Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

John Byrum wrote and directed this brave but ultimately unsuccessful character piece about stag filmmakers in 1930s Hollywood. There are five characters: Richard Dreyfuss is the burnt-out director working out of his home, Veronica Cartwright is his heroin-shooting starlet, Steven Davies is the stud, Bob Hoskins (trying hard to disguise his British accent) is a drug-supplying producer and Jessica Harper is a would-be actress. No one involved is able (or interested) in capturing the era; Byrum thinks dropping names and details will help his scenario finds its bearings, but just having his characters chat about Clark Gable isn't enough. Filmed in 'real time'--on one set like a stage play--there's no hope in breaking free from these spitting, clawing people, while Dreyfuss's anachronistic charm goes wasted. *1/2 from ****

I knew absolutely nothing about this film before viewing it recently. Richard Dreyfuss, is, of course a very famous actor, although this movie was near the beginning of his career. It is sexy, but the furor over X ratings back in the day was much overblown. (No pun intended) The MPAA made a big mistake using X as a rating, because the porn industry immediately invented XXX. NC-17 is a better idea, but it should maybe be used for things other than sex, such as graphic violence. It is weird you can't show much frontal nudity, even without graphic sex, but you can show dismemberment and disemboweling to teenagers all day long. Anyway, this was a nice, and quite odd character study, mainly in Dreyfuss' and Jessica Harper's roles. And the young Veronica Cartwright was interesting, too. A decent, and different film.

Having been mesmerised by her performance in Dario Argento's 1977 Horror film Suspiria,I decided to take a look at Jessica Harper's other IMDb credits.Focusing on the movies which she featured in from the 1970's,I was shocked to find,that in amongst her Woody Allen,Argento and Brian De Palma credits,Harper had starred in an NC-17 film filled with an amazing cast.Checking up for the movie on Amazon UK,I was disappointed to find a single copy of the movie being pricier than I had expected (20 pounds.)As the weeks began to pass by,I kept finding myself looking at the DVD,which eventually led to me giving in to my excitement for seeing the film,and at last taking a look,at the almost buried in time inserts.The plot:Originally finding himself as Hollywood's bright young thing of the 1930's,a film director, (nicknamed "the Boy Wonder" sees his luck go completely down the drain,when all of the Hollywood studio's slowly start to change from embracing silent movies,to only making movies featuring sound.Secluding himself inside a hollow Hollywood mansion,"Boy Wonder" finds that the only opportunity the he has left in Hollywood is to make films in his mansion for an "Adult" movie producer called Big Mac.Mac tells the director that if he succeeds in making this movie a hit,than he promises to give him a six-deal contract.Being supported by his drug-addled girlfriend Harlene,"the Boy Wonder" decides to make an "adult" movie,which shows the actors entering the "zone" and "reaching their peak".Ignoring the stress that he is putting on Harlene and a cheap,wannabe Hollywood star called Rex,The Wonder Dog,due to the producer and his girlfriend (Cathy Cake) always looking over his shoulders,the "Boy Wonder" starts to suspect that this will be a much more troubling shoot than he had originally expected,when his lead actress/girlfriend Harlene is suddenly found dead in his bedroom from a drug overdose.View on the film:Backed by Denys N. Coop's (who also worked on Carol Reed's The Third Man) elegant,sun lit cinematography,screenwriter/director John Byrum, (who sadly had his own life imitating art moment,with being the director and co-writer of Bill Murray's 1984 dream project:The Razor's Edge,which despite having a good amount of support from the studio, (who let Murray make the movie,so that he would sign up for Ghostbuster's) ended up being a box office bomb,and stopped Byrum from building on the amazing skill that he shows here) gives the film a strong,daring theatrical approach.Making the setting of the movie be one location filled with only five characters,Byrum uses long,flowing 3 plus minute takes for 90% of the film,which cleverly allow for the performances of the brilliant cast to feel unexpectedly "natural" and slowly getting into a "grove" with each others character.Initially only giving the bare minimum of character motive and backgrounds for the first 30 minutes,John Byrum's sharp screenplay slowly unravels and builds to a disturbing intensity as the wild,frenzied,half drug-inducted haze of the characters personalities start to crash over the camera being able to fully show them reaching their peak performance.Going in the complete opposite direction of her performance in Suspiria,Jessica Harper gives a gripping performance,wild,weird and confident performance as Cathy Cake.Being only one of two actors (the other being Dreyfuss) to feature in the last 30 minutes,Harper shows that she has no fears at all about going toe to toe with Dreyfuss,as Harper goes almost completely naked for the section of the film,she smartly decides to have Cake ooze confidence and have a strong laid back attitude in the films intense (but not too explicit) sex scenes,which feature moments that would make any current Hollywood star run a mile away!.Leaving behind any sign of sanity or confidence behind,Veronica Cartwright gives a wonderfully deranged performance as Harlene,which can go from being sweetly tender, (such as giving "the Boy Wonder" a push to not give up) to being jaw-dropping insanity (a scene about Harlene filming an "Adult" section of the movie has Cartwright franticly move around and look as if Harlene may be about to break into two pieces.Channaling the soul of a reclusive Howard Hughes ,(who would die two years later),Richard Dreyfuss impressively stops the "Boy Wonder" from simply becoming a woe-is-me down & out by giving him a wicked sense of humour,to show Big Mac (played by a nice'N' mean Bob Hoskins) that he is not an easy push over,and also a growing sense of doubt and anxiety,as the "Boy Wonder" starts to wonder if the Hollywood lights are fading away,to leave him in the dark.

When this film came out in the mid 1970's, I was more or less interested in its imagery of 1930's decadence. However, I'm not sure, but it probably would have repulsed me had I seen it in my early 20's. I actually thought that I would never get to see this little gem at all since it was so obscure. It was unavailable for years, but just recently I was able to get it on DVD. My more mature outlook on life some 30 years later made me appreciate the movie, though some of the sexually explicit scenes still made me wince. But after all was said and done, it more or less took the eroticism out of the concept of the pornography industry for me, and I was able to appreciate the black comedy of it all, highly sardonic, cynical, and sarcastic.I began to consider each and every one of the actors in this flick to be pioneers in the independent cinema genre. None of them were afraid to take the risks involved by appearing in something like this, most of all Dreyfuss, considering "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" and others. Furthermore, they all became fairly successful afterward. I've seen other actors fall further into obscurity and then out of the picture completely after falling into the sexually explicit abyss.This movie satisfied my curiosity for the decadence that I was always curious about. I also noticed that it had a "Sunset Boulevard" quality; it projected the same message, the cruelty of Hollywood, where dreams can be made and lost simultaneously. It also depicted misplaced priorities, addiction and its consequences and greed.I was impressed that this was done simulating the three color process that was a forerunner to Technicolor. Set design was very well done; you only had one set, but there was a lot to look at in every corner, and they took you all over every corner. Costumes, well, there wasn't much there, save Boy Wonder's bathrobe and Rex, the Wonder Dog's infamous ascot.It's a must see, but maybe not suggested for the faint of heart.