Nickelodeon (1976) dir. Peter Bogdanovich
Starring: Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, John Ritter, Stella Stevens, Jane Hitchcock, Tatum O’Neal, Brian Keith, Don Calfa.

***

Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw

“Nickelodeon” is a mess, but WHAT a mess! This notorious Peter Bogdanovich boxoffice and critical failure from the 70s is a big budget, star-studded love song to the pre-D.W. Griffith pioneers of the motion picture industry. Reviled in its day as a clumsy attempt to cram early movie history into a pastiche of early film techniques, it’s a picture that not only managed to keep audiences away in droves, but (at least for me) inexplicably alienated Bogdanovich’s biggest supporters – the critical elite of both the popular mainstream and alternative press. To dump truckloads of manure onto a picture for excess is one thing, but when the excess seems somewhat justified and not without entertainment value, it’s incumbent upon some of us to refute the elitism of the predatory gaggle of scribes who were clearly looking for any excuse to take Bogdanovich, the critic-turned-filmmaker, down a few notches.

Set at a time when Thomas Edison and his cronies maintained the position that they held exclusive patents to the motion picture camera, we follow the adventures of a ragtag band of moviemakers who refuse to shell out royalties to the inventor-thug who stopped at nothing to shut down all the independent businessmen who sought to grab their fare share of the profits from the new magic called movies. Edison hired gun-toting strong men to seek out these upstarts and rough them up and destroy their labs and equipment. In “Nickelodeon”, one such upstart is the blustery showman H.H. Cobb, insanely portrayed by a crazed Brian Keith. Failed lawyer and Harold Lloyd look-alike, the bespectacled Leo Harrigan (Ryan O’Neal) literally pratfalls into this independent company and is quickly nominated to the position of screenwriter. Dispatched to a sleepy, one-horse California waterhole to take over the filmmaking operations, Harrigan discovers that a teenage girl, Alice Forsyte (O’Neal’s daughter Tatum) is an even better screenwriter than he is and when he furthermore discovers that the director has gone on a drunken bender, absconding the unit’s working capital, he is further nominated to the position of director. The group includes a sexy leading lady (Stella Stevens), a near-sighted ingénue (Jane Hitchcock), an amiable sad sack cameraman (John Ritter) and best of all, a two-fisted galumphing galoot from Texas played with good humour and cheer by a thoroughly delightful Burt Reynolds.

All of this probably sounds terrific. It’s not, but it should have been. Where Bogdanovich errs is when he spends far too much time on meticulously recreating slapstick farce from the period. While technically proficient, it’s seldom funny – not so much out of familiarity with the style of humour, but that many of the set-ups are so meticulous that instead of seeming freewheeling and fresh, the laughs – what few we actually get – are utterly predictable. They’re also at odds with what should/could have been a thoroughly compelling story – taking us out of the action to grind everything to a standstill in order to watch one set piece after another.

When the humour works, it works not because it is mannered, meticulous and stylized, but when it’s rooted in the story, characters and backdrop. These moments work so beautifully that they come close to canceling out all the moments that don’t. Many of these well-wrought sequences happen when Bogdanovich doesn’t play over-the-top moments… well, over-the-top. When he plays them straight or relatively straight, they’re as fresh and funny and downright exhilarating as any great comic moments should be. It’s also no surprise that the best stuff involves Burt Reynolds. A scene where Burt is recruited to mount a house for the first time in his life, dressed in full KKK garb and hold a burning cross aloft IS the stuff great comic set pieces are made of. Another, great moment involves Reynolds, who is terrified of heights, and is bamboozled by Ryan O’Neal to get into an air balloon which instead of rising only to the height of a horse, is released and set on a wild course into the Heavens. As well, there are a number of fun scenes involving Tatum O’Neal as she unleashes her trademark “Paper Moon” precociousness and gives us one fine display of cutthroat negotiation after another.

When the movie sticks to moviemaking and does so in a muted fashion, it IS terrific. One can only wish Bogdanovich hadn’t indulged his slapstick muse so often.

The best thing about the movie, though, is a truly exciting and moving recreation of the world premiere of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation”. This astounding sequence is so elegiac, that one is inclined to forgive the movie any and all of its flaws.

