HOLLYWOODLAND (2006)

Director: Allen Coulter

Writer: Paul Bernbaum

Producer: Glenn Williamson

Cast: Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Robin Tunney, Bob Hoskins, Jeffrey DeMunn, Molly Parker, Lois Smith, Caroline Dhavernas, Joe Spano, Larry Cedar, Kathleen Robertson, Zach Mills, Diego Fuentes, Gareth Williams, Dash Mihok, Ted Atherton, Brad William Henke, Phillip MacKenzie, Kevin Hare, Neil Crone, Seamus Dever, Gareth Williams, Joan Gregson, Richard Fancy, Dendrie Taylor. Jason Spevack, Erin Gooderham, Terry C. Barna, Bill Lake, Brendan Wall, Jeff Cowan, David J. MacNeil, Tim Campbell, Michael Rhoades, Donald Burda, Lorry Ayers, Joseph Adam, Sven Van de Ven, Ayumi Iizuka, Jack Newman, Natalie Krill, Charlie Lea, Gray Powell

On June 16, 1959 in Los Angeles, California, actor George Reeves (Ben Affleck), famous for his television role as Superman, is found dead of a bullet wound to the head in the bedroom of his Benedict Canyon home. Seedy private detective Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) is hired by Reeves’ mother Helen Bessolo (Lois Smith) to investigate her son’s death. Helen does not believe the official suicide verdict. Initially, Simo is just trying to stir up publicity by questioning the validity of the police investigation into Reeves’ death. However, as Simo discovers more about Reeves’ life, he begins to believe that the actor may have been murdered.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Nowadays, due to the superhero genre profitably established in the movie mainstream, actors are eager to portray comic book characters. Landing such roles is seen as just another indication of a performer’s versatility and bankability.

Unfortunately, when George Reeves starred as the title character on the Adventures of Superman television series during the 1950s, he felt that he was stuck in a professional rut. Like plenty of other actors playing larger-than-life characters (Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, etc.), Reeves was typecast. His success as Superman, at least as far as the movie studios were concerned, caused limitations in his public perception and imposed limitations on his choice of roles. Ironically, 1978’s Superman was the big-budget production that earned the critical and financial success that began to gain respect for comic book superheroes and their actors in films.

The disappointment George Reeves felt about the direction of his acting career provides a possible motive for his suicide. Death by self-inflicted gunshot wound was the official determination given by the LAPD and supported by witness statements and autopsy findings. But real life is usually not as neat and tidy as the conclusion of an Adventures of Superman episode. As is often the case in criminal investigations, there were unexplained details and oversights in the crime scene investigation and autopsy. Some of the relationships George Reeves had and peculiar events in his life raised the possibility of foul play. There were also plenty of Reeves’ friends and his mother who could not believe that George Reeves would kill himself.

Hollywoodland details the final decade of George Reeves’ life and the investigation into his death by the fictional detective character Louis Simo. Reeves’ mother Helen Bessolo actually did seek further inquiries into her son’s death. This film is quite true to the facts of the Reeves case while adding an additional dramatic angle of the Simo character finding parallels between Reeves’ life and his own.

Adrien Brody stars as private investigator Louis Simo. He is fine as the down-on-his-luck hero of the story that has suffered big disappointments in his life. Simo seeks to exploit the Reeves case as a way to generate some headlines that can raise his own professional profile and boost his career. It is only as Simo sees more of his own life’s frustrated ambitions reflected in the life of George Reeves that he develops some sincerity in his search for the truth.

After a two-year lull in his career, Ben Affleck landed the role of George Reeves. This was an opportunity for Affleck to give a performance with more depth than those in his past big-budget spectacles. Affleck really rises to the occasion as he captures Reeves’ charm, humor, and frustration while earning the audience’s sympathy. It is oddly fitting that Affleck, an actor who has played two different superhero roles (in 2003’s Daredevil and multiple appearances as Batman since 2016) and was going through his own career downturn, would portray another actor whose career was stifled by playing a superhero. This award-winning role signaled Affleck’s comeback for quality roles and films.

George Reeves had a longtime romantic relationship with Toni Mannix, the wife of MGM film studio vice president Eddie Mannix who was suspected of ties to the Mafia. This unusual relationship was an open secret and accepted by Eddie. As Toni Mannix, Diane Lane perfectly captures the aging former starlet affecting a certain Hollywood refinement in her speech and manner. There is a passionate desperation in her need for the relationship with the younger Reeves that she wants to be her kept man.

