Review of Hollywoodland (2006) by Ashley S — 25 Mar 2008

Being a fan of 1950s Hollywood, I thought I would automatically enjoy this, unfortunately I was pretty disappointed.

The depiction of vintage Hollywood was pretty flawless, the acting was solid, the camerawork was slick and it's always good to see Rita Hayworth in a film (even if it's only someone pretending to be her!) Despite this I felt the film didn't work.

I think this was to do with the story, the George Reeves side of the story was interesting, but the Louis Simo side - especially his kid and failings as a father were just uninteresting to me.

Maybe the film would have been more enjoyable if it was edited into a more compact running time, however the leisurely pacing of the final film did create a thoughtful atmosphere, which I wouldn't want to loose.

It's obvious the people involved wanted to produce an accurate portrayal of what happened, instead of going the route of The Black Dahlia and just making up some entertaining rubbish.

This is commendable but dare I say it - there probably wasn't enough material from the real life case to warrant a film, this is evident, by the inclusion of the made up Simo storyline.

In conclusion it could have been a great film it just needed more meat to make the story juicier and memorable.