HOLLYWOOD
BOULEVARD (1976)Directors: Joe Dante and Allan Arkush
New Concorde
HOLLYWOOD
BOULEVARD (1976)The ace editors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush of Roger Corman's New World Pictures were given an opportunity to direct a film, but the budget was to be extremely low. Now, we're talking low budget, lower than any of the other Corman productions of that time, and the young, eager directors were able pull it off by using footage from about a dozen other recent New World releases. What they achieved is a delirious and amusing look at drive-in movies and the people who make them, and it's loaded with sex, violence and B movie in-jokes.
Gorgeous Candice Rialson--one of the 70's best blond sexpots who fell off the face of the earth--plays an aspiring actress named Candy, arriving in Hollywood to make it big. She lands in the office of Dick Miller as talent agent Walter Paisley (get it?), who gets her work at Miracle Pictures ("If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"). She appears in low budget films for the company, even going to the Philippines to star in a sexy action flick entitled "Machete Maidens of Molokai." HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD disposes of a conventional plot in exchange for cheap thrills, until it decides to throw in a costumed slasher stalking various starlets on movie sets.
The cast also includes New World regulars Paul Bartel as a stuffy director feeling comfortable giving a guy in a Godzilla suit serious motivation, and Mary Woronov as a scene-stealing starlet. Much of the film is made up of parody that fans of this stuff will adore, including Miller fondly watching himself in THE TERROR (and GREAT looking clips from the film I might add, better than the other PD prints out there), at the drive-in. There's tons of footage from films like THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, THE BIG BIRD CAGE, WOMEN IN CAGES, NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN, BIG BAD MAMA, CAGED HEAT, DEATH RACE 2000 and others that are cleverly edited in to this film for a trifling experience. They also toss in roller derby scenes from AIP's UNHOLY ROLLERS, as well as outtakes(!) of the "penis" and "vagina" monsters from BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN.
The transfer looks very good as the colors are vibrant, the image is sharp, and the film is letterboxed at 1.85:1. There is some damage on the source material in the form of speckles and lines, and some of the stock footage is inferior to the feature itself. The 2.0 Dolby Digital mono sound is fine. Overall, this disc is a vast improvement over Warner's long out of print cassette tape, so long-time fans of the film will be pleased with this release.
Included is a great commentary by directors Dante and Arkush, as well as producer Jon Davison. Dante and Arkush figured that this would be their only chance to direct (boy, were they wrong!), so they sort of let it all hang out with this project. This well-spirited commentary reveals homages to other films such as ROBOT MONSTER and A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, and influences such as Bela Lugosi B pictures and the works of Mario Bava. The scene where an actress is stalked on a smoke-filled movie set was obviously inspired by Bava. Dante--who's a huge Bava fan--begins to mention the Italian director during this segment, but he gets distracted and the subject is quickly changed.
Other extras on the disc include trailers for all the other New World titles that HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD used footage from (and there are a lot of them). It's labeled on the menu as "Cutting Room Floor." There are also trailers for other New Concorde releases and talent bios. The extras listing on the packaging says "Live Performance by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen." There is no additional performance track, except for the one that appears in the actual feature. (George R. Reis)