Hollywoodland DVD Review

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"Hollywoodland" reviews

DVD

Hollywoodland

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2007-03-16 16:00:51

Provider

DVD Review

Long before Christopher Reeve donned the famous cape, George Reeves played Superman on US television and on the big screen in Superman And The Mole-Men. But in 1959, at just 45, he died (allegedly) at his own hand. This prompted Hollywoodland, a film that 48 years on from the events examines the actor's life and death.

The film re-creates two bygone eras of Los Angeles - the 40s to early 50s and, following Reeves's death, 1959-60. It stars Ben Affleck as Reeves and Adrien Brody as a fictional private eye, Louis Simo. Simo is hired by Reeves's mother to look into his death after the police find his blood-splattered body and declare it a clear case of suicide.

Simo digs deep into the actor's life and background to learn that not only was he decidedly unhappy with his lot, feeling trapped by the superhero image; but he was in the midst of a love affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane) whose husband, Eddie (Bob Hoskins) was a brutish studio executive at MGM. The film proceeds to alternate between tracing the development of the Reeves-Mannix affair and Simo's ongoing investigation as discovery is illustrated by flashback and vice versa.

There may still be unanswered questions even as the credits roll but it probably makes for a better ending than a simplistic finale that some would have felt would be more fitting to the film's title.

When the credits stop rolling, however, the entertainment here continues with featurettes aplenty including Re-creating Old Hollywood in which the production team reveals how they produced the glamour of '40s/'50s Hollywood. There are interviews with everyone from the production designer to make-up artists and hair stylists, Behind The Scenes: Screenwriter Paul Bernbaum, director Allen Coulter and others will talk about which elements are based on fact, Hollywood Then And Now: Historians, filmmakers, actors and others discuss how Hollywood has changed in the last 60 years and deleted scenes.