Nickelodeon (1976)

Director:

Peter Bogdanovich

Writers:

Peter Bogdanovich (writer)
W.D. Richter (writer)

Release Date:

21 December 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Dreams. 5 cents.

Plot:

This homage to the childhood days of the motion pictures starts in 1910, when the young attorney Leo...

Plot Keywords:

Celebrity | Hollywood | Movie Business | Movie Production | Film Making

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Ryan O'Neal	...	Leo Harrigan
Burt Reynolds	...	Buck Greenway
Tatum O'Neal	...	Alice Forsyte
Brian Keith	...	H.H. Cobb
Stella Stevens	...	Marty Reeves
John Ritter	...	Franklin Frank
Jane Hitchcock	...	Kathleen Cooke
Jack Perkins	...	Michael Gilhooley
Brion James	...	Bailiff
Sidney Armus	...	Judge
Joe Warfield	...	Defense Attorney
Tamar Cooper	...	Edna Mae Gilhooley
Alan Gibbs	...	Patents Hooligan
Mathew Anden	...	Hecky
Lorenzo Music	...	Mullins
Arnold Soboloff	...	Cobb's Writer
Jeffrey Byron	...	Steve
Priscilla Pointer	...	Mabel
Don Calfa	...	Waldo
Philip Bruns	...	Duncan
Edward Marshall	...	Rialto Hotel Clerk
John Blackwell	...	Louie
E.J. André	...	Stage Performer
Christa Lang	...	Stage Performer
Maurice Manson	...	Stage Performer
Louis Guss	...	Dinsdale
Frank Marshall	...	Dinsdale's Assistant
Andrew Winner	...	Stage Manager
Mathilda Calnan	...	German Bakery Lady (as Matilda Calnan)
Gustaf Unger	...	German Producer
Bertil Unger	...	German Producer
James O'Connell	...	Patents Thug
Ric Mancini	...	Patents Thug
Mark Dennis	...	Cobb's Cutter
E. Hampton Beagle	...	Leo's Train Conductor
Hedgemon Lewis	...	Train Waiter
Bill Riddle	...	Sally
Dino Judd	...	Oldtimer
Harry Carey Jr.	...	Dobie
James Best	...	Jim
Jack Verbois	...	Jack
John Chappell	...	John
George Gaynes	...	Reginald Kingsley
Carleton Rippel	...	Depot Man
Rita Abrams	...	Dutch Damsel
Sara Jane Gould	...	Dutch Damsel
Mary Beth Bell	...	Dutch Damsel
M. Emmet Walsh	...	'Father' Logan
Miriam Byrd-Nethery	...	Aunt Lula
Rusty Blitz	...	Nickelodeon Barker
Les Josephson	...	Nickelodeon Bouncer
Tom Erhart	...	Nickelodeon Projectionist
Griffin O'Neal	...	Bicycle Boy
Patricia O'Neal	...	Movie Fanatic
Morgan Farley	...	Movie Fanatic
Anna Thea	...	Movie Fanatic
Elaine Partnow	...	Movie Fanatic
Joseph G. Medalis	...	Movie Fanatic
Billy Beck	...	Movie Fanatic
Roger Hampton	...	Movie Fanatic
Gordon Hurst	...	Policeman
Charles Thomas Murphy	...	Hollywood Realtor
Hamilton Camp	...	Blacker
Ted Gehring	...	Stoneman
Stanley Brock	...	Parker
Vincent Milana	...	Frank's Director
Lee Gordon Moore	...	Alice's Director
John Finnegan	...	Kathleen's Director
Christian Grey	...	Buck's Director
Robert Ball	...	Leo's Actor (as Robert E. Ball)
Chief Tug Smith	...	Elmer (as Chief Elmer Tugsmith)
Rude Frimel	...	Orchestra Conductor
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jon Cutler	...	Driver (uncredited)
John Otrin	...	Man #4 (uncredited)
Carl D. Parker	...	Railroad Conductor (uncredited)
Gus Peters	...	Tex (uncredited)
Allen Williams	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
Peter Bogdanovich

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Peter Bogdanovich		writer
W.D. Richter		writer

