Chicago Sun-Times called it a "daring, epic film... a brilliant one at times, and with a wealth of sharp-edged performances," citing that of Donald Sutherland as "one of the movie's wonders," although he expressed some reservations, noting that "somewhere on the way to its final vast metaphors, The Day of the Locust misplaces its concern with its characters. We begin to sense that they're marching around in response to the requirements of the story, instead of leading lives of their own. And so we stop worrying about them, because they're doomed anyway and not always because of their own shortcoming." In the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum described the film as "a painfully misconceived reduction and simplification... of the great Nathanael West novel about Hollywood... It misses crucial aspects of the book's surrealism and satire, though it has a fair number of compensations if you don't care about what's being ground underfoot - among them, Conrad Hall's cinematography and... one of Donald Sutherland's better performances." Channel 4 deemed it "fascinating, if flawed" and "by turns gaudy, bitter and occasionally just plain weird," adding "great performances and magnificent design make this a spectacular and highly entertaining film." Greg Ferrara for TCM, wrote "...every bit as powerful as any movie on the movie industry out there and, in my opinion, conveys the themes and metaphors of the book in exactly the right tone. They didn’t get it wrong at all, they got it perfectly right by telling the story, cinematically, in a very different way than the book. It’s harsh, brutal, cruel and unrelenting. I’ve rarely beheld a more pessimistic movie but point, about all this fraud and hopelessness around us is both well-presented and well-taken." The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 65% from 31 reviews. Accolades See also List of American films of 1975 References Sources Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 91–93. External links 1975 films 1975 drama films 1970s satirical films American drama films American satirical films Cockfighting in film Films about actors Films about fictional painters Films about Hollywood, Los Angeles Films about prostitution in the United States Films based on American novels Films directed by John Schlesinger Films scored by John Barry (composer) Films set in