Lovin' Molly is a 1974 film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner in the title role, Ed Binns , and Susan Sarandon. The film is based on one of Larry McMurtry's first novels, Leaving Cheyenne. Prior to release, the film was also known as Molly, Gid, and Johnny and The Wild and The Sweet.

In a recent interview with another of the actors in the film, Paul Partain (better known for his role in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) described the origins of the film:

When Sidney [Lumet] and [producer] Stephen [Friedman] got into town, they came with what they hoped would be the perfect formula for success. It had worked on The Last Picture Show, and they knew it would work here. It was this: get a Larry McMurtry novel, hire your three lead actors from Hollywood, get a great director, pick up all the rest of the actors and the crew from the local pool and you were set. Great plan, and it almost worked...

The movie was filmed in Bastrop, Texas; the filming was witnessed by a Texan journalist who later wrote a 1974 Texas Monthly article about the film. The lengthly article (over 4000 words) was published in advance of its release, and noted the following:

• Should you find more than a modicum of true Texas in the film — excluding John Henry Faulk's bit role — why, then, I'll buy you a two-dollar play purty. Lovin' Molly has no sense of Time or Place: a curious development, indeed, when you consider that Larry McMurtry's writing strength derives from evoking Time-and-Place about as well as you will find it done this side of Faulkner.
• Let us fade, now, into the recent past — back to Austin and Bastrop, in November and December, 1972 — to discover how professional film folks could have so botched and perverted McMurtry's Texas.
• [McMurty's novel was] a yarn of cattle country and of the last stubborn independent men in it; he well-clued the reader that his people wore coiled hats, boots, jeans, and retained a certain fierce saddleback pride. So director Sid Lumet trots everybody out in clod-hoppers and bib-overalls; they plant and reap as if in the best bottomlands of the rich Mississippi Delta.

External links and references

• Leavin' McMurtry (registration required), a March 1974 article from Texas Monthly magazine
• Interview with Paul Partain, commenting on the film