Hollywood Boulevard

In the autumn of 1975, Roger Corman set out to make the fastest, cheapest drive-in movie in the history of New World Pictures. This wild, uproarious cult classic is the result. Candice Rialson is Candy Hope, a starry-eyed Midwestern beauty hoping to make it big on that street of dreams, only to find that the glitter is just glass from broken liquor bottles. Instead, she ends up as a contract starlet with Miracle Pictures, a prolific B-movie factory grinding out sleaze epics for the passion pits of America (sound familiar?). Dick Miller is her agent. The always-fantastic Mary Woronov is Mary McQueen, the studio's Amazonian leading lady who has no patience with the new crop of upstarts ("You get your boobs in front of a camera and you're ready to jump into the cement!"). Everyone is shipped to the Philipines to shoot Machete Maidens of Moratau, with Paul Bartel as the director ("Your motivation is to massacre 3,000 Asiatic soldiers."). The film is pieced together with stock footage from other New World masterpieces, particularly Death Race 2000, with Candy donning David Carradine's famous leather mask. A kid at a drive-in cries out for more sex, while his parents deride the movie as "sick" and "worse than television." A drive down Hollyweird shows the famous Pussycat Theatre and various adult bookstores and massage parlors. A romantic interlude is serenaded by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, belting out a raucous, dirty country tune. Mary's name is superimposed onto the poster for Untamed Mistress. Robbie the Robot refuses to do nudity. B-movie in-jokes come thick and fast, including a girl stabbed to death on a bed frame a la Snuff. The whole thing looks great, especially for $60,000, and is consistently hilarious--especially Mary, complete with cigarette holder and the vocabulary of a sailor. A bona fide drive-in classic. And remember..."If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"

Ultra-cheap even by New World Pictures standards, naive go-getter with stars in her eyes Candice Rialson ("my friends call me Candy") finds herself the reluctant débutante in a z-grade Phillipino actioner when her shonky agent (Miller) signs her up for stunt work in the latest film of the "Miracle Pictures" assembly line. The last stunt girl died as a result of the paltry set conditions but Candy is willing to give almost anything a go if it means an opportunity to make it big. Initially duped into robbing a bank that she thinks is a hidden camera role, "Hollywood Boulevard" chronicles Candy's coming of age as she matures in the sordid, tempestuous industry of exploitation film.

Really just a self parody, directors Dante and Arkush have spared much expense cobbling together this endless parade of in-jokes and raunch, with dialogue to die for ("now get it up, or I'll cut if off") and enough skin to make a porn star blush. Bartel is amusing as the ultra efficient director, desperate to placate his high maintenance leading lady (Woronov) and come in under budget, while Jeffrey Kramer (fresh from "Jaws") trundles out the banal scripts like confetti at a wedding, while wooing Candy on the side.

Lots of bare flesh, flying limbs, simulated sex and corny double entendres to offend almost everybody, and, a bizarre blue grass musical number of zero relevance thrown in for good measure. If you're not a devotee of the New World Pictures experience, then doubtful "Hollywood Boulevard" will be your cup of tea; for everyone else, it's a trademark romp down to the usual standards.

The flick doesn't so much satirize or parody drive-in cheapos as it mocks them. And what movie series is easier to mock than the rubber monsters, cheezy sets, and sloppy directing from the 50's. In fact those earlier flicks pretty much made fun of themselves, and I can imagine what went on behind those set-ups. Here, those behind-the-scenes come to imagined life and add up to the flick's goofy core. But no teen of that era cared what critics thought, including myself. Then too, I really liked the drive-in crowd scene here, where anything goes including make-out teens on car fenders and wholesome 50's type families who actually watch the screen.

Anyhow, the action never stops after the first part. It's all explosions, gunfire, and production crew misfires, and shouldn't overlook the many topless actresses who are anything but misfires. Speaking of actresses, Rialson and Woronov's characters Candy and Mary are not mocked, being more abused by the quickie industry than lampooned. In fact the opening scenes of the stage-struck Candy getting taken-in by fast-talking operators like Walter (Miller) strike a more somber and realistic note than the movie's goofy remainder. In fact, despite the overlying lunacy, there's a somber subtext: namely, that Hollywood exploits the heck out of young women, making them readily dispensable like Jill and Mary. Perhaps that's not a surprising reality to most of us, but a worthwhile under-current to the tom-foolery, nevertheless.

On a lighter note, good to see real veterans of Roger Corman's drive-in empire getting lead roles here - I'll bet they had fun mocking their past. Anyway, brace yourself for an hour-plus of nonstop action and lots of laughs from a nutzoid look at good-times past at the beloved drive-in.