Robin Tunney is funny, insensitive, and a bit pathetic as Leonore Lemmon, the crude, younger woman that prompts George Reeves to end his relationship with Toni Mannix. She has contentious interactions with almost everyone and drives home the sense of hopelessness toward the end of Reeves’ life.

There are many other fine performances to be found in this film. Bob Hoskins as Eddie Mannix, Joe Spano as Eddie’s publicity manager Howard Strickling, Jeffrey DeMunn as Reeves’ agent Art Weissman, Molly Parker as Louis Simo’s ex-wife Laurie, Caroline Dhavernas as Simo’s secretary/girlfriend Kit, and Lois Smith as Reeves’ mother Helen Bessolo all give often understated and genuine performances that always feel just right.

Director Allen Coulter and screenwriter Paul Bernbaum have a unique approach to the frustrating Hollywood mystery of George Reeves’ death. They use the investigation by the fictional detective character of Louis Simo to give the audience facts about the Reeves case that provide multiple scenarios for the actor’s demise. They make Simo more than just a narrative gimmick by having him grow as a character when he gains perspective from the Reeves tragedy.

As a George Reeves fan, I had read quite a bit about his life, his Superman role, and his tragic death. I feel that Hollywoodland makes a sincere attempt to be honest and accurate about the last years of Reeves’ life. It is fun seeing some preparations for Reeves assuming his Superman role and scene recreations typical of the television show. Aside from one memorable bit of Reeves clowning around on the Adventures of Superman set, there is little indication of the fun and joy that those close to Reeves have said was also part of the man’s character. That is hardly a fault of this fine film. Director Coulter has said that he was not striving to just do a biopic about the life of George Reeves. The story uses Reeves’ death as a means of reevaluating one’s life and finding the worth in it.

SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE-MEN (1951)

Director: Lee Sholem

Writers: Richard Fielding (pseudonym for Robert Maxwell and Whitney Ellsworth), based on the Superman comic book character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster

Producer: Barney A. Sarecky

Cast: George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, Jeff Corey, Walter Reed, Stanley Andrews, Beverly Washburn, Frank Reicher, J. Farrell MacDonald, Ray Walker, Hal K. Dawson, Phil Warren, (and uncredited cast members) Billy Curtis, Jerry Maren, John Baer, Byron Foulger, Margia Dean, Harry Harvey, John Phillips, Johnny Roventini, John T. Bambury, John Barton, Stephen Carr, Bill Coontz, Russell Custer, Adrienne Marden, Jack Lomas, Irene Martin, Frank McLure, William H. O’Brien 

Just before the planet Krypton exploded, an infant was sent to Earth in an experimental rocket ship. Krypton’s sole survivor was found by the Kents, a childless, rural couple. They adopted the alien orphan and named him Clark. Although he appeared perfectly human, Clark Kent developed superhuman abilities. Upon reaching adulthood, Kent assumed another identity as Superman to use his fantastic powers to help mankind. Now working for the Daily Planet newspaper, Kent (George Reeves) and fellow reporter Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) are covering the story of the world’s deepest oil well having just been completed in the small town of Silsby. Two strange, short humanoids (Billy Curtis and Jerry Maren) have come up out of the well shaft and are panicking the town’s citizens. Dealing with a potential menace from beneath the earth and the threat of mob violence is a job for Superman. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Although there had been many precursors to Superman in myth and fiction, his 1938 introduction in the first issue of Action Comics established the popular template for the superhero genre: a protagonist with incredible powers, a flashy costume, a secret civilian identity, and a devotion to fighting evil. The hundreds of costumed heroes to follow owe their very existence to the Man of Steel. 

Ironically, after Superman’s young creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster had their comic strip submission roundly rejected as being too wild an idea by newspaper syndicates, Superman became a massive hit as an original comic book character that proved the relatively new medium of the comic book did not need to keep reprinting newspaper comic strips. Within three years of his comic book introduction, Superman seized his own newspaper strip, flew over the airwaves in a nationally syndicated radio program, and dashed across the silver screen in a series of 17 animated cartoon shorts. Just ten years after first landing on newsstands, Superman made his live-action film debut in the movie serial Superman (1948) starring Kirk Alyn. That was the most successful movie serial ever made and the sequel serial Atom Man vs. Superman appeared in 1950. 

