Nickelodeon *** (1976, Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Tatum O’Neal, Brian Keith, Stella Stevens) – Classic Movie Review 11,793

Director Peter Bogdanovich’s 1976 nostalgic comedy drama film Nickelodeon stars Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Tatum O’Neal, Brian Keith, and Stella Stevens.

Director Bogdanovich assembles his friends Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, and Tatum O’Neal for a toast to pioneer movie-making and comes up with a jovial slapstick comedy and some good-natured performances.

In the easy-going yarn, Leo Harrigan (Ryan O’Neal) falls into film directing, and Buck Greenway (Reynolds) becomes a silent star, while Bogdanovich smoothly evokes the glamour of a bygone age, partly fuelled by the memories of director Raoul Walsh and Allan Dwan, whom Bogdanovich had interviewed in his days as a film critic.

Laszlo Kovacs’s fine photography helps to gloss over the dull patches in the script by W D Richter and Peter Bogdanovich.

Also in the cast are John Ritter, Jane Hitchcock, Harry Carey Jr, Jack Perkins, Brion James, Sidney Armus, Tamar Cooper, Alan Gibbs, Jeffrey Byron, Lorenzo Music, Priscilla Pointer, Philip Bruns, James Best as Jim, George Gaynes as Reginald Kingsley, M Emmet Walsh as ‘Father’ Logan, Miriam Byrd-Nethery as Aunt Lula, Les Josephson as Nickelodeon bouncer, Griffin O’Neal as Boy on a bicycle, and Hamilton Camp.

The runtime is 121 minutes or 129 minutes (Director’s Cut).

It cost a hefty $8 million and was Bogdanovich’s third box-office flop in a row after Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love.

Producer Irwin Winkler said he wanted to make a movie about the silent film era and got W D Richter to write a script called Starlight Parade. David Begelman at Columbia suggested Peter Bogdanovich as director. But Winkler said that when he saw a rough cut of the final film he thought it was ‘atrocious’. ‘For Peter to blame the movie’s failure on the casting and not being in black-and-white is a really terrible excuse for a guy who simply screwed up a really terrific script.’

Bogdanovich recalled: ‘Basically I rewrote the whole damn thing and never used any of Starlight Parade. The trouble was, again, the picture had a balance between comedy and drama, and I had wanted to do it in black and white and Columbia, the studio, wouldn’t let me.

The 2009 DVD release includes a 129-minute Director’s Cut in black and white.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,793

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