It Happened in Hollywood

Richard Dix stars as Tim Bart, a real-life cowboy who becomes a big silent western star who is particularly loved and idolized by children. Then the talkies come along and the fact that cameras must be static and locked down in soundproof booths at the dawn of sound makes it impossible for westerns to be made for a couple of years.

Bart is blind-sided by the sudden change and initially is given a screen test in the romantic scene of a modern dress drawing room drama wearing formal attire and given ridiculous flowery dialogue to recite. Being completely unaccustomed to dialogue at all, he flunks his screen test and is dismissed from the studio. The rest of the film has to do with how he handles being made obsolete overnight by these technological advances and changing tastes.

This is different from most other films on the subject of big stars being "washed up" because Dix's Bart has such a positive outlook and a generous spirit. He always figures he'll get by, and so there is no bitterness or turning to drink or any other such tropes that you find in the riches to rags stories of forgotten stars. Only when someone else who he cares about needs cash urgently does he even think about making a wrong turn.

Dix's powerful, vivid performance seems inspired by his own image and also knits fact and fiction together for a spot-on replication of many silent movie actors and Western talkie movie actors of that era. An inspired party scene, where doppelgangers for Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Great Garbo, Joan Crawford, and other actors mingle with real-life prominent characters actors creates an eerie mirror image of Hollywood.

I will note that Dix didn't have any such experience in Hollywood even though he was a silent actor for quite a few years before the dawn of sound. Dix was already a "modern dress" actor during the silent era, so not much changed for him. He actually first did more westerns after the movies could begin filming outdoors again, in the early 30s.

This was a real surprise and is a fun film especially for anybody who is interested in this transitional period in filmmaking.

The film opens on young children watching a silent film, as it ends, and they applaud and the young boys say they want to be just like the cowboy when they grow up. One boy in particular, who is sick and laid up, takes it all to heart and hopes to meet the actor someday, who is Richard Dix. But Richard's world will be toppled, when he is asked to be a gangster in a film robbing a bank and killing innocent people. He has an image to uphold to his fans. The studio tells him it's this or nothing. He starts the film, but he can't stomach this brutality and quits. Such is his predicament, dignity but no money, and soon the boy will appear at his door. What ensues is a very thoughtful and moving experience about our idols and how they are only human and how we try to be what people expect of us. Though the ending is rather abrupt, I enjoyed this unique little film which also boasts a lot of lookalikes of celebrities of the time. Discover "Once a Hero" today and see for yourself how a hero, although human, is always a hero.

I have to say that I have always been interested in the period this film is set in: Hollywood 1928. Hollywood's transition to sound (1927-1932) has been a source of fascination with me. I have done a lot of research on the period and seen a pretty good number of films from that time.

I say this because from my research this film is done very accurately and gives you a real feel for what it must have been like while American films where having a nervous breakdown adjusting to sound movies.

It Happened In Hollywood is just chocked full of inside jokes, authentic early sound technical objects, and realistic dialog. It really does not have the look and feel of any other film made in the 1937 time period. One clue might be that a young Sam Fuller is one of the writers.

It is reasonable to assume that many of the folks who were around in the late 20's and early 30's remembered that period and were able to imbue the production with a realism that would not be possible years later.

If you watch closely you will see the original early sound microphones that were about the size of an artillery shell. We also see the famous "iceboxes" that enclosed the early sound cameras and their operators to keep the camera noise from being recorded. Later on we see one of the early home-made blimps that were hastily designed for the same purpose for shooting outdoors. Early sound films were clunky to say the least.

Franklin Pangborn is very funny as the elocution expert imported from the New York stage to teach actors how to "speak" for the movies. This actually happened all over Hollywood during that time.

RIchard Dix's career was beginning to wane at the time this was made. And he played a cowboy a number of times. He managed to make the transition from silents to sound and had some popularity during the thirties, but his parts had begun to get smaller and smaller. Today hardly anyone knows the name. Talk about life imitating art! Very interesting and worth your time, even if you are not a student of early sound films.

I never liked Richard Dix, but after seeing It Happened in Hollywood from 1937, I have changed my mind.

The movie also stars Fay Wray. The film concerns a very important part of film history, the arrival of the talkies. Western silent screen star Tim Bart (based probably on Tom Mix) is a huge attraction for young kids everywhere. They belong to his special club, he visits them in hospitals - he is a great hero.

Tim's frequent costar is the beautiful Gloria Gay (Wray). She and Tim are in love, but neither one acknowledges it - it's possible Tim thinks she's too classy for him. Obviously she doesn't feel that way.

When talkies come in, westerns go that-away. Tim is now in formal attire, filming on a set - he's uncomfortable, he can't remember his lines - so the studio gets rid of him and keeps Gloria.

Tim gets into a bar fight at his favorite haunt and is spotted by a director who thinks he would be great as a gangster. He would be - but that would be letting down his kids. When push comes to shove, he won't do it.

One of his fans who was about to have surgery had promised to get well and visit Tim - and he shows up. Tim at this point is no longer a star, and he has no money. The boy falls off of Tim's horse and is put on bedrest - meaning that Tim can't send him back home (which I think is an orphanage or a special hospital).

Tim decides to call in a few favors, and it turns out, everybody is willing to help. He wants to throw a big party for the boy. He borrows his old ranch for the day. His friends provide food and music.

And the guests - the guests are movie star stand-ins and doubles, and some of them are remarkably like the originals: Joan Crawford, Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, and Mae West, to name a few.

I won't spoil the end, but this is a fun, sweet, feel-good film. Dix is very likeable and natural, and Wray is her usual glamorous and gorgeous self. Enjoy the film, and enjoy those doubles and stand-ins!

There haven't been many movies on the subject of THE most fascinating and terrifying era of Hollywood history - the chaotic and brutal transition from Silents to Talkies (that period ended WAY more Hollywood careers than the McCarthy blacklist era). The best known, of course, are "Singin' In The Rain" (the most complete treatment of the subject, and DAZZLINGLY funny), and "Sunset Blvd" (oh-so-dark, and with razor-sharp teeth), and they were both 20+ years after the fact. Here's one that's less than 10 years removed, when the wounds of the victims were still pretty fresh and oozing, and it's flawed but TERRIBLY fascinating in that light. This page categorizes it as COMEDY, but I didn't detect any (intentional) laughs, except perhaps in the bizarre (and tacked-on-feeling) party sequence near the end featuring actual stand-ins for many major stars of the day. One suspects that Dix played a major role in bringing this story to the screen, and that it might have represented his own story (his thinly-fictionalized character fails to make the switch to talkies because of a mild drawl, and because, supposedly, Westerns are finished due to the inability to take the new technology outdoors). As I studied his filmography on this site, I'm seeing that he was never unemployed during that era, but that he DID go from making 5 or 6 films a year in the mid-'20s to 1 or 2 a year in the early thirties, so I guess that might have been a sufficient jolt to his lifestyle to embitter him a bit. REALLY interesting stuff, and Fay Wray is GORGEOUS and memorable (as always). Absolutely recommendable to any Hollywood history buff.