Having conquered just about every form of mass media, it was inevitable that in the ’50s, the Man of Tomorrow would take on that soon-to-be-dominant medium of the future: television. Yet before the production of a series would be undertaken, a stand-alone film was made that actually seemed to serve as a TV series pilot. In 1951 the trial flight of that decade’s iconic television series Adventures of Superman (1952-58) landed in movie theaters as Superman and the Mole-Men. 

While the story is quite simple, Superman and the Mole-Men has an intention a bit more sophisticated than the frantic and repetitive action antics of the previous movie serials. This is not just a good guy fights bad guys set up. The story demonstrates that villains don’t have to be bank robbers, mad scientists, or inhuman monsters. Normal folks can be turned into a lawless and reckless mob by panic, ignorance, and a rabble-rousing lout. After all, this was the era of the Red Scare and McCarthyism when people were being goaded to look everywhere for the communist threat that was supposed to be infesting America. Paranoia was in the air and could be exploited for political advantage. It also seems pretty apparent that at the heart of such animosity there was often a mean streak of intolerance. Of course, it was expedient to brand someone a commie and persecute or blackball them if they represented a position contrary to the interests of an industry’s bottom line. Hollywood was ground zero for such attacks.

The unknown motives of the mole-men causing fear among the Silsby citizens is certainly understandable, but caution and restraint are advisable. Knee-jerk, reactionary violence is shown to pose great risks to everyone’s safety. It is also shown that such shoot-first-ask-questions-later idiots have already stepped so far over the line of reason that they can’t learn from their mistakes. They even run the risk of endangering the entire town that they claim to be protecting. Despite the sci-fi trappings of the film’s hero and the subterranean creatures, the story is chiefly concerned with the rash human behavior that clashes with the fantastic beings. This is what maintains interest in a fairly simple story with simple characters. 

Of course, everyone was drawn to the movie primarily to see the famous comic book character realized on the movie screen. In this short 58-minute film, there is just enough time to see Superman withstand punches and bullets, bust guns, overpower a lynch mob, and fly. Clark Kent dashing into an alley to emerge seconds later as Superman and take off is a clip re-used many times in the first season of the subsequent television series. There are a couple other quick take offs shown later as well as a slow landing that was never repeated. The only other flying shots are a point-of-view looking down at the lynch mob Superman is flying past and two brief glimpses of Superman catching a mole-man falling off a dam. One of those shots uses a bit of animation to substitute for a flying actor similar to what was used extensively in the movie serials. The Superman flying techniques would continue to get more refined during the television series. 

Since this entire story takes place in the small town of Silsby, we do not see reporters Clark Kent and Lois Lane in their usual workaday settings of the city of Metropolis and the Daily Planet newspaper offices. However, their characterizations are firmly established in this film. Lois Lane is feisty and often frustrated with Clark Kent’s evasive behavior. Of course, Kent is trying to maintain the secret of his identity as Superman and enjoys a bit of private amusement harboring that knowledge. It is also fun for the audience when Kent almost slips up referring to something Superman has done in the first person. 

Since 1939, George Reeves had played small roles in A-pictures and starred in B-films. He had an important role in the 1943 Oscar-nominated wartime drama So Proudly We Hail! Then, like many actors during World War II, Reeves’ career was interrupted by his wartime service. After the war, Reeves seemed to have difficulty reestablishing his acting career momentum. When he first donned the cape of the world’s greatest superhero in 1951, Reeves was just taking on another acting job. Upon resuming his Superman role for the initial 26-episode package of the Adventures of Superman television series, Reeves may have hoped, as others involved thought, that no sponsor would pick up the show. One year later the Kellogg’s cereal company agreed to sponsor the program and it became an enormous syndicated hit. Reeves would continue playing Clark Kent/Superman for five more seasons. 

Although he had no great affection for the character and later resented being typecast by his success as Superman, Reeves did appreciate the role’s importance to the young fans. George Reeves was a true pro and a fine actor that made his Superman real and appealing. His Superman is a hero because he wields his great powers wisely and compassionately. Reeves’ Superman is not a bully spoiling for a chance to showoff, but when he clobbers someone they deserve it. 

