Myrna Loy

Hollywood Hist-o-rama: Myrna Loy (1961)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Lasting anywhere between three and four minutes, the Hollywood HIST-O-RAMA series shouldn't be looked at as some sort of documentary that's going to tell you everything about the subject. After all, with such a short running time it would be impossible to go into great details about anything but I'm sure people back when this was made would have at least enjoyed them.

This episode starts off by telling us what Myrna Loy's original name was and where she grew up and then we get into how she ended up in Hollywood. We hear how she was sponsored by Valentino before getting work playing a vamp. We hear how she ended up working free style in pictures such of THE MASK OF FUMANCHU, NEW MORALS FOR OLD, THIRTEEN WOMEN, THE THIN MAN series and CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN. Again, if you're expecting some sort of full biography then you're going to be disappointed. This thing here is basically for people to see how they were showing movie stars back in 1962. I'm sure there were many young kids who didn't know who Loy was so seeing something like this would at least give them a few ideas and perhaps spark their interest in her and her work.

Although the information contained in this little biographical feature is quite interesting, and the photographs are great, some stuff I've never seen before, I found this short to be almost impossible to watch.

For some unfathomable reason, director Joseph R. Juliano seems to think that the way to keep the interest of the audience in a 1962 theater is to smear a loud, raucous sound track over the narration, almost completely drowning it out.

This is during the *entire* movie, mind you. Not just the opening credits, or some bridge music between sentences. The music does not stop during the entire four minutes of run time. I understood maybe a third of what was said about Myrna.