Gives a clue to who wrote this, describing the daughter of veteran star Tony Curtis, played by Michelle Phillips. He's just married Jaclyn Smith, a former prostitute, on the spur of the moment, bringing her from Arizona to Beverly Hills, showing her the house of an Arab shiek (long torn down) and promising to introduce her to 'all of the beautiful people". What sounds like Harold Robbins or Jacqueline Susann isn't, basically a paint by numbers story of phony Hollywood glamour that only existed on Oscar nights. What starts off as a happy story quickly slides down the hills of Beverly as secrets are revealed, scandals ruin lives, and the fake pretetentiousness of the image of Tinseltown is revealed.
There's automatic camp with the sudden appearance of foggy voiced Carrie Nye as the possessive wife of movie producer George Hamilton who instantly is suspicious of Smith, yet repulsion with the overrated Red Buttons as a Harvey Weinstein like movie studio owner. Still glamorous 40 years after her own discovery, Joan Fontaine is equally as campy as Nye, her cheery presence as a famous hostess of the hills hiding acidic vinegar. Pre-"Dynasty", John Forsythe is more Blake Carrington than Charlie Townsend, dashing and commanding. The constant name dropping of the biggest stars of the time gives this a sense of nostalgia, coming when nostalgia of previous eras was in.
There's other assorted ridiculous cliches of social climbing wannabees/never-was's, all providing an inside scoop on how miserable these people are, covered in many other trashy novels, mini-series and even so called biographies of many real life legends whose box office power in real life didn't mean that they were happy. Everyone seems to be having fun here, another plus, and Curtis is touching as he realizes that his comeback did not succeed, causing his world to further fall apart with a shocking detail of his private life exposed. This seems tame 40 plus years later (not as cut throat as it really is today), but a tasty, colorful reminder that fake is fun to watch, but don't touch at the risk of being cursed.
There's automatic camp with the sudden appearance of foggy voiced Carrie Nye as the possessive wife of movie producer George Hamilton who instantly is suspicious of Smith, yet repulsion with the overrated Red Buttons as a Harvey Weinstein like movie studio owner. Still glamorous 40 years after her own discovery, Joan Fontaine is equally as campy as Nye, her cheery presence as a famous hostess of the hills hiding acidic vinegar. Pre-"Dynasty", John Forsythe is more Blake Carrington than Charlie Townsend, dashing and commanding. The constant name dropping of the biggest stars of the time gives this a sense of nostalgia, coming when nostalgia of previous eras was in.
There's other assorted ridiculous cliches of social climbing wannabees/never-was's, all providing an inside scoop on how miserable these people are, covered in many other trashy novels, mini-series and even so called biographies of many real life legends whose box office power in real life didn't mean that they were happy. Everyone seems to be having fun here, another plus, and Curtis is touching as he realizes that his comeback did not succeed, causing his world to further fall apart with a shocking detail of his private life exposed. This seems tame 40 plus years later (not as cut throat as it really is today), but a tasty, colorful reminder that fake is fun to watch, but don't touch at the risk of being cursed.