In Texasville, the trio grew up to adultery and madness, bankruptcy and boom times, (New York Daily News). Ironically, it’s the West-Tex that was demolished, in 1986, leaving the vacant lot where the town's gazebo now stands. Larry McMurtrys funny and brutal (New York Times) landmark novel The Last Picture Show introduced the shrinking oil-patch town of Thalia, Texas, and its teenaged residents Duane, Sonny, and Jacy.

Since the Royal was no more than a shell, the cinema interior was filmed at the West-Tex Theater which stood on West Main Street at North Grand Avenue in Olney, a further 15 miles south on Hwy 79. othing much happens in Larry McMurtry's third novel, 'The Last Picture Show.' But then nothing much happens in Thalia, the small Western town he. You can catch a production at the Royal Theater, 115 East Main Street, Archer City. In the Nineties, ambitious plans to restore the theatre finally bore fruit and, after 35 years, the Royal opened its doors again as a successful live theatre. The real Anarene is now a ghost town about eight miles south of Archer City, which was finally deserted in the early 1950s after its railroad station closed.Īt the time of filming, the Royal picture house was little more than a crumbling shell after having been gutted by a disastrous fire in 1965.

The one-street town of 'Anarene' is actually Archer City, North Texas – “one street and a traffic light” as a local described it – on Hwy 79 about 25 miles south of Wichita Falls.Ĭonfusingly, the town in the original novel is 'Thalia', but it was changed by director Bogdanovich to echo 'Abilene', the town in Howard Hawks' 1948 Western Red River – the 'last picture' being shown at the local picture house before it closes down. In The Last Picture Show, one of Larry McMurtrys most powerful, memorable novels, he introduced characters who would return in his later novels Texasville and. Peter Bogdanovich never came close to equalling this achingly atmospheric evocation of smalltown life in the Fifties, adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel.

The last picture show by larry mcmurtry