One of the main reasons to give this picture a whirl on DVD is the fact that Bogdanovich has been given an opportunity to present the film in black and white. When it was first made, the studio balked at such an expensive picture being unleashed in shades of grey rather than all-out colour. Bogdanovich and his cinematographer, the late great Lazlo (“Easy Rider”) Kovacs acquiesced, but with new digital technologies, the film has been transformed into gorgeous black and white with a lovely range of tones and a mouth-watering grain that looks especially stunning when one plays the regular DVD on a Blu-Ray machine with an HD television monitor. In spite of its flaws, “Nickelodeon” was always a picture I liked, but I have to admit that in black and white, I do believe I like it a whole lot more.

“Nickelodeon” is available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in a two-disc with Bogdanovich’s masterpiece “The Last Picture Show”

The Last Picture Show (1971) dir. Peter Bogdanovich
Starring: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Cloris Leachman, Ben Johnson

****

Peter Bogdanovich is one of cinema’s great historians. Though his directorial output is sparse in his older age, he’s still writing novels and celebrating the history and art of Hollywood cinema. He regularly appears on DVD special features discussing the stories and anecdotes he’s collected over the years from his relationships with Hollywood’s greatest personalities. In the 70's he was one of the most prolific and celebrated directors of the 'film school generation'. Of course, Bogdanovich never went to film school, but learned his craft through watching and studying the great filmmakers.

His breakout film, "The Last Picture Show" is a product of his love for cinema. Years later it's still a masterpiece, a timeless elegant classic about a dying Texas town in the 1950's and the coming of age of it's youth. Timothy Bottoms plays Sonny, a typical jock high school student, good looking, popular, but with a palpable sense of doubt and worthlessness. His best buddy Duane (Jeff Bridges) is his fellow pick up artist and backfield partner. There’s also Cybill Shepherd as Duane’s on and off again girlfriend who tests the waters with almost every guy in town in an effort to lose her virginity. In his last year in high school, the future seems bleak for Sonny, his vulnerability causes him to start up an affair with his high school football coach’s wife (Cloris Leachman) – his elder by 20 years. The events of the year play out the narrative with the subtext of the dying town and it citizens getting left behind with the dust and the tumbleweeds.

While the film is based on Larry McMurtry’s novel, the material allows Bogdanovich to express himself using the language of his mentors. It’s a unique mixture of tones, the sombre reflection on lost youth and the spiritual connection to the town echoing the themes of the great Westerns. Yet, there’s a distinct liberal dramatization of the sexual discovery of the characters. There’s much uninhibited nudity and frank sexual discussions, which echoes the progressiveness whimsy of the French New Wave.

The film is filled with wonderful characters and honest and truthful relationships between them. It's a pitch perfect lead performance from Timothy Bottoms who expresses his disillusionment with his future by taking up with Cloris Leachman, a performance which her won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The relationship is played more with frankness than traditional romance, or even comedy (as in 'The Graduate'), but it's the just the right mixture to pull out the dramatic emotional conflict from both characters. Cybill Shepherd, in her first role, is both gorgeous and awkward as the virginal Jacy. It's intriguing watching her discover the power of her beauty, and how her manipulation can drive men crazy. Ben Johnson (also an Oscar-winner) has the most endearing scene, a beautiful speech to Timothy Bottoms on the shore of the river confessing the secret love affair of his youth which he never really got over. Later on we'll find out who his secret lover was making for a remarkably emotional climax.

Visually Bogdanovich uses the language of Ford and Welles. His exteriors creates that breathless mythological John Ford world. The ever-present wind creates a continuous motion in the frame literally sweeping us off our feet and into this bygone time and place. DP Robert Surtees employs the great elegance of Gregg Toland’s famous deep focus photography - a technique birthed by Welles and Ford in the 40’s.

"The Last Picture Show" plays like a southern "American Graffiti" - George Lucas' 1973 breakout ensemble youth film. The music in "Last Picture Show" is all source music heard from radios in the background. While Lucas' soundtrack of his youth was early rock and roll, Picture Show uses classic country and western tunes like Hank Williams, Pee Wee King, Johnny Ray. It not only sets the time and place, but it outmoded tone of depressed melancholy.

"The Last Picture Show" is a treasure for cinephiles, made with the same kind of reverent passion for the art as the films of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Francois Traffaut.

"Last Picture Show" is available on a new two-disc DVD set which also features Bogdanovich's atrocious 1976 flop 'Nickelodeon'