Essentially a film school experiment with Roger Corman money, Joe Dante and Allan Arkush created a large bulk of Hollywood Boulevard from clips cut from the existing Roger Corman library while using sets and props that Corman already owned and had available. Made for roughly $60,000, it was a huge, relative success, paving the way for both filmmakers, particularly Dante, to start their careers as directors within the Corman machine. That it's somewhat entertaining is almost a miracle.
Miracle Pictures has lost their stunt girl in an accident that kills her (great way to start a comedy, huh?), leaving a Looney Tunes-like hole in the ground when her parachute fails (footage pulled from another movie) to open during a sky-diving scene. Into this situation will walk Candy (Candice Rialson), fresh off the bus from Indiana and ready to make herself a movie star. Sent by the agent Walter Paisley (Dick Miller, easily the movie's best asset), she's soon introduced to the world of independent trash filmmaking through the writer Patrick (Jeffrey Kramer), prima donna Mary (Mary Woronov), producer P. G. (Richard Doran), and director Eric Von Leppe (Paul Bartel). She gets roped into doing a stunt (footage pulled from another movie), and she becomes part of the troupe.
Of course, what makes the film interesting at all beyond being the first entry in Joe Dante's directorial filmography is that interesting production technique of filming the bare minimum to stitch together footage that Corman already had rights to, and it's kind of amazing how cohesive the film ends up being. I mean, it's pretty obvious where the new footage is and where the old footage gets plugged in (the early scene where Candy gets roped into a heist that suddenly turns into a police chase where the expensive bits, the crashes, are obviously from another film). That being said, though, the decision to make this something of a view of the life of a woman trying to enter the lower end of the film industry allows for these kinds of natural extensions of random footage from Depression era chases to a Southeast Asia jungle gun fight to a futuristic car chase to feel natural.
I think if the film had kept with this largely plotless approach to one woman's look at the lower end of the film industry, it would have been able to become actually interesting. There are even moments where Candy reflects on the meat-like status of her nascent career, especially when she has to film a rape scene, hates it, and then watches it at the premiere (at a drive-in). That it ends up being played for laughs is the film at its most uncomfortable and demonstrates that sort of late-70s anarchism of the lower end of the Hollywood machine that even someone like Robert Zemeckis reveled in at the time.
However, the film wants to have its cake and eat it too, filling itself with gratuitous nudity at the same time. It's an uncomfortable mix that feels like the result of a creative team not really realizing what they're doing or simply not really caring that they're trying to have it both ways because they're too young, working too fast, and too eager to scare the squares to resolve its own internal contradictions.
That being said, it is pretty consistently funny. It has a light heart that leans into the loose nature of its narrative and likeability of its stars to get moving and keep moving, never relying on one gag or series of clips for too long. In fact, I was so caught up in its overall spirit and sense of fun that I thought a bit better of it at a certain point than I did when it was over and the film reminded me that people had been dying in the film and it suddenly became some kind of serial killer/slasher whodunit that comes kind of out of nowhere, veers from left to right without settling on anything, and then just quickly resolves. Eh.
As I said, it was more of an experiment than an actual effort at a narrative film, but that being said, it's surprisingly held together decently while having ideas pop up from time to time and a winning personality along the way. I mean, it's not good, but it's far better than it had any right to be. Plus, Dick Miller is kind of hilarious.
Miracle Pictures has lost their stunt girl in an accident that kills her (great way to start a comedy, huh?), leaving a Looney Tunes-like hole in the ground when her parachute fails (footage pulled from another movie) to open during a sky-diving scene. Into this situation will walk Candy (Candice Rialson), fresh off the bus from Indiana and ready to make herself a movie star. Sent by the agent Walter Paisley (Dick Miller, easily the movie's best asset), she's soon introduced to the world of independent trash filmmaking through the writer Patrick (Jeffrey Kramer), prima donna Mary (Mary Woronov), producer P. G. (Richard Doran), and director Eric Von Leppe (Paul Bartel). She gets roped into doing a stunt (footage pulled from another movie), and she becomes part of the troupe.
Of course, what makes the film interesting at all beyond being the first entry in Joe Dante's directorial filmography is that interesting production technique of filming the bare minimum to stitch together footage that Corman already had rights to, and it's kind of amazing how cohesive the film ends up being. I mean, it's pretty obvious where the new footage is and where the old footage gets plugged in (the early scene where Candy gets roped into a heist that suddenly turns into a police chase where the expensive bits, the crashes, are obviously from another film). That being said, though, the decision to make this something of a view of the life of a woman trying to enter the lower end of the film industry allows for these kinds of natural extensions of random footage from Depression era chases to a Southeast Asia jungle gun fight to a futuristic car chase to feel natural.
I think if the film had kept with this largely plotless approach to one woman's look at the lower end of the film industry, it would have been able to become actually interesting. There are even moments where Candy reflects on the meat-like status of her nascent career, especially when she has to film a rape scene, hates it, and then watches it at the premiere (at a drive-in). That it ends up being played for laughs is the film at its most uncomfortable and demonstrates that sort of late-70s anarchism of the lower end of the Hollywood machine that even someone like Robert Zemeckis reveled in at the time.
However, the film wants to have its cake and eat it too, filling itself with gratuitous nudity at the same time. It's an uncomfortable mix that feels like the result of a creative team not really realizing what they're doing or simply not really caring that they're trying to have it both ways because they're too young, working too fast, and too eager to scare the squares to resolve its own internal contradictions.
That being said, it is pretty consistently funny. It has a light heart that leans into the loose nature of its narrative and likeability of its stars to get moving and keep moving, never relying on one gag or series of clips for too long. In fact, I was so caught up in its overall spirit and sense of fun that I thought a bit better of it at a certain point than I did when it was over and the film reminded me that people had been dying in the film and it suddenly became some kind of serial killer/slasher whodunit that comes kind of out of nowhere, veers from left to right without settling on anything, and then just quickly resolves. Eh.
As I said, it was more of an experiment than an actual effort at a narrative film, but that being said, it's surprisingly held together decently while having ideas pop up from time to time and a winning personality along the way. I mean, it's not good, but it's far better than it had any right to be. Plus, Dick Miller is kind of hilarious.