A period piece that navel-gazing Hollywood needed to make to instill a sense of history into what it does, the illustrations of complex ideas that come across in a novel are often flat and forced together in this wandering epic. But style emerges victorious, as the sense of exact replication of mid-30s Los Angeles overwhelms one (especially if you have spent time in Southern California's older neighborhoods, such as Los Feliz). I dare say that Billy Barty is at his thespian finest and almost steals the show, but Karen Black never had greater breadth of making a shallow callow character as sympathetic. And this might be the only film that make you feel pity on a character enacted by Donald Sutherland. Burgess Meredith is better here than in his ROCKY roles, and halfway thru the film I blurted out - about the lead actor - it is the dude from GHOSTBUSTERS who had the beard.
And the final scene is terrifying after a lazy walk thru two hours of yesteryear dawdling.
And the final scene is terrifying after a lazy walk thru two hours of yesteryear dawdling.