WORLD TOUR Day 10 - Hollywood, CA
BEFORE: F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy." I'm going to replace the word "hero" with "actor" and I've got my theme for the week. This is my last night in Hollywood, and this is another of those movies about people who make movies, and how messed up they are.
Linking from "A Star Is Born", James Mason was in "Evil Under the Sun" with Roddy McDowall (last heard in "A Bug's Life"), who's got a bit part in this film.
THE PLOT: Daisy Clover is a 15 year old tomboy who dreams of being a Hollywood star. After auditioning for producer Raymond Swan she becomes the toast of Hollywood. Daisy must then come to terms with her newfound fame and the 1930's Hollywood star treatment.
AFTER: Man, I wasn't feeling this one at all. Maybe I'm just getting jaded or burnt out on movies, but I barely understood what was going on - if the intent was to show what a crazy, hard-to-understand place Hollywood is, mission accomplished. But there were parts that just made me feel like the director had never made a movie before, or didn't understand that characters need to have motivations for doing things. The whole movie, it felt like the WHY of everything was never even considered - so I always felt like I stepped out for popcorn and missed the 5 minutes of the movie that explained everything.
There's a lot to take on faith here - you have to believe that the 1930's Hollywood studio system was so desperate for young starlets that all one had to do was cut a demo record in a Boardwalk tourist-trap sound studio, send it to a producer, and mere weeks later, that singer would be starring in a Hollywood musical and feeding the hype machine. Right, because the producers weren't swamped with photos and resumes and demo tapes from the other people who also wanted to make it big.
Before long, "America's Valentine" Daisy Clover is a headliner - because she doesn't have to get any formal training for her vocals or her acting abilities, she's a natural, dontcha know - and she's so instantly well-known that the interviewers on the red carpet are asking for her. But she was a defiant tomboy before, so maybe she's not cut out for the interview circuit and the press junkets, she blows them off so she can go boating with an actor, who's gorgeous and also very jaded. And he likes to drink (damn, I feel like I've seen this story before - like last night).
Cue Hollywood marriage, cue quickie divorce, cue the nervous breakdown. And all along I'm thinking, if you're not happy making movies and being famous, then JUST STOP. If you're not doing what you want to be doing, then DON'T DO IT. Daisy eventually decides to put her head in the gas oven and end it all, and I thought, "Finally, a smart career move." And after watching two hours of this nonsensical film, I wanted to put MY head in the oven too.
The one thing that seemed to work here for me was the musical number "The Circus Is a Wacky World" (written by Andre Previn and sung by not-Natalie Wood) because it so blatantly poked at the Hollywood dream factory, calling it a circus where nothing is what it appears to be. The clown's grins are painted on, the midget is really a 5-year-old boy, the bearded lady is really a man. The camera adds 10 pounds like a funhouse mirror does, and the ringmaster directs your attention where he wants, so you won't see what's really going on behind the scenes. I could go on and on with this analogy...
But I've had enough of Hollywood phonies, so I'm striking out into America's heartland tomorrow. Surely I can find some genuine people there, right?
Starring Natalie Wood (last seen in "Rebel Without a Cause"), Robert Redford (last seen in "The Electric Horseman"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus"), Ruth Gordon (last seen in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois"),
RATING: 2 out of 10 fish burgers
Such a weak movie. No way, no how, was Natalie Wood a believeable 15-year-old. No way, no how, was that 1930's Hollywood. The outfits she wore in that "You're Gonna Hear From Me" number (?) were so stereotypically 1960's that I wonder exactly what the hell happened.
ReplyDelete(Clear undertone of "Nobody cared.")
And these things wouldn't matter, but it was a pointless movie with nothing to say. It's damn annoying when a movie tries to blow your mind by WAKING you UP and making you SEE just how PLASTIC everything is, man. "Welcome home. How was your first semester of college?" you want to reply.
Incidentally, Natalie Wood's birth name was "Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko." Which is about 1000 times more awesome than "Natalie Wood."