Hollywood Heartbreak

My review was written in October 1990 after watching the movie on Raedon video cassette.

The corny hem of how difficult it is to break in as a Hollywood scripter becomes a threadbare feature film "Hollywood Heartbreak", which might have worked as a two-reeler.

Filmmaker Lance Dickon commits the grave error of writing a naive, cliched heart-on-sleeve script that's not much better than the weak story plot line espoused by struggling hero Mark Moses. Worse still, the film's "illustrated" segments meant to portray Moses' endlessly pitched screen treatment are poorly staged, on a poverty row level.

Filmed in 1987 with the title "Pitch", the film unfolds oppressively like a silent-era or Hugo Haas 1950s tale of woe. In the opening reel, the destitute hero is stuck with the check twice at meetings with venal producers Ron Karabatsos and Richard Romanus. He finally finds a sympathetic ear in no-nonsense producer Harry Landers.

Just when the picture starts to get going on the basis of Landers' helpful advice, it's over.

Moses' script is a ridiculous post-apocalyptic version of "No Exit", with archetypal characters stuck in a shelter after World War III, arguing. Purporting to be about "the triumph of the human spirit", this storyline is relentlessly gauche, no matter how Moses changes it to fit the needs of each listening producer.

Dickson's spoofing of the "high concept" bias of Hollywood, as when a waiter come p with a female "Deliverance" is dated and superficial. The picture's whiny, complaining tone will be familiar to anyone who ever participated in a bull session by outsiders about what's wrong with American movies.

A more interesting and topical film might be about how a million-dollar bonus baby's script of recent vintage is bastardized by committee filmmaking and an ego-tripping director.

Much is going against this scarcely-known independent release from its outset: a very low budget; a bluntly satiric take on Hollywood's production methods; tandem story lines depicted with little explanation available to viewers; and probable incest between a woman and her sons, and yet the film manages to deliver, 'tho' not consistently, on an artistic front, is not overwritten, and its conceits often are utilized to add narrative strength. Engaging Mark Moses plays as Randy Derringer, an aspiring screenwriter from Ohio with theatre experience who applies at "pitching" a script to a string of sleazy agents and would-be producers, only to discover that his aesthetic sensibilities far exceed theirs, and he also finds that his primary use to them is for picking up the tab after their expensive lunches. As Randy describes his screenplay to potential backers, we see it dramatized, a dystopian affair occurring after nuclear devastation, featuring a quartet whose roles are only tacit: Adman (Adam), Lotte (Eve), Abbey (Abel), and Carl (Cain), the four ensconced within a large and ostensibly sealed chamber where Lottie states that she intends to "populate the race" with her sons, of whom one, Abbey, is played by Moses, in interestingly structured scenes and, although there is scant opportunity for character development, action is used to override lapses of logic. An outdoor sequence at a West Hollywood hot dog stand is the site selected for the final pitch by Randy for his opus, his target a producer nicely played by Harry Landers, and their dialogue is the picture's freshest, in spite of traffic sounds along San Vicente Boulevard that block some of the conversation, unfortunate since it is the most interesting segment pertinent to character and environment in a work that is laden with a too complicated compromise between satiric humour and romantic drama. The piece is rough-edged, full of flaws, and heavily cut; however, camera angles and lighting consistently demonstrate creativity, the scoring is interesting and usually appropriate, while the playing is for the most part well focused, Moses winning the acting laurels for his dual role including a solid portrayal of a young man unwilling to give up his artistic ideals, and there are top-flight performances as well from Carol Mayo Jenkins as Lottie and James LeGros as Carl. The general themes of the production have been employed often, but director/scriptor Lance Dickson manages to form a texture that raises his film above the standard, although its obscurity is assured.