take" where Reynolds could "clown around". Reynolds said the completed film used the schtick scenes about "65% of the time". Of Reynolds, Aldrich said "on occasion he's a much better actor than he's given credit for. Not always: sometimes he acts like a caricature of himself. I thought he was very good in Longest Yard." Release The Longest Yard opened in New York on August 21, 1974. This was followed by a release in Los Angeles on September 25, 1974 followed by a general release in October 1974. The film earned $22 million in North American theatrical rentals. It had admissions in France of 200,738. Reception The film holds a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 35 reviews. The critical consensus reads: "Equal parts tough and funny, and led by a perfectly cast Burt Reynolds, The Longest Yard has an interesting political subtext and an excellent climax – even if it takes too long to get there." Nora Sayre of The New York Times called the film "a terrible picture" with prison guards that "behave like leering sci-fi monsters" and Reynolds doing a "lumbering imitation" of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Arthur D. Murphy of Variety declared it "an outstanding action drama, combining the brutish excitement of football competition with the brutalities of contemporary prison life. Burt Reynolds again asserts his genuine star power, here as a former football pro forced to field a team under blackmail of warden Eddie Albert." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote that Reynolds was "perfect in this brutal comic fantasy about a football game between crazily ruthless convicts and crazily ruthless guards; for all its bone-crunching collisions, the picture is almost irresistibly good-natured and funny." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that director Robert Aldrich "is effective in portraying black inmates as a world apart in the prison system; it's the one realistic element in this old-fashioned and brutal drama." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times stated, "The story is both clever and unsubtle, the action riot-gun fast from start to satisfying finish, the characters vivid and boldly drawn, the jokes set up and paid off with old-pro efficiency: the bone-snapping, billy-club violence (of which there is inevitably a fair amount) is by Aldrich's standards restrained and by any standards allowable." Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote, "It might