The Kid Stays in the Picture

The documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture examines the life of Robert Evans, the American producer who led Paramount through a remarkable run in the late 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on Evans's own 1994 autobiography, it follows his early years as a struggling actor, his move into production, and the battles he fought with studio executives to get films such as Rosemary's Baby, The Godfather and Chinatown made the way he wanted them. It also covers the heights of his success, the scandal and decline that followed, and his later return to the industry. Evans narrates the film himself, and it incorporates archival footage featuring figures from his life and career, including Norma Shearer, Ali MacGraw and Catherine Deneuve among the thirty credited cast members.

The film was directed by Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen, and produced by Graydon Carter with Burstein and Morgen. For Burstein it was the first of four features, preceding Going the Distance, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes and Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff; for Morgen it came before Cobain: Montage of Heck and Moonage Daydream. Released in August 2002, the film runs 93 minutes. It has an IMDb rating of 7.3 from around 8,300 votes and a TMDB rating of 6.6 from a much smaller number of votes, while critics gave it 7.9 from 112 reviews, a notably warmer response than the general audience scores suggest. It took in about 1 million dollars worldwide.