Hooray for Hollywood

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Ever since the dawn of motions pictures, the movies have mesmerized audiences and instilled dreams in many young men and women who aspired to see themselves on the big screen. Some of them made it big, but for many Hollywood was the proverbial ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ that dashed the hopes of so many. Unfortunately, in some cases those hopes ended tragically and one of those victims, Peg Entwistle, is actually the jumping off point — no pun intended — for the new Ryan Murphy limited series Hollywood.

For a little context, Enwistle was a stage actress who made her way to California hoping to get into the pictures but after a single film, and despite mostly positive reviews for her stage work, Entwistle was so despondent she threw herself from the H of the (then) Hollywoodland sign. This story is the centerpiece of the series as young, aspiring screenwriter Archie Coleman (Jeremy Pope) hopes his script titled ‘Peg’ will get a greenlight at Ace Studios. The only problem is Archie is Black — and homosexual — and he submitted the script blind, so no one at the studio knows of his race. At that point in time, and the show is set in 1947, Black screenwriters wrote for Black movies and Black audiences. It’s quite an audacious thing for Archie to write a movie about a White character.

Jack (David Corenswet) is a young Midwesterner come to town with his wife also in hopes of getting into the movies, attending cattle calls at the Ace Studios gate every day while his wife Henrietta earns a living at Schwab’s. But with the power turned off at their apartment, Jack finds himself ‘discovered’ by a man named Ernie. Ernie however isn’t a producer, he owns a filling station called Golden Tip and the young, handsome male attendants pump more than gas for Ernie’s female and male customers. Jack finds himself servicing Avis Amberg (Patti Lupone), wife of the head of Ace Studios, a bit of fate that plays into his favor.

Darren Criss plays Raymond, a director with big dreams of doing a movie with Anna May Wong, a real actress who famously lost the role of an Asian woman in The Good Earth to a White actress who went on to win the Oscar for the role. But the studio in no uncertain terms will produce a big budget feature film starring an Asian woman with a reputation for being difficult. Raymond, who is half-Filipino but passes as White, is in a relationship with up-and-coming actress Camille … who is Black and frustrated with being relegated to ‘sassy maid’ roles even though acting coach Ellen Kincaid (Holland Taylor) says she’s the best actress of her students on the lot. And then there is Claire Wood, another aspiring actress in Ellen’s class who happens to be the daughter of Ace and Avis, but wants to make a go of things on her own.

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All of these characters are brought together when the script for ‘Peg’ is greenlit … and then things change when one of the department heads, Dick (Joe Mantello) learns Archie is Black. Raymond sees this as a chance to push the studio into making this film, with Archie’s name in the credits, as a major motion picture with a Black lead actress, Camille, under the new title ‘Peg’, taking the real life story and turning it into a cautionary parable. But is 1947 America ready for such a film?

For a seven episode series, Hollywood is a sprawling epic with a huge cast of characters both fictional and real. While some real-life actors like Wong, Tallulah Bankhead, Hattie McDaniel and Vivien Leigh are woven into the story, one of the most well-known actors portrayed here is Roy Fitzgerald, aka Rock Hudson (Jake Picking), fresh in town and one of the Golden Tip customers who is assigned Archie as his ‘attendant’ (Jack helped Archie get a job when he refused to deal with male customers). Archie and Roy connect on a deeper level than customer and client and before long they are living together and Roy has an agent, Henry Willson (Jim Parsons). Willson is a notoriously real person who was known for taking advantage of his male clients, something that plays loud and clear in today’s #MeToo climate. (The casting of Mira Sorvino as an actress engaged in an affair with Ace Amberg but afraid to break it of for fear of being blacklisted is almost a little too on the nose.)

As the series looks at the lives of these characters, the main thrust is also getting the picture made in a time of great bigotry and prejudice in Hollywood towards people of color. Of course, this is also social commentary on how things are today as well, not just in Hollywood but in every day society. Hollywood is a revisionist history of a Tinseltown where a Black actress can star in a movie and engage in an interracial relationship, and homosexual actors and writers can face the scorn of society and live openly … if they have a hit movie on their hands. And I think that is the mirror Murphy and company are trying to hold up to society. Judge people on their merits, not on the color of their skin or who their sleeping with.

