... and a film that would never win an Oscar nor do I think its makers imagined that it would.
In the same vein as "Valley of the Dolls", it's a camp classic about Hollywood. It paints Hollywood as full of vicious amoral people, but the worst of them is Frankie Fane (Stephen Boyd). The film starts at the Academy Awards where Frankie Fane is expecting to win the Best Actor Oscar, which he needs to get back on top. The film then traces his rise in Hollywood, a rise that is full of him stepping on other people. There are tons of Hollywood stereotypes and situations in the process.
But along the way he meets an actor who has aged out of leading parts and has suddenly been labeled box office poison and has to take a job as head waiter where his old Hollywood pals eat because he has also ran through all of his money. Frankie is terrified of becoming that guy, and yet he oddly does everything he can to become just that guy. He uses people and discards them, and he also spends like there is no tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes. Complications ensue.
It's too bad Boyd isn't better remembered today for roles other than that of Messala in Ben Hur, because he really was a very good actor. He takes a part that could have been quite two dimensional and breathes some life into it so that his character is a very believable and hissable villain.
In the same vein as "Valley of the Dolls", it's a camp classic about Hollywood. It paints Hollywood as full of vicious amoral people, but the worst of them is Frankie Fane (Stephen Boyd). The film starts at the Academy Awards where Frankie Fane is expecting to win the Best Actor Oscar, which he needs to get back on top. The film then traces his rise in Hollywood, a rise that is full of him stepping on other people. There are tons of Hollywood stereotypes and situations in the process.
But along the way he meets an actor who has aged out of leading parts and has suddenly been labeled box office poison and has to take a job as head waiter where his old Hollywood pals eat because he has also ran through all of his money. Frankie is terrified of becoming that guy, and yet he oddly does everything he can to become just that guy. He uses people and discards them, and he also spends like there is no tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes. Complications ensue.
It's too bad Boyd isn't better remembered today for roles other than that of Messala in Ben Hur, because he really was a very good actor. He takes a part that could have been quite two dimensional and breathes some life into it so that his character is a very believable and hissable villain.