Hollywood story
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Hollywood story |
| Original title | The Big Knife |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | 113 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Robert Aldrich |
| script | James Poe |
| production | Robert Aldrich |
| music | Frank De Vol |
| camera | Ernest Laszlo |
| cut | Michael Luciano |
| occupation | |
| |
Hollywood-Story is an American melodrama from 1955 by Robert Aldrich with Jack Palance , Shelley Winters , Ida Lupino , Wendell Corey and Rod Steiger as the unscrupulous boss of a film studio in the lead roles. The story is based on the 1949 stage drama The Big Knife by Clifford Odets .
action
The unscrupulous film producer Stanley Hoff, head of a film studio, wants to sign a new contract with the currently very successful film actor Charlie Castle. Charlie hesitates, however, because his idealistic wife Marion, from whom he lives separated due to alienation, has promised him to return to him if he separates from her creep Hoff. Castle too would like to take the upcoming contract extension as an opportunity to break away from Hoff's vise-like grip and henceforth to make more ingenious films with other employers. But the choleric Hoff, who desperately wants to wrap up this seven-year contract with Castle, has massive leverage against his best horse in the stable. A few years ago the actor had knocked a person over while drunk and killed him in the process. Nobody except Hoff, who was never tracked down, knows about it. On Hoff's orders, a small studio employee, Buddy Bliss, took the blame for this terrible accident. With his wife Connie, of all people, Charles has started a small, insignificant affair.
Now that Castle wants to part with Hoff, the latter puts his cash guarantor under massive pressure. Charlie gives in. He sees no other way out, otherwise he would end up in prison. But it doesn't help, because the starlet Dixie Evans, who was at his side as a passenger at the time, now threatens to divulge her knowledge. Hoffs plans that his rough man, his right-hand man Smiley Coy, should get rid of Dixie in order not to have a third person jeopardize both careers and lets Charlie in on his dirty machinations. The studio boss even tries to put the integrity Marion Castle under pressure with a wiretapped conversation. It's all too much for Charlie. He, who has lost his integrity, his innocence and his beloved wife, throws Hoff out of his house and then kills himself in the bathtub. At the same time, in the next room, Castles friends are discussing the news that Dixie Evans has just died in an accident.
Production notes
Hollywood Story was written in the spring of 1955 and was premiered on September 10, 1955 as part of the Venice International Film Festival . The film started in the USA on October 25, 1955 in Los Angeles. The German premiere fell on May 16, 1956.
William Glasgow designed the film structures, Edward G. Boyle the equipment. Saul Bass designed the tracks. Composer Frank De Vol also appeared as a conductor.
Aldrich received the Silver Lion for his production in Venice .
In the American original, Richard Boone was the voiceover.
The film was a huge commercial success. According to the IMDb, it cost around $ 423,000 and by the end of 1955 it had made $ 1,250,000 in the box office in the United States alone.
Reviews
In The New York Times of November 9, 1955, critic Bosley Crowther wrote : “In fact, it looks like The Big Knife was originally written and conceived, as if it were an angry, sharp-tongued presentation of personal and professional morals in Hollywood . That is the clear conclusion of what was shown on screen ... But the simple fact is that Mr. Odets - and James Poe, who adapted the piece for the screen - tended towards extreme sentience rather than actuality and sane Common sense. They depict a group of depraved people who are violently chasing each other. "
In its issue of July 4, 1957, Der Spiegel wrote: “With space constraints on the stage, director Robert Aldrich tries - after a successful Broadway play - to create a tragic self-portrait of the film city: a gigantic star (Jack Palance) is artfully unnerved by unscrupulous producers, blackmailed and finally incited to murder, so that he desperately and finally murders himself. Since the regime of the big producers has meanwhile come to an end and the emancipated stars in turn enervate and blackmail the film bosses, the film is at best a shadowy self-portrait from Hollywood's younger years. "
“The milieu is described precisely; but the “self-criticism” of Hollywood remains only a marginal phenomenon. In general, the focus of the film is the argument between a man who is decent regardless of his weaknesses and an unscrupulous cynic, a constellation that Aldrich found in Attack! picked up again. "
“Everything here is bright and exaggerated. The tempo is too fast and too high, immorality is attacked with almost obscene pleasure, the (eponymous) knife is transformed into a circular saw. "
“Overheated confrontation between art and mammon, with rather unsympathetic people who just yell at each other for too long. Limited interest is due to the acting. "
“A relentlessly critical and pessimistic presentation of the background and abyss of the beautiful appearance in the film metropolis. The plot is sketched in exaggerated black and white drawings, but the film is gripping and interesting due to the confident direction and intense presentation. "
"Clifford Odets' cynical view of Hollywood comes across well in a die-hard film, with fine portraits that almost overcome stereotypes."
Web links
- Hollywood Story in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Der Spiegel , issue No. 27/1956
- ↑ Hollywood Story. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 1, 2018 .