1911. Chicago lawyer Leo Harrigan and Florida proverbial snake-oil salesman Tom "Buck" Greenway, neither particularly committed and thus good at their respective jobs, accidentally get involved in the moving picture making business - one, two, three and four reelers shown at nickelodeons - Leo initially as a scenarist turned scenarist/director/editor and Buck as an action actor, despite neither initially knowing anything about their jobs and Buck in addition not knowing how t... (Full plot summary below)
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1911. Chicago lawyer Leo Harrigan and Florida proverbial snake-oil salesman Tom "Buck" Greenway, neither particularly committed and thus good at their respective jobs, accidentally get involved in the moving picture making business - one, two, three and four reelers shown at nickelodeons - Leo initially as a scenarist turned scenarist/director/editor and Buck as an action actor, despite neither initially knowing anything about their jobs and Buck in addition not knowing how to ride a horse and being afraid of heights, both things which he is asked to deal with in front of the camera. They both get into the business working for independent producer H.H. Cobb at a time when the big moving picture companies formed the Patents Company, using heavy handed tactics to prevent small companies, like Cobb's Kinegraph, from being able to make pictures by denying use of cameras under supposed patent. Via different routes, Leo and Buck initially meet at one of Cobb's secret sets located in the backwater frontier railroad stop of Cugamonga, California, so chosen to hide from the Patent Company. Leo and Buck's relationship becomes even more complicated as they both fall in love at first sight with Kathleen Cooke, an extremely nearsighted and klutzy Chautauqua girl on a national tour, she who also literally stumbles onto the Cugamonga set. Their personal and professional lives are presented over a four year period, those lives which are not only affected by the on-going battle with the Patents Company, and Leo and Buck's love for Kathleen, but their own growth within the business, the struggle for artistic control, and the changing face of the business which hits a milestone in 1915.
Leave your thoughts about Nickelodeon.
| The A.V. ClubNathan RabinBogdanovich’s affection for film’s embryonic beginnings informs every frame, from the machine-gun crackle of snappy banter smartly executed to meticulously choreographed pratfalls and comic fights to silent-movie-style intertitles. |
| NewsweekJack KrollPeter Bogdanovich's film is an okay comedy-drama about the early days of motion pictures. Story begins with a group of barnstorming filmmakers in the pre-feature film era, later segues to the adolescence of the industry. |
| VarietyVariety StaffPeter Bogdanovich's film is an okay comedy-drama about the early days of motion pictures. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertA curiously flat movie. It functions like clockwork and it looks right, but it doesn't feel like much. |
| The New York TimesRichard EderNickelodeon is two hours and two minutes of impersonations.Some of them are very good impersonations—deft and funny—but they lack a life to string them together. |
| The New YorkerPauline KaelThe direction is agonisingly pedantic for a comedy, and leaves O'Neal and Reynolds totally exposed, mugging away in charmless and clumsy fashion. |
| Chicago ReaderDave KehrBogdanovich is trying to do an interesting and commendable thing in dramatizing aesthetic passion; his failure is as noble as it is conspicuous. |
| User ReviewTallier AI guess I'm easily amused, but I thought it was a fun little darling of a movie. I loved the fight scene between Ryan and Burt, so dang funny! A lot of hidden truths in there. Appealed to my sentimentalism. |
| User ReviewBrendon MThe bw directors cut mixes humor and pathos far superior to the bastardized color theatrical edition. |
| User ReviewDave MAn interesting slapstick look at the birth of film with Nickelodeon's and the crazy people behind them. Being a respected critic before stepping into a director's role he really added a lot of fact to this film & although seemingly chaotic this is how these films where made. Ryan O'Neal got the job done in this film but doesn't do much for me as an actor, I enjoyed this film since I am a film buff may not be for everyone. |
