FILM · 1976 · UK
Nickelodeon
18 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (18)
- #001
Orson Welles suggested to Peter Bogdanovich that the film be shot in black and white, but the studio opposed the idea. At a Bogdanovich retrospective held at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in March 2008, the director's cut of the film was presented in black and white.
- #002
Peter Bogdanovich wanted Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, John Ritter and Orson Welles for the lead roles.
- #003
For the Los Angeles premiere, all guests (and some critics) paid five cents to watch the film, in honor of the early-era ticket prices of the film and of Hollywood. The response to the picture was weak, however, and critic David Sheehan, reporting for CBS News, claimed it was not worth paying five cents to see the picture.
- #004
On March 20, 2024, TCM aired this film in black and white because the late Peter Bogdanovich had originally wanted it that way.
- #005
Three generations of the O'Neal family appear in this film: Ryan O'Neal, his daughter Tatum O'Neal, his son Griffin O'Neal (the boy who distributes the film reels) and his mother Patricia O'Neal (one of the fans outside the movie theater). This film is the only one in which all four acted together.
- #006
The projectors showing The Birth of a Nation (1915) near the end of the film are Powers model 6B. The projectors are period-appropriate, but the arc lamps used are not correct. These are Strong Electric low-intensity reflector lamps, and they would not be manufactured for another decade. The correct lamp would have been an older rectangular-shaped condenser arc.
- #007
Burt Reynolds made many films over his career that examined filmmaking, and this film is one of them. Among these pictures are Fade In (1973) (location shooting and westerns); Silent Movie (1976) and Nickelodeon (1976) (silent films); Best Friends (1982) (screenwriting and Hollywood); Hooper (1978) (stunt work and Hollywood); The Player (1992) (Hollywood); Boogie Nights (1997) (adult films); The Last Producer (2000) (producers and Hollywood); Hollywood Sign (2001) and A Group of Amateurs (2008) (actors and Hollywood).
- #008
The character played by Harry Carey Jr. was named Dobie, Carey's real-life nickname.
- #009
Almost all of the film cameras are Pathe "Studio" (also known as "Professional") models. These were the highest-grade cameras made before World War I and had a distinctive 400-meter square film magazine on top.
- #010
Initially, Peter Bogdanovich shot the film with a G rating in mind, as with the director's previous films What's Up, Doc? (1972), Daisy Miller (1974) and At Long Last Love (1975), which earned a G rating, but the single use of the F word would give the film a PG rating, since the PG-13 rating did not exist at the time of the film's release and it would probably earn that rating if submitted today.
- #011
One scene mimics Peter Bogdanovich's earlier film Paper Moon (1973), in which Tatum O'Neal is inside an old car, pulls over and talks with Ryan O'Neal in a rural, remote location.
- #012
Burt Reynolds and John Ritter either had worked or would work for Peter Bogdanovich on other films. Reynolds even based Robert Klein's film director character in Hooper (1978) on Bogdanovich (albeit a crude and unlikable version).
- #013
Mae Marsh and Henry B. Walthall can easily be spotted in the screening of The Birth of a Nation (1915).
- #014
At the beginning of the film there is a character named Edna Mae Gilhooley. This name was probably derived from Edna Rae Gillooly, the birth name of Ellen Burstyn, who had her breakthrough role in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971).
- #015
Irreconcilable Differences (1984) has Ryan O'Neal playing a fictional version of Peter Bogdanovich. In that film, O'Neal's character transforms from a film-historian university professor into a writer and filmmaker, closely reflecting Bogdanovich. The same thing happens in this film, but O'Neal plays a lawyer who becomes a writer and filmmaker (with the same kind of naive and clumsy personality).
- #016
The plot device of similar suitcases being unknowingly switched among multiple characters echoes Peter Bogdanovich's earlier film What's Up, Doc? (1972).
- #017
The real-life cinema figures mentioned are the actresses Mary Pickford and Theda Bara and the director D. W. Griffith.
- #018
This was the second of three consecutive films in which Tatum O'Neal played a character whose name begins with "A". She played Addie in Paper Moon (1973), Alice in this film and Amanda in The Bad News Bears (1976).
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