New York theatrical producer Larry O'Brien plans to start a film company in Hollywood and purchases a disused studio from the days of silent films. In the studio's office, a famous director was murdered 20 years earlier but the case was never solved. O'Brien becomes fascinated by the subject and decides to produce a film based on the case. He interviews the surviving members of the old studio, hiring many for the film, but soon finds danger himself.
The film was an attempt by Universal Pictures to take advantage of the success of Paramount'sSunset Boulevard, which was released the previous year. The plot is believed to be based on the murder of silent-film director William Desmond Taylor.[1] While Hollywood Story reaches a fictional conclusion, it closely follows the circumstances of the real-life event.
The film features cameo appearances by famous silent-film stars, but those with speaking parts were paid just $55 per day ($666 in 2024 dollars). Others, such as Elmo Lincoln, the first screen Tarzan, appear as non-speaking extras and were paid only $15 per day ($182 in 2024 dollars).[1]
Hollywood Story was director William Castle's final film of his three-year contract with Universal. He shot many scenes at Charlie Chaplin Studios, built in 1917, to lend the film the air of old Hollywood.[2]
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "It is easy to see, now, why some pictures which sound promising at the start, on the strength of the ideas behind them, turn out to be dismal flops. 'Hollywood Story' demonstrates it ... [S]criptwriters Frederick Kohner and Fred Brady have cooked up ... a pretty routine assembly of simple who-dunnit cliches into a silly and not very startling disclosure of a motive for a crime. The police must have been awfully lazy back in 1929."[3]
References
12Lyons, Arthur (2000). Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir!. Da Capo Press. pp.99–100. ISBN978-0-306-80996-5.
↑Castle, William (1976). Step right up!: ... I'm gonna scare the pants off America. Putnam. p.121.
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