Hollywood is handsomely produced with sumptuous sets and costumes, sparing no expense. If nothing else, the show looks great. But for a seven-episode series, the first two episodes are a bit top-heavy with character introductions (many of the main characters don’t even appear until Episode 2) and world-building. One thing we always have to keep in mind while watching Hollywood is that this is not a documentary, despite the presence of real-life characters, and when all is said and done, it could really be viewed as a fairy tale. But is it one with a happy ending? You’ll have to tune in to find out.

Unlike a lot of Ryan Murphy projects, Hollywood‘s leading cast are all virtual unknowns, save for Criss. Corenswet, Harrier, Picking and Pope do have some acting jobs to their credits, but this is arguably the biggest thing they’ve been in yet. Weaving is a bit more well-known for her starring role in Ready or Not. What’s interesting about their performances is that for the bulk of the show they all come across as a bit flat (except for Criss) … until we see their performances in the movie in which they feel more realistic than acting their roles. Perhaps the issue is that they are overshadowed by the veterans in the cast.

Criss is fine and you do root for him to get his film made and succeed in his relationship with Camille. Lupone is terrific as Avis. When we first meet her, we just assume she’s going to be a heartless bitch who’s cheating on her husband and has no love for her daughter. But as events begin to unfold, Avis transforms and Lupone’s performance really does end up endearing her to the audience (Rob Reiner plays her husband Ace in a small role). McDermott has the role of the oily pimp down perfectly, making what could be an unlikable character more audience-friendly as the story progresses (no spoilers here). Parsons has probably the most difficult character of the piece because Willson is the show’s true villain, from his predatory actions with Hudson and others to finagling his way into a producer role on ‘Meg’ when a gossip rag threatens to expose Jack’s previous arrest for soliciting while working for Ernie. Parsons makes it very easy to hate Henry, and later in the series he gets a very real reaction from Rock after an attempted apology. It’s quite a departure from his Sheldon role.

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For my money, the two actors who really make Hollywood worth watching are Holland Taylor and Joe Mantello. Taylor is a Hollywood veteran who after years of small roles finally became well-known in the TV sitcom Bosom Buddies with a young Tom Hanks. Holland’s Ellen Kincaide is a forward-thinking woman who sees Camille’s talent and is willing to fight tooth-and-nail for her to be cast as ‘Meg’ over Claire as ‘Peg’. Ellen is someone you’d want in your corner and Taylor can do just as much with a glance of an eye as she can with a line of dialog. It’s a crime that Taylor only has one Emmy to her credit. She certainly deserves recognition for this performance.

Kincaide works in a partnership with Dick, and Joe Mantello is simply magnificent in the role. Dick is just as forward-thinking as Ellen, and it’s he who really pushes the studio to take a chance on Archie, Camille and ‘Meg’ despite the dire warnings of the lawyers that the film will bankrupt the studio because no theater in the South will play it. Mantello brings strength and compassion to the role while also letting us see that Dick has his own internal struggles. While he’s out championing everyone else, he himself is fearful that he’ll lose his job if his secret is revealed. Mantello brings a warm humanity to the role and every time he’s on screen, you just want to see more. I could watch another season of Hollywood with Mantello and Taylor getting another picture made with another crew of fresh-faced newcomers. For my money, Mantello is the real star of Hollywood and if he isn’t at least nominated for an Emmy, there’s no justice in this world.

Over all, Hollywood is an enjoyable bit of Hollywood fantasy. It takes a little too much time getting started over its first two episodes — and that’s a lot with just five episodes to follow — but in the end I bought into it and may have needed a tissue or two as the final two episodes unspooled. Sit back and let Hollywood transport you to another era, take it on its own terms, and perhaps come away a bit more enlightened on how race and sexuality were viewed more than half a century ago.

What did you think of Hollywood? Sound off in the comments below!