Before he was the king of gimmick horror, William Castle was doing this sort of thing, quickly turned-out mysteries (quite a few Westerns too) made on what I’m guessing were middling budgets… like this film, I’m guessing they were probably generally of no great distinction, but I had a decent time with this nonetheless. Hollywood Story is inspired by a real Hollywood story, the 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor; basically a bit of a cash-in on the previous year’s hit Sunset Boulevard, the story has a film producer moving to California and setting up in an old studio (which, in reality, had previously belonged to Charlie Chaplin), where he discovers the story of its previous owner, a famed silent era director murdered in 1929. He decides this story could make a good film, especially if he can work out the unsolved mystery at the heart of it, but it soon appears that not everyone in town is keen on the truth being uncovered. Like I said, not a film of great distinction, which is fine, sometimes a perfectly good film is all you need rather than a masterpiece of the seventh art; and Castle’s film is built on a fairly engaging mystery plot (albeit with an ending I probably should’ve seen coming long before it did) and is carried by a good solid cast, particularly Richard Conte in the lead role. Didn’t entirely buy the romance between him and the daughter of the actress who would also rather the whole thing would just go away, I think their initial antagonism melted a bit too easily, but other than that I don’t think I had any serious issues with it… unlike Bosley Crowther, cited on the film’s Wiki page as criticising it for, among other reasons, making the police in 1929 look “lazy” for not having solved the crime then. Given the original murder of W.D. Taylor remains unsolved 103 years later, that feels a bit weak to me, and I’m guessing Bos’ opinion of the police’s abilities and, let’s face it, desires to solve some crimes (even in this day and age) was overly inflated…
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