HOLLYWOOD
US, 2020, 350 minutes, Colour.
David Corenswet, Darren Criss, Laura Harrier, Joe Mantello, Dylan Mc Dermott, Jake Picking, Jeremy Pope, Holland Taylor, Samara Weaving, Jim Parsons, Patti Lu Pone, Maude Apatow, Mira Sorvino, Michelle Krusiec, Rob Reiner, Queen Latifah.
Directed by Ryan Murphy, Daniel Minahan, Michael Upendahl, Janet Mock, Jessica Yu.
Hollywood is a seven-part limited television series. It was produced by Ryan Murphy television, Murphy responsible for such series as Glee, American Horror Story, Pose, Feud: Bette and Joan. He collaborated in the writing and production and directed the first episode.
The setting is 1946 – 1948, the atmosphere in California and Hollywood with young veterans returning from World War II and dreaming of becoming film stars. This is the case with the central character, Jack, played by David Corenswet. He is tall and good-looking, stands outside the studios wanting to be called, is told by the casting director that his type as a dime a dozen. He is married and his wife (Maud Apatow) is expecting twins. He becomes involved in a prostitution ring, loves his wife, is deceived by her, does a screen test for an upcoming film, gets the role.
While his is the centre of the story, there are quite a number of principal characters. It is story of the studios at the time, the style of filmmaking, popular entertainment, the American audience, and a challenge by making films with more daring themes (1947 was the year of Elia Kazan’s Gentlemen’s Agreement, a critique of anti-Semitism, winner of the Oscar for Best Film).
While the film is generally bright and colourful, re-creating the period, sets and decor, costumes, and a range of popular songs of the period as background (and comment on the action and characters), it is not in any way documentary -like.
With Ryan Murphy’s perspective on Hollywood, and, especially, on sexual orientation, the series has been described as a “gay fantasy�. There is certainly an emphasis on gay characters throughout the series, relationships, love, exploitation with a number of the central characters being gay.
The final episode in the series, however, is an extreme example of the 21st-century going back into an alternate world of Hollywood, an indulgence in wishful thinking, if only…
The younger characters are effective in their way, but it is the veteran cast who tend to steal the show each time they appear. For the younger cast, there is David Corenswet as Jack, there is Jeremy Pope as the African- American screenwriter who has sent a screenplay to Ace Studios which has been accepted without the knowledge that he is black. There is Samara Weaving as the daughter of the studio owner, precocious and ambitious to be a film star. There is Darren Criss as the director who wants to make this film, his first, passing for white although, as he explains, he is part American, part Filipino (as is Criss in real life). And there is Jake Picking who is caught up in the casting issues, the casting couch (gay).
In fact, his character is Roy Fitzgerald who becomes Rock Hudson. Part of the difficulty of this performance is that Roy Fitzgerald seems something of a “drip�, very slow on the uptake, very poor in screen tests, earnest and trying hard – and hard to believe that he is becoming Rock Hudson. Roy Fitzgerald then meets the screenwriter and they live together.
But, it is the older actors who really are quite striking in their performances. Joe Mantello is very effective as the head of studio productions, shrewd, showing his ability in the rewriting of the film’s screenplay, able in studio work over 20 years, but, finally facing up to his sexual orientation and finding a partner.
Patti Lu Pone is most impressive as the wife of the studio owner, neglected by him as he conducts an affair (a very persuasive performance by Rob Reiner, Mira Sorvino as his lover). When he suffers a stroke, she becomes head of the studio, finds that she has abilities, and faces the issue of the greenlighting of the screenplay, which is based on the experience of the young star, Peg Entwistle who climbed to the top of the Hollywood sign and killed herself. The recommendation, after the screen test, is that a young black actress, Camille Washington, played by Laura Harrier, should be the star and that it be called Meg. There are all kinds of arguments against this, issues of the American South and racism and the banning of films, the Ku Klux Klan cross on fire outside the owner’s mansion, death threats, bigotry towards outsiders.
Also very strong is Jim Parsons as the actual agent, Henry Wilson, who promoted Rock Hudson. Here he is representing the worst in manipulative agents, exercising power, not afraid to call in the Mafia for some rough attacks on threatening journalists. Queen Latifah appears as Hattie Mc Daniel who won the Oscar, the first for an African- American, for Gone with the Wind. Other real life personalities in the film include George Cukor, famous for his parties and his association with gay men, Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, and younger aspirants, Rory Calhoun, Tab Hunter, Guy Madison, all Henry Wilson is clientele.
There is also an acknowledgement of Chinese actress, Anna May Wong, who in the mid-30s was refused casting in The Good Earth, but who has an opportunity for appearing in Meg.
Making a very strong impression is Holland Taylor as a studio executive, who has a talent for casting, dramatic coaching, and has a yearning for the studio director. Playing quite against type from his other films is Dylan Mc Dermott as a former would-be star, proprietor of a garage which serves as a cover for a prostitution ring, customers coming by car and going off with his range of assistants by which include Jack and the screenwriter.
By the end, in the last episode especially, there is a huge wishful-thinking rewrite of Hollywood history. If only…
Meg is not only made, is rescued after the main negative was burnt and the editor had kept a copy, is released in over 600 cinemas, breaking box office records, audiences tolerant of racial issues, affirming them. And, at the Oscars, (where actual nominees for 1947 Oscars were read out), Meg not only wins best picture, but best direcctor, Best leading actress, best supporting actress, best screenplay. And the black playwright insists that he walk into the Oscar celebrations, arm in arm with Rock Hudson, for all the world to know. (Which, of course, was not how Rock Hudson lived his life and career, marrying is agent secretary as a cover, finally experiencing his AIDS crisis 40 years later.)
Some audiences took the film literally, were baffled by this wishful thinking, writing off the whole series. But, for those for whom Hollywood is a living legend, much to think about, quite a bit to be disgusted at, but thought-provoking about the lives of those involved in filmmaking, a different kind of entertainment.
