Nickelodeon (1976)
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14% of critics liked it
(7 reviews) -
58% of users liked it
(337 ratings)
Peter Bogdanovich's early career as a film writer stood him in good stead for this comedy drama about the early days of the motion-picture industry, based in part on his interviews with pioneering directors Raoul Walsh and Allan Dwan. Leo Harrigan (Ryan O'Neal) is a lawyer and Buck Greenway… More Peter Bogdanovich's early career as a film writer stood him in good stead for this comedy drama about the early days of the motion-picture industry, based in part on his interviews with pioneering directors Raoul Walsh and Allan Dwan. Leo Harrigan (Ryan O'Neal) is a lawyer and Buck Greenway (Burt Reynolds) is a cowboy and gunman. Both are sent to California to shut down a renegade group of silent-movie makers -- financed by blustery H.H. Cobb (Brian Keith) -- who are in violation of the Motion Picture Patents Co. Trust. Harrigan and Greenway somehow find themselves working with the movie crew instead of shutting them down; they join forces with cameraman Franklin Frank (John Ritter), leading lady Kathleen Cooke (Jane Hitchcock), and precocious prop girl Alice Forsyte (Tatum O'Neal). Greenway becomes a star and Harrigan a respected director, but both battle over the affections of Cooke. Incidentally, Cobb's big speech near the end is taken almost verbatim from a quote given to Bogdanovich in an interview with actor James Stewart. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Directed By
- Peter Bogdanovich
- Genres
- Comedy
PG,
- In Theaters
- Dec 21, 1976 Wide
- Studio
- Sony Pictures Entertainment
Critic Reviews
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Variety Staff, Variety
Peter Bogdanovich's film is an okay comedy-drama about the early days of motion pictures.
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Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Bogdanovich is trying to do an interesting and commendable thing in dramatizing aesthetic passion; his failure is as noble as it is conspicuous.
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, Time Out
The direction is agonisingly pedantic for a comedy, and leaves O'Neal and Reynolds totally exposed, mugging away in charmless and clumsy fashion.
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Richard Eder, New York Times
Peter Bogdanovich knows a great deal about movies, including how they are made. Perhaps he doesn't know why they are made. In any case, knowing how something is made isn't the same as making it.
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
We're reminded that Orson Welles described a movie studio as the biggest electric train a kid could ever get. Bogdanovich doesn't let us play with his train. Instead, he keeps us on the outside of a curiously flat movie.
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Cast
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Ryan O'Neal
as Leo Harrigan
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Burt Reynolds
as Buck Greenway
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Tatum O'Neal
as Alice Forsyte
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Brian Keith
as H.H. Cobb
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Stella Stevens
as Marty Reeves
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John Ritter
as Franklin Frank
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Jane Hitchcock
as Kathleen Cooke
- Joe Amsler
- Mathew Anden
- E.J. Andre
- Sidney Armus
- E. Hampton Beagle
- Billy Beck
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James Best
as Jim
- Stanley Brock
- Philip Bruns
- Jeffrey Byron
- Don Calfa
- Hamilton Camp
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Harry Carey Jr.
as Dobie
- John Chappell
- Tamar Cooper
- Mark Dennis
- Morgan Farley
- John Finnegan
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George Gaynes
as Reginald Kingsley
- Ted Gehring
- Louis Guss
- Gordon Hurst
- Brion James
- Christa Lang
- Ric Mancini
- Maurice Manson
- Joseph Medalis
- Lorenzo Music
- Griffin O'Neal
- Patricia O'Neal
- Jack Perkins
- Priscilla Pointer
- Arnold Soboloff
- Ron Stein
- Charles Tamburro
- Jack Verbois
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M. Emmet Walsh
as Logan
- Joe Warfield
- Andrew Winner
- Rita Abrams
- Robert Ball
- Alan R. Gibbs
- Frank Marshall
- Hal Needham
- Roger Hampton
- Charles Thomas Murphy
- James O'Connell
- Anna Thea
- Bill Riddle
- Matilda Calnan
- Thomas Erhart
- Lee Gordon Moore
- Elaine Partnow
- Bertil Unger
- Gustaf Unger
- Ed Marshall
