This has to be one of the most aggravating movies ever made. With the possible exception of Marty Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich has the knowledge of the era. Unfortunately, the setting (1910-15) is the only thing that Bogdanovich gets right. Why slapstick? Nearly everyone is miscast (Reynolds, Ritter, who seems oblivious to the period), vapid (the beautiful Jane Hitchcock) or wasted (Stevens) and everyone is embroiled in a disjointed script (which seems oddly like a first draft) that abruptly jumps from slapstick to melodrama to comedy. I'd imagine that anyone interested in seeing the film would have some interest in embryonic filmmaking, but Nickelodeon is a total mess. The best scenes come at the very end; I'll disagree with another reviewer on one point: I felt that Ryan O'Neal's emotion while watching "The Clansman" (AKA Birth of a Nation") was the sad realization that he'd never make a film of that caliber, not that he was capable of better things. In some ways, Nickelodeon seems to be the culmination of so many period Hollywood films released in the mid 70's that went horribly wrong (W.C. Fields and Me, Gable and Lombard, Won Ton Ton, the Dog that Saved Hollywood)--- the two best (Day of the Locust, and the almost unseen Hearts of the West were also flawed); Nickelodeon is, considering the director and the budget, the worst offender, since it should've been so much better. It's a train wreck.
Review of Nickelodeon
