HOLLYWOOD STORY (1951)

In 1929, movie director Franklin Ferrara is murdered in a bungalow on the grounds of National Artists studio. Silent stars Amanda Rousseau and Roland Paul and Ferrara's assistant Charles Rodeo (rumored to have been Ferrara's brother) all visited the bungalow the night of the murder and are caught up in the scandal, but the murder is never solved. Charles disappears and the careers of the actors are ended. Some twenty years later, Broadway producer Larry O'Brien (Richard Conte) and his agent Mitch Davis make a deal to reopen the studio where O'Brien intends to make a movie based on the murder. O'Brien’s financial partner (Fred Clark) is against it, and a cop (Richard Egan) advises O'Brien about the dangers of stirring up the past, but he forges ahead. He hires some silent movie stars to play in the film, and when he discovers Ferrara's screenwriter Vincent St. Clair (Henry Hull), living penniless as a beach bum, O'Brien hires him to write the script. Amanda's daughter Sally (Julie Adams) shows up, saying that Amanda was Ferrara's lover and that, though most people suspected Roland Paul of being the murderer, she doesn't think he was, and she wants him to give up the film for the sake of those concerned who are still alive. When someone takes a shot at O'Brien, he becomes more determined not just to make the movie but to solve the twenty-year old murder.

The idea behind this is interesting: it's based on the still-unsolved murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor which involved a starlet he may have had an affair with—or was he gay?. (I highly recommend a 1986 nonfiction book called Cast of Killers by Sidney Kirkpatrick, largely based on research on the murder done by film director King Vidor.) This starts out well as the pieces all get put in place, but as the tension should grow, it slacks off. Richard Conte, a reliable B-lead, is only so-so here, lacking leading man energy. The other actors are serviceable. Especially good are Jim Backus, in a small role as Mitch the agent, and Henry Hull as the broken-down screenwriter. A handful of silent stars, including Francis X. Bushman, appear as themselves in a very short scene inspired by Sunset Boulevard, and Joel McCrea has a cameo as himself. William Castle, before the 60s horror films that made his name, directs in a journeyman fashion. An OK time passer, but a little frustrating given the potentials of the plot. Pictured are Adams and Conte. [DVD]