What Price Hollywood?

Hollywood has always had an inherently self-absorbed quality that continues to fascinate us, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that many film directors choose to explore their own artistic obsessions via the vehicle of Hollywood mythology itself, past and present. This series explores some of the movie industry’s own reflections on itself as a dream factory, from one of the earliest examples, George Cukor’s pre-code examination of the seductive pitfalls of an actress’s hungry aspirations, to one of the latest, Damien Chazelle’s mesmerizing trip through a director’s looking glass world. Along the way, our guided tour makes memorable stops that ask us all what makes our never ending appetite for screen dreams so tantalizing. Could it be that in the end it’s something as simple as the deft observation once made by songwriter Van Dyke Parks? “Movies are magic.” No matter how weird and challenging our daily lives might be, we’ll always have the welcome escape of a dark cinema, where we can sit with complete strangers and dream together with our eyes wide open.

Scheduled across five successive Monday mornings, our latest Film Studies adult education series will feature short, 25-minute introductions by film historian and curator Donald Brackett, followed by the screening and a brief audience talkback.

What Price Hollywood? (RKO, 88 minutes) is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Cukor and starring Constance Bennett. When pretty waitress and Hollywood hopeful Mary Evans (Constance Bennett) serves drinks to famous director Max Carey (Lowell Sherman), a Tinseltown cliche becomes reality, and he offers her a bit part in his new film. Almost blowing her chance due to nerves and inexperience, Mary finally clicks as an actress and becomes an overnight star. But after she marries a polo player (Neil Hamilton) who has no interest in the movie business, Max feels betrayed and descends into an alcoholic depression. If the scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it provided the basis for the much-filmed musical, A Star Is Born.

All films will screen again, without the talk.

Donald Brackett, a Vancouver-based film critic and historian who writes about the art and craft of movies and their place in our pop culture, is the author of many articles and essays on the subject, as well as being the guest-curator of several film programs for Cinematheque. He is the author of several related books, the most recent being Double Solitaire: The Films of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, which explored their collaborative impact on the golden age of Hollywood.