Produced by
Robert Chartoff	....	producer
Frank Marshall	....	producer
Irwin Winkler	....	producer

Original Music by
Richard Hazard

Cinematography by
László Kovács

Film Editing by
William C. Carruth		(as William Carruth)

Casting by
Lynn Stalmaster

Art Direction by
Richard Berger

Set Decoration by
David Silvera

Costume Design by
Theadora Van Runkle

Makeup Department
Tom Ellingwood	....	makeup artist
Ruby Ford	....	hair stylist
Marlene D. Williams	....	hair stylist (as Marlene Williams)

Production Management
Mel Dellar	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Stephen Lim	....	second assistant director (as Steve Lim)
Jack Frost Sanders	....	assistant director (as Jack Sanders)
Arne Schmidt	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Bob Lawless	....	painter
Max Miller	....	prop person
Ed Shanley	....	construction coordinator
George Tours	....	lead man
Richard Valesko	....	property master
Dean Wilson	....	prop person

Sound Department
Richard Burrow	....	sound editor
Michael Colgan	....	sound editor
Morris Feingold	....	boom operator
Les Fresholtz	....	sound re-recording mixer
Glen Lambert	....	boom operator
Michael Minkler	....	sound re-recording mixer
Arthur Piantadosi	....	sound re-recording mixer
Kay Rose	....	sound editor
Victoria Rose Sampson	....	sound editor (as Vickie Sampson)
Barry Thomas	....	production sound
Morton Tubor	....	sound editor (as Mort Tubor)

Special Effects by
Cliff Wenger	....	special effects

Stunts
Joe Amsler	....	stunts
Julie Ann Johnson	....	stunts
Hal Needham	....	stunt coordinator
Hal Needham	....	stunts
Ron Stein	....	stunts
Charles A. Tamburro	....	stunts (as Charles Tamburro)
Alan Gibbs	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Richmond L. Aguilar	....	gaffer (as Richmond Aguilar)
Rick Borchardt	....	dolly grip
Bobby Byrne	....	camera operator
Paul Caven	....	best boy
Leonard Lookabaugh	....	key grip (as Len Lookabaugh)
Steve Stafford	....	assistant camera
Ted T. Sugura	....	assistant camera (as Ted Suguira)
Joseph E. Thibo	....	assistant camera (as Joe Thibo)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Sandra Burke	....	wardrobe
Norman Salling	....	wardrobe

Editorial Department
Bill Lindemann	....	assistant film editor

Music Department
Kenneth Wannberg	....	music editor (as Ken Wannberg)

Transportation Department
James D. Brubaker	....	transportation coordinator (as James Brubaker)

Other crew
Rita Abrams	....	choreographer
Neil Canton	....	production assistant
Daniel J. Heffner	....	production assistant
Stevie Myers	....	head wrangler
Grant Olson	....	craft service
Marge Rowland	....	production secretary
Charles A. Tamburro	....	helicopter pilot
Lois Thurman	....	script supervisor
Robert Weatherwax	....	dog trainer
Mae Woods	....	assistant to director
Joe Amsler	....	stand-in: Ryan O'Neal (uncredited)

Thanks
Allan Dwan	....	special thanks
Raoul Walsh	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• British Lion Film Corporation
• Chartoff-Winkler Productions
• Columbia Pictures Corporation
• EMI Films

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1976) (USA) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1981) (USA) (TV) (broadcast premiere)
• EMI Distribution (1976) (UK) (theatrical)
• Tobis (1975) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Kinowelt Home Entertainment (2004) (Germany) (DVD)
• Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment (2003) (UK) (DVD)
• RCV Home Entertainment (2006) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2009) (USA) (DVD) (director's cut)

Other Companies

• Howard A. Anderson Company  opticals
• Lennie Marvin Collection  calendars
• Lennie Marvin Collection  piano rolls
• Mobile Cinema Service  location unit

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | West Germany:6 (f) | Finland:K-8 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG (2003) (re-rating) | UK:U (original rating) | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

British Lion Film Corporation

Trivia:

For the Los Angeles premiere, all guests (and some critics) paid five cents to see the movie in honor of the film and early Hollywood ticket prices. However, reaction to the picture was poor and one critic (David Sheehan, reporting for CBS News) claimed it wasn't worth paying a nickel to see.

