Hollywood and Swine

I might be too young to have grown up on the George Reeves "Adventures of Superman" series (I'm more of a Christopher Reeve child, personally), but I do remember seeing those quaint 50s episodes in reruns as a kid. Mr. Reeves made an affable enough superhero, in over-sized glasses and a frumpy costume; for those cheaply-produced half-hours, he got the job done. I remember hearing something about the "curse of Superman" and that Mr. Reeves had committed suicide. I had no idea about the details surrounding his death and, after watching "Hollywoodland", Allen Coulter's dramatization of Mr. Reeves' final days, I'm no more the wiser.

Mr. Coulter's film, from a script by Paul Bernbaum, strives to nothing less than the ranks of "L.A. Confidential" and "Chinatown". As Mr. Bernbaum's screenplay seamlessly shifts between Mr. Reeves' life and the investigation of his death in 1959, it follows the same pattern of those superior films. In the seedy underbelly in which these films must take place, everyone has a motive for - and seems capable of - murder. The two-bit detective, in this case Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), wrestles with personal demons while tracking a case everyone warns him to drop. And, of course, said detective ends up battered and bloody, nursing a facial wound for the latter half of the film

Ben Affleck is an odd choice to play Mr. Reeves. Ironically, he's too bulky for the role, but he also has such an inherent boyishness that at times his performance feels like a kid playing dress-up. He wears the role like the ill-fitting Superman costume he dons in the many winking recreations of the series' heyday. Likewise, Mr. Brody is completely miscast as a 50s gumshoe. Aside from not looking the part, his style of acting is woefully out-of-period.

And then there's Diane Lane, still turning in the best performances of her career.
Here she is nothing short of ravishing as Toni Mannix, the wife of a powerful MGM exec (the always-welcome Bob Hoskins) who wears Mr. Reeves as her boy-toy. Her every moment on screen elevates the film above its other more glaring short-comings. Robin Tunney also gets in touch with her inner femme fatale as Leonore Lemmon (the L.L. parallel is downright spooky), Mr. Reeves fiancée at the time of his death.

There's one truly great moment in the film during a screening of "From Here to Eternity" when Mr. Reeves (Mr. Affleck humorously pasted into a scene with Burt Lancaster) witnesses typecasting in action. That one wordless moment speaks more than anything else in the film's slightly long running time.

Mr. Coulter and Mr. Bernbaum might have been better served by aiming a bit lower. They want to weave a web of intrigue where there quite simply may not be one. In "Hollywoodland", the characters never grow beyond the machinations of the plot, nor does the film reach the conspiratorial heights of a film such as "Autofocus". In the end, Mr. Reeves' life and death may have been more interesting laid bare, without the trappings of the industry he so loved.