Reeves’ interpretation of Clark Kent is quite interesting. He did not portray the mild-mannered reporter as a complete klutz and coward. He made Kent just as likable and respectable as Superman. That may have made the flimsy disguise of a pair of glasses and a less forceful manner a pretty risky way to maintain a secret identity, but it probably helped Reeves maintain his own interest playing the character and maintained the audience’s interest between bursts of Superman action. 

It must also be noted that Clark Kent’s previous portrayals in radio and the movie serials were never as wimpy as the comics sometimes had him behave. Since Robert Maxwell had produced the radio program, co-wrote the Superman and the Mole-Men script, and would soon produce the first season of the Adventures of Superman television series, he may have been instrumental in making Clark Kent a character that does not lose the audience’s respect, as they must spend plenty of time with him before he saves the day as Superman. 

Reporter Lois Lane had always been pretty daring in her efforts to get a big scoop. Phyllis Coates’ portrayal of the character was independent, assertive, and could be quite dismissive of Clark Kent, despite his intelligence and integrity. Beneath all of Lois’ negativity was probably a sense of competitiveness and an unrealized resentment that her mild-mannered co-worker might be the Superman of her dreams who will not share his secret with her. 

Phyllis Coates has starred in plenty of B-films and serials and guest-starred on many television series, but, like her co-star George Reeves, she will always be most remembered for her role in Superman and the Mole-Men and the subsequent television series. Once the first season of the show was picked up for syndication and more seasons needed to be made, Coates was not available and was replaced by the Lois Lane of the movie serials, Noel Neill. 

The actors playing the first two mole-men that climb out of the oil well shaft, Billy Curtis and Jerry Maren, were two of the munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (1939). They are befriended by little Beverly Washburn, who would later play a member of the creepy Merrye family in the cult film Spider Baby (1964/released 1967).

 

Prolific character actor Jeff Corey plays lynch mob leader Luke Benson. Right after this film, the House Un-American Activities Committee lynched Corey’s career. Despite Corey having abandoned his interest in communism years earlier, he was not going to provide names of people for the committee to harass. While he was blacklisted as an actor for 12 years, Corey became a noted acting teacher. Fortunately, Corey resumed acting in the early ’60s appearing in many more films and became a familiar face on television guest-starring in a multitude of series. 

Nowadays, superhero films are a mainstay at the box office. Modern film production technology has made the special effects challenges of superheroes far easier to overcome. Hence, there has been a wave of overblown spectacles trying to push people out of their media cocoons at home to see something ideal for the big screen. Ultimately, this leads to apathy. When anything can be shown effectively and in excess, there is no longer an awe factor that will sustain audience involvement. There had better be some charm and humanity to make all of the razzle-dazzle matter. Those were the superpowers of George Reeves that really make Superman and the Mole-Men work.

HORROR HOSPITAL (1973), aka COMPUTER KILLERS

Director: Antony Balch

Writers: Antony Balch, Alan Watson

Producer: Richard Gordon

Cast: Robin Askwith, Michael Gough, Phoebe Shaw (as Vanessa Shaw), Skip Martin, Kurt Christian, Dennis Price, Ellen Pollock, Barbara Wendy, Kenneth Benda, Martin Grace, Colin Skeaping, Susan Murphy, George Herbert, members of the band Mystic (James Boris IV, Allan “The River” Hudson, Simon Lust) as themselves, and uncredited cast members Alan Watson, Antony Balch, Ray Corbett, Richard Gordon 

Stressed, young songwriter Jason Jones (Robin Askwith) decides to split the London scene for a while. He visits Hairy Holidays, the travel agency advertising trips for the under 30s crowd. Pollock (Dennis Price), the agency’s proprietor, suggests a stay in Dr. Storm’s Health Hotel at Brittlehurst Manor in the country. On the train ride out of London, Jason befriends sexy, fellow passenger Judy Peters (Vannessa Shaw), who is also on her way to the same resort to visit her Aunt Harris (Ellen Pollock). Unfortunately, Dr. Christian Storm (Michael Gough) is also residing there. The young people that are least likely to be missed are sent to the resort for their holiday retreats to become subjects in Dr. Storm’s medical experiments that turn them into his mindless slaves. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

The British film industry was entering tough times in the 1970s. As that stalwart producer of horror movies, Hammer Films, was beginning to flounder trying to keep up with the changing times and finding it harder to get capital from the US to co-finance their films, other British filmmakers seemed to respond by giving the public something edgier and crasser than the class that was Hammer’s specialty. A graphic example of the lurid extremes some movies would resort to is Horror Hospital. 