Quotes:

Franklin Frank: It's real simple, you'll have no problem.
Leo Harrigan: I won't?
Franklin Frank: Hell, no, any jerk can direct. Now you see over there? Marty & Kingsley putting on their makeup? Those are the actors.
Leo Harrigan: Thank you very much.
Franklin Frank: Okay, now you see over there? That box on the sticks? John's putting a blanket on it. That's the camera. Now the first thing you do is tell me where to put it.
Leo Harrigan: I'm about to.
Franklin Frank: No - I'm the cameraman.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003)

"Kathleen Cooke"-An Irresistible Screen Heroine

Oddly this is a film that I have always liked and still make a point to watch when it is televised. I say "oddly" because I find Peter Bogdanovich and Ryan O'Neal excellent examples of two people pretty much clueless about their chosen professions. Bogdanovich was a journalist/critic/film theorist turned director (who had the bad taste to be involved with Cybill Shepperd) and O'Neal was a Hollywood personality who occasionally acted (who had the good taste to marry Leigh Taylor-Young).

Jane Hitchcock is the most interesting thing about "Nickelodeon". Hitchcock was a magazine model who Bogdanovich hoped to groom into a star. Bogdanovich historically has had a weakness for beautiful women of marginal talent (Shepherd and Dorothy Stratten's sister come to mind). Unlike the others, Hitchcock was quickly turned off by both Bogdanovich and the movie game-she already had a lucrative modeling career and didn't have to put up with the Hollywood starlet system. Whether Hitchcock would have made it big in movies is hard to tell, but in "Nickelodeon's" "Kathleen Cooke" she found a character she could play with wide-eyed innocence and complete sincerity. While it doesn't hurt that Hitchcock is drop dead gorgeous, her Kathleen Cooke character is more than gorgeous, she is absolutely captivating. Which makes her completely believable as the object of the movie's love triangle and elevates her to the top of my list of the all-time most irresistible screen heroines (even ahead of Fay Wray's "Ann Darrow" and Clara's Bow's "Mary Preston").

But "Kathleen Cooke" is not the only good thing about "Nickelodeon". It has one of cinema's all time funniest sequences. O'Neal arrives by train at a remote shooting location out west. He steps off the train at a watering stop and looks out over the desert to the movie set 500 yards away. The sun is high overhead baking the desert landscape and O'Neal is not enthusiastic about the prospect of walking that far in such heat. A tiny dog with the movie company spots him from that distance and begins running toward him. The dog is making a bee-line for him, as it gets closer we wait for the happy reunion, but when it arrives it immediately bites his leg. The dog hates him so much that it was willing to run that far in the hot sun just for the opportunity to attack him.

It also is an excellent and generally accurate history lesson about the early days of movies and the serendipity that determined who became involved with the new industry. Serendipity is the theme of the film and the source of most of its comedy, as the expanding talent needs of the new movie industry were often met by whoever they happened to encounter at a particular moment and not through any systematic process. Thus Burt Reynolds (in his best comic performance) becomes a stunt man only because at that moment they need a stunt man and he needs a job. A running gag is his boastful declaration with each new job that the job title (whatever it might be) is his middle name. Also a great take on how milestones like "Birth of a Nation" periodically set the bar higher throughout film history and inspired those within the industry to stretch themselves to do better work.

Ryan O'Neal is fairly low-key and therefore tolerable. In addition to Hitchcock and Reynolds, Bogdanovich gets excellent performances from Tatum O'Neal (great negotiating sequences), John Ritter, Stella Stevens and Brian Keith.

The main problem with "Nickelodeon" is that the depth and breathe of early film history is too complicated for a small comedic treatment. As a film historian Bogdanovich was dealing with a subject near and dear to his heart. He appears to have borrowed heavily from Fellini's "Variety Lights" and "White Sheik" to construct his company of players but could not integrate the intimate and light-hearted flavor of those films with the huge historical subject he was documenting. "Nickelodeon" is still entertaining and informative but the whole is less that the sum of its parts.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.