy of this once it was first released on VHS videotape. It was accurately uncut - like the movie release in '71. Granted, it was 'fullscreen' and not letterboxed. Of course, once DVDs came into play, I had to then acquire "The Last Picture Show" in that format. That DVD version was noticeably 'trimmed': the nude scenes were cropped (notably Cybill Shepherd's) as well as the other characters' scenes around that indoor pool. The letterboxing also cropped bits of the film:portions of scenes visible on VHS were now gone, yet the right and left sides of the screen showed the exact portions visible on the fullscreen VHS. Is this 'fake' letterboxing, where just the top and bottom are cropped to appear as if the presentation is letterboxed? How strange. I enjoyed seeing the newer DVD version with the added scenes, but still the same abysmal cropping. Too bad a version has not been released, the original version shown in theatres in 1971...and maybe another with the added scenes.......

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[–] cfinde 12 years ago

It's theatrical release initially had an "X" rating.

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[–] ed-pilling 12 years ago

I wouldn’t doubt this would have a X rating. There was full frontal nudity on a woman. Midnight cowboy came out in 71 and there was no nudity in it and it had a X rating. Of course it dealed with taboo subjects as in homosexuality and male prostitution.

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[–] mistermycroft 12 years ago

Midnight Cowboy came out in 1969, and there was definitely some nudity in it. They showed Jon Voight's butt at least twice; there was a scene of him in bed with a woman, and she was topless; and there was a gang rape scene in which they pulled his girlfriend out of a car, and her breasts were shown.

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