The whole premise of Horror Hospital is quite simple. It serves as a situation to feature some exploitation gimmicks: lobotomizing brain operations, mindless motorcycle-riding henchman, a Rolls-Royce outfitted with a decapitation accessory, naked zombies, a misshapen monster, and tantalizing glimpses of Vanessa Shaw’s fine form. 

This is a story about the older generation exploiting the young. That was a sentiment that some movies were fixating on since the late ’60s, but this was not a new aspect in horror films. Since 1957, producer Herman Cohen’s fright flicks (some of which also starred Michael Gough as the villain) often dealt with the same generational conflict. 

Horror Hospital is an absolutely insane mix of nastiness and absurdity that seems ready to try almost anything to get a rise from its audience. Horror always had a hard time with the critics. Horror Hospital seems hell-bent on giving the critics something to really get bent out of shape about as it revels in its own brazen excess. It has moments of humor and odd behavior from almost every character. It also indulges in grisly acts and sleazy deeds perpetrated by Dr. Storm. These incidents are meant to shock the audience, yet they often seem so unjustified that they play out as morbid comedy. 

Michael Gough is a fiendish delight in many of his horror film roles. He is at his most cold and unpleasant in Horror Hospital. In a movie this mad, there is no question that Gough’s Dr. Christian Storm is a truly mad scientist. Dr. Storm’s sole ambition is to wield his medical prowess to subjugate his younger fellow men and, especially, women to his power mad whims. All of his diabolical dabbling seems to serve no cause beyond what will gratify him. Once we learn how utterly messed up this bastard is, we understand why turning off the brains of people is a fixation of his; zombies don’t pass judgment and even the sexiest ones can’t say no.

 

Our hero Jason Jones is almost as offbeat as our mad scientist. He is played by frequent British sex-comedy star Robin Askwith appearing in his third horror film. Here he is a rock songwriter dropping out for a tad, hooking up with a sweet dolly bird, and ending up in a medical madhouse. He is inept, tactless, funny, and oddly likable. When he drops the F-bomb at dinner, he strikes comedy gold. However, I suspect that for every member in the audience that is rooting for Jason there are just as many who think Dr. Storm lobotomizing him would be no great loss. Jason is such an unlikely hero that when he rises to the occasion for anything beyond getting laid it just adds to the absurdity. 

Vanessa (Phoebe) Shaw is a dream come true. As Judy Peters, she is a tender beauty that understandably is a little apprehensive with our hero Jason as a total stranger, but she takes no offense and actually seems to warm up to the guy when he exclaims, “I’m not going to rape you!” Now, that’s a pick-up line I’ve got to remember.

In a flick this warped, it almost makes sense that Dr. Storm’s dwarf accomplice Frederick, who assists in some of the gruesome mayhem, would end up becoming sympathetic and heroic. In fact, this twisted character arc makes him the only character of any depth in this mad movie. Initially, Frederick seems cheerfully evil, but he has a change of heart after abuse from his master, Dr. Storm. As Frederick, Skip Martin contributes plenty of oddball humor that further distinguishes this film. Martin is probably best remembered as Hop-Toad in Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation The Masque of the Red Death (1964).

Horror Hospital is charged with a reckless energy that makes it seem like a waking nightmare. There are moments of gruesomeness that exist for no reason other than to feel inappropriate, and the final act of the film is full of wild abandon; Jason and his fellow prisoner Abraham (Kurt Christian) suddenly display great ass kicking ability after they spent much of their screen time getting the shit kicked out of them, there is a perverse reveal of the disfigured being lurking in the shadows of Brittlehurst Manor, more Rolls-Royce decapitation action, and a WTF finale that is just a creepy capper to all of the craziness. 

Director Antony Balch spent most of his career arranging distribution for arthouse and exploitation films. Horror Hospital was only the second and last feature film he directed. Balch’s previous movie was an odd anthology film with some horror elements called Secrets of Sex (1970). The independent horror film production veteran Richard Gordon was a producer on both of Balch’s quite successful films. Unfortunately, Balch died much too early, but checking into his Horror Hospital provides a sure cure for any boredom that ails this flashback fanatic.