Hollywood Story

This film truly is a Hollywood story, employing real actors from the silent period and filmed on real locations throughout Hollywood and Los Angeles. There are views of buildings up and down Hollywood Blvd., including Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Roosevelt Hotel, Charlie Chaplin Studios on La Brea Ave., the Sunset Strip, Universal Studios, and the Hollywood Christmas Parade. It appears that more silent film stars shot cameos than actually made it into the film, but it still salutes and highlights the early days of Hollywood. Art direction is top notch, the acting is fine, and the story is really entertaining. The mystery is well thought out and keeps you guessing until the end. This is much more serious and top notch than the typical William Castle film.

This movie is a double tribute to the old silent Hollywood era. First because the topic is a mystery oriented scheme and looks very like many late twenties and early thirties movies. There were many mystery tales during this period, the early talkies. The second element that makes me say this film is a tribute to the old Hollywood is the topic itself, concerning a crime commited in 1929 when the movie takes place in the fifties. You see the old shooting lots, old stars such as William Farnum and a couple of other silent era stars as cameo appearances. This kind of movie in the early fifties is rare,but in the seventies, there were some TV movies also evoking old stars in the SUNSET BOULEVARD scheme, and unsolved murder mysteries. A good unusual and brilliant topic for an Universal Studios production, with for once Richard Conte in a non gangster nor hard tough cop role.

I got this film because I like 40s/50s mysteries, because I like Richard Conte, and because it was directed by William Castle and thus HAD to be interesting. Actually, it is an excellent little mystery. New York-based producer Conte comes out to LA to make some films and rents an old studio building that hasn't been used since the silent era (which was only 22 years ago at the time of this film). The last year of silents, 1929, a major silent director was killed at the studio, and the case has never been solved. Conte decides to research the director and the murder for a film plot--he digs up a few of the people who worked at the studio and learns more about the mystery... while a new mystery starts to develop and the guilty party from 1929 starts to cause trouble again. It's as cleverly plotted as the best Columbo or Perry Mason episode, and Conte as always is powerful and sympathetic. He was one of the great post-WWII stars and his work should be revived today--watch THE BROTHERS RICO sometime! Great supporting cast with Jim Backus, Richard Egan, the lovely Julie Adams, and silent star and 30s independent-film regular William Farnum. It's always good to be pleasantly surprised by a film that delivers much more than you expected, and this is such a nice little mystery. It's not on video or DVD, but keep your eye out for it.

On arriving in Hollywood a movie producer sniffs out an old showbiz murder for his first project, but not everyone wants the story told.

Satisfying murder mystery that clips along at a good pace. The establishing scenes are efficient, the dialogue doesn't waste time, and the performances are all strong. This director really knew what he was doing, and in one scene there's an unspoken question why the old-timer watchman didn't hear a gunshot, which is simply answered by him raising a hand to his ear when spoken to.

The story is on an Agatha Christie level of complexity, with all the elements of Marlowe thrown in, but none of the lines live up to Chandler. The solution is a bit pat, and the drama of the love-interest's mother and of the mysterious beautiful nun turn out red herrings, when they should have been the real leads to the truth, drawing us into complex emotions. And so we end up with a short run time.

Music is unremarkable. A lot of interest in the shots of contemporary Holywood.

Producer Richard Conte comes to Hollywood to make his next picture. While he's figuring out a subject, he rents an old studio. The guard tells him about a director murdered at the dawn of sound, still unsolved. Conte decides that will make a terrific picture. High school friend and now Hollywood agent Jim Backus hates the idea, as does Conte's partner Fred Clark. Julia Adams, the daughter of a movie star with whom the dead man was linked, asks him to drop it. Even police detective Richard Egan comes by to quiz Conte and tell him it's a terrible idea. conte persists, even hiring the dead director's washed-up screenwriter, Henry Hull. Then there is another murder...

It's a canny, nostalgic movie directed by William Castle, who knows how to evoke old Hollywood without getting trapped in antiques. The studio that Conte rents is Chaplin's studio, and there cameos for a Betty Blythe, a Francis X. Bushman, and William Farnum. The mystery, although far from the William Desmond Taylor murder that inspired it, is nicely constructed, with some decent red herrings. It's a fine example of the unassuming picture that does everything you so right that that it becomes a minor masterpiece.