Although made of steel on screen, “Superman” superstar George Reeves hated the role.
Beset with guilt and humiliation over having to wear a “clown costume” and perform in front of kids and their gaga parents, he took the role to make ends meet.
It was an acting job, and actors act. The end!
But most of the audience watching the new Allen Coulter smash-to-be knows there was more to the story. Most know that Reeves was, in fact, destroyed by TV, the new crack cocaine of the arts. He played in 104 episodes in the mid 1950s and when he finally landed a bit part in the promising feature “From Here to Eternity” in 1953, he was hopelessly typecast as the clownish flying stranger from another planet.
In a serious dramatic role audiences laughed at him. Although, contrary to rumor, his parts were not cut from “Eternity,” his future in Hollywood was over. He died in his Beverly Hills bedroom of a gunshot in 1959. Although officially ruled suicide, doubts persist.
Picking up on this poignant tale is screenwriter Paul Bernbaum. He takes a lesson from E.L. Doctorow and fashions a creditable story around a detective hired to find out what really happened to George Reeves (Ben Affleck).
The detective is Louis Simo, played in a terrific take of updated film noir by Adrien Brody. The scene is 1950s Hollywood, ten years after Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes slunk through the dusty sleaze of post-war LA to fight a water scandal pushed by a deviant tycoon.
The movie industry is growing by leaps and bounds and everybody wants part of the easy money. MGM is running the show and the second in command is Eddie Mannix, transmuted mob boss from New Jersey played to a tee by Bob Hoskins, one of a half-dozen stellar character actors that make this film the stuff of Oscars.
Struggling actor George Reeves fell in love with Toni Mannix and soon landed the role of Superman. Although he was the star, she supplied the money.
Eddie and Toni had an open marriage and although Superman fans were shielded from such shenanigans by public relations wizards such as MGM’s Howard Strickling (Joe Spano—“Hill Street Blues”) everybody in Hollywood knew. As best we can tell, Eddie was OK with any love affair Toni might choose, but woe be to he who broke her heart.
Ending the relationship was her option and her’s alone. Reeves broke the code when Superman ended its run and he left LA for New York and Toni for actress wannabe Leonore Lemmon. A year later he was dead of a gunshot occurring at the tail end of a small party with Lemmon and others.
His last performance was a home video of him tumbling on his front lawn showing moves he could use in exhibition wrestling, the vaudeville fighting that eventually became America’s “professional wrestling.”
This sequence middle-aged star pretending to be a wrestler is a show stopper. Wincing with every fall, Reeves eats his pride one slug at a time and comes up for more.
It is a kind and good man’s swan song. In two weeks he was dead of three possible causes: suicide, revenge by Eddie Mannix or drunken rage by Leonore Lemmon.
Screenwriter Bernbaum breaks the complex story of Reeves and detective Simo into two simultaneous stories that overlap in their characters and timing. The overlapping allows one story to feed off the other, filling in gaps and illuminating the characters from different angles.
We get a look at Simo as he probes the diverse denizens and mixed motivations surrounding Reeves and the mega-arts, LA style. Simo is hired by Reeves’ mother, Helen Bessolo, in an all-too-short performance by Lois Smith who recently exceeded some 100 credits dating from ‘East of Eden’ with James Dean and “Five Easy Pieces” with Jack Nicholson.
When a film has the claws to grab talent like that for less than ten minutes film time, there might be something cooking.
As Simo proceeds to take Bessolo to the cleaners he swings from cynical and self serving to empathetic and truth seeking. But as happened to Jake Gettes, nobody else changes with him. In the end all he gets is a sock on the jaw and proof that nothing changes much anyway. He is left to put his obsessed life back together, alone. He ends up a sucker in his own circus.
‘Hollywoodland’ is a credit to director Allen Coulter, a man who can claim success in his first feature length film after years of successes with “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City.” After reading Bernbaum’s screenplay in 2002 he worked with producer Glenn Williamson for several years to get it into the shape he wanted. He slows down the action in Reeves’ scenes, reflecting the actor’s openness and sensitivity and speeds it up in Simo’s scenes to underscore the gum-shoe’s frenetic mindset.
When he turned the script over to Ben Affleck the young actor must have seen something in it he liked, because he shines in the Reeves’ role. Maybe it is because of Affleck’s years of disappointments and working and waiting for the break but he works to be Reeves, and he works as Reeves. This is his best work to date.
Cinematographer Jonathan Freeman adds just the right grainy noir look to take us back to the stark and gritty LA of the 1950s (although the cars are still too clean).
Other great supporting work by Oscar nominated Diane Lane (‘Unfaithful,’ 2002) as a savvy and sexy Toni Mannix and Bob Hoskins (‘Mrs. Henderson Presents,’ 2005) as tough but vulnerable Eddie Mannix, the killer with a heart like a whale.
One of the most entertaining films so far this year. Fun to watch from start to finish without excessive blood, gore or sex.
Opens wide September 8 2006. MPAA Rating R for language, some violence and sexual content.
Your Talkback on this Story