Hollywoodland--Movie REVIEW on DVD now

Starring: Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, with Bob Hoskins, Robin Tunney, and Lois Smith, among a extremely talented supportive cast. The movie was excellent. So was the screenplay and the cinematography, editing, and even the music was superb. Everyone gave a fabulous, professional acting performance.

I wanted to see this movie on the big screen but didn't get there in time, so I rented the DVD.

Surprisingly enough, it was Adrien Brody that played the movie's main character despite the fact that Ben Affleck played George Reeves, the original television Superman back in the 1950's, whose life was the basis of the movie.

However, the "real" story was Brody's character's story. His private investigator and and George Reeves' life story (especially the time around his death) were intertwined and paralleled. It was well-done.

Brody private investigator was trying to make a name for himself and impress the press and the police department as a professional sleuth. He began to investigate the allegations that Reeves's death may not have been a suicide.

As I said, everyone was exceptional in their performances. They were equally good, which is mind-boggling. The story was easy to follow even though there were many flashbacks into the lives of the two men and the people in their worlds. The story switched back and forth from Brody to Affleck's characters, and included a dramatization of all the possible scenarios of Reeve's death as seen through the imagination of Brody's private eye. It was easy to follow and well edited.

The impact of the story was not what I expected. I was a fan of Superman when I was a child and loved George Reeves as a good-lookin' television actor. As the facts about his death were uncovered, snips of his real life were revealed. My picture of Mr. Reeves changed considerably and gave me a deeper more complete perspective into the man he was.

As it frequently happens, the movie as a slice of life, gave a broader picture of "the everyman" and his struggles for success, love, and self-worth. Without being preachy or sappy. We know that Reeves either committed suicide and/or died under suspicious circumstances and the movie explores all of these possibilities, and it is left up to the viewers to decide for themselves.

Watching the interviews with the various people involved with the production of the movie, I was reassured that the facts about Reeves were portrayed as accurately as possible as far as the facts were know. I appreciate that sort of honesty in movies. [Otherwise, I spend hours researching and reading about true-life characters which sometimes makes the movies about them somewhat tainted for me.]

Not much was known about George Reeves' private life, and I appreciate the lengths the movie went to bring together the snippets and portray the real man. Perhaps this movie will send him down in history as one of many suffering heroes of the Hollywood era. I certainly hope so.

I won't give any of the conclusions away, but will venture to say the movie made me cry when it was done--thinking about the lives of the two men and most importantly my own life. I sat through the credits, listening to the music, sobbing. If a movie can provoke people to this kind of self-investigation, it is well worth the esteem given it.

I think this movie was perhaps overlooked by many because they did not realize the bigger significance of the story. It was more than just a plot, some characters and some action.


However, it was also a poignant portrayal of the real man and his life long struggle in the world of Hollywood. And also the heart-felt struggle of the private eye who became so involved with the actor's life that it changed his own life dramatically.

If you are a fan or Superman, George Reeves, private eye mysteries, true stories, old vintage Hollywood stories, or really good movies, DON'T MISS THIS ONE.

Thanks for reading me, Sandy Schairer, writer, movie critic.
Author of 123 ABC, flash fiction anthology

P.S. The significance of the title Hollywoodland refers to the Hollywood sign on the side of the hill over Hollywood…back then it said Hollywoodland. The other reference might have been the fact that the golden days−the beginning of Hollywood−were perhaps reference to it being a foreign or alien land with it’s own fantasies and values.