Another bout of Jack Nicholson completism. He is very muted here; Bruce Dern gets all the flamboyance. Much like the later Atlantic City (1980), Nicholson leaves Philadelphia (where he spins melancholic tales on his graveyard-shift radio show) to join his brother in Atlantic City for reasons filial and pecuniary. Dern has two ladies lined up in a "package deal" (histrionic Ellen Burstyn and her stepdaughter Julia Anne Robinson) to keep him company while he talks about developing a Hawaiian island with financing from associates of Scatman Crothers. We spend a lot of time on the boardwalk in places since made familiar by Boardwalk Empire. I found it disjointed and soporific, and had much difficulty finding a point in anything. Directed by Bob Rafelson but not written by Carole Eastman (cf Five Easy Pieces).
Roger Ebert: three stars at the time. Roger Greenspun was less impressed. John Patterson in 2013. Peter Bradshaw on Rafelson at the time of his death in 2022: it's a classic.