I spent the best years of the 1970s at the drive-in, and this film is a most enjoyable look at drive-in movies and the people who made them. If you don't count the Ingmar Bergmans, it may be the best picture ever released by New World Studios. I saw this on big screen, before the print had gotten very many scratches, and more recently on video where it held up as any other classic does.

New World editors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush were allowed by boss Roger Corman to direct a picture, within very strict budgetary limitations, and they produced this classic look at drive-in films and the people who make them, just a few years before the whole genre was kicked into limbo by the VCR. Through clever use of action footage from older New World films, Arkush and Dante brought their film in on budget and earned their first professional directorial credits.

Aspiring actress Candice Rialson (wow!) hits town, fresh from Indiana, and secures the services of scruffy talent agent Walter Paisley (okay!), who gets her work in lowbudget pix from Miracle Studios ("It it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!") -- where they make movies like BAD GIRL IN BOYS TOWN and ATOMIC WAR BRIDES, where director Paul Bartel reminds Godzilla, "Your motivation in this scene is to step on as many people as possible," and where Mary Woronov is the queen of the lot. Skinny snarling starlets blast away with machine guns. Extras from THE HOT BOX fall out of trees in the Philippines. Model-Ts crash in BIG BAD MAMA. Candy jumps to dodge rolling car debris. Wait a minute, somebody is killing the starlets here at Miracle! Rita George dies! Tara Strohmeier dies (NOOO!!!!). Who's doing it? Is Candy next on the list? Who will survive and what will be left of them?

We also visit a glam movie premiere at a Valley drive-in, watch a boy-girl scene scored to a somewhat revised version of "Everybody's Truckin'," with the band serenading the gropers live, and we see Paisley audition Robby the Robot ("Let me hear you say 'Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn'"). Candice Rialson is perfect (in her best role) as the naive Candy, Mary Woronov goes gleefully over the top as movie legend Mary McQueen, and Dick Miller should be in EVERY motion picture that comes out of Hollywood. The treatment of the wacky world of drive-in moviemaking is affectionate, there are a lot of cameos, and anyone who likes Dante's or Arkush's other work will find this well worth the 80-odd minutes it takes to watch. However, I have never been able to spot Belinda Balaski anywhere in this, and she's not named in the IMDB credits. Is this the only Dante film she's not in?

Corman remade the film in 1989 as HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD 2, with Ginger Lynn Allen in the lead, but it is just a remake, not a sequel, and even though the budget is considerably larger it is not as fresh or as funny (though it's not as bad as the remakes of BIG BAD MAMA or ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL).

This film belongs on a drive-in screen, not on your tv set, but since that is the only place you're ever going to see it now, crank up your living room Rolls Canardly and have some fun. I used to give this a rating of 9 on the IMDB scale, but having finally seen THE PASSION OF JEANNE D'ARC in the meantime, I have lowered BOULEVARD to a more realistic 8.

To be entirely honest, I came close to abandoning "Hollywood Boulevard" after a few minutes already, due to the exaggeratedly goofy sequence of a stunt woman crashing from a plane and leaving a person-shaped crater in the ground upon impact. That sort of stuff belongs in a "Tom and Jerry" or "Roadrunner" cartoon, but not here. But because Roger Corman and Joe Dante are involved, and mainly because the gorgeous Tara Strohmeier was standing around topless for no reason, there was a little voice inside my head encouraging me to continue. It might get better...

Overall, I'm glad I persevered. There are many more silly and downright idiotic moments like these in "Hollywood Boulevard", but also the showcasing of brilliant tongue-in-cheek satire and in-house parody. Roger Corman gave two of his canniest acolytes (Joe "Piranha" Dante and Allan "Rock & Roll High School" Arkush) 10 days, $60.000, and free access to the outtakes of his previous film-hits (notably "Death Race 2000). What they delivered in return is a bonkers but imaginative - and, yes, occasionally dreary - cocktail of comedy, sleaze, horror, and parody.

"Hollywood Boulevard" begins as a tale about a naïve young actress struggling to make it in the movie industry, continues as a portrait on how difficult it is to remain successful in that same industry, and ends (quite fantastically) as a slasher in which the sexy B-movie actresses are the targets of a maniacal killer. What makes "Hollywood Boulevard" so enjoyable is the marvelous cast of Corman-regulars and the shameless exploitation of beautiful female nudity. Paul Bartel is splendid as the unworldly director who loves himself and Dick Miller is genius as the sly talent agent. Actresses Tara Strohmeier, Candice Rialson, and Rita George also give more than admirable performances, but - who are we kidding - are most memorable for their topless appearances. The long and 200% gratuitous sequence where the three of them are sunbathing half-naked on a beach in The Philippines probably still is the highlight of Joe Dante's and Alan Arkush's careers!

Oh, and you simple have to love the fictional "Miracle Films" production company's slogan: If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle.