Hollywood Boulevard

Summary

“Miracle Pictures – if it’s a good film, it’s a Miracle!”

In 1975, two film trailer editors and a head of publicity for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures approached Corman to see if he would allow them to make a film. The two editors, Joe Dante and Allan Arkush, and head of publicity Jon Davison were given the green light to make the film as long as it was the least expensive film that Corman had ever produced for the company. It also was necessary that it be filmed in ten days while still editing the film trailers at night. The script cobbled together by Danny Opatoshu was called The Starlets and was essentially a “three girl picture” that lifted some ideas from the Bela Lugosi film The Death Kiss. Jon Davison produced with Allan Arkush and Joe Dante sharing duties in the director’s chair. They cast friends from the industry in the lead roles. The resulting film was Hollywood Boulevard and launched all three into their respective careers. Scorpion Releasing has given the film a new transfer from the original negatives and has performed over 25 hours of scene to scene color correction.

As the movie begins, a stunt goes wrong and a stunt woman dies from a freak parachute accident as her director Erich Von Loppe (Paul Bartel) and costar Mary McQueen (Mary Woronov) watch on. This puts producer P.G. (Richard Doran) in need of a new actress for his next low budget film for Miracle Pictures. Candy (Candice Rialson) arrives in Hollywood with dreams of becoming an actress. She soon accidentally assists in a bank robbery and subsequently lands an agent named Walter Paisley (Dick Miller.) She becomes a stuntwoman for Miracle Pictures and begins a relationship with writer Patrick Hobby (Jeffrey Kramer.) As she rises in the ranks, strange occurrences begin to happen on set that may put her in danger.

Hollywood Boulevard is by and large a series of comedic events with a roughly drawn plot. The film used footage from The Terror, some unused footage of a young Francis Ford Coppola using hand puppets of a vagina monster and penis monster from Battle Beyond the Sun, some footage from Death Race 2000, Crazy Mama, The Big Bird Cage and more films to lend the film more production value than it could have had otherwise. The film runs loose and aims to deliver as many jokes as possible in its brief runtime. It is pretty impressive that the film was made for around $50,000 and was shot entirely on the short ends left over from film canisters. As one might expect, the film does not have the same cohesive feel that later pictures by Joe Dante or Allan Arkush have, because it was made in ten days. As it stands, the film is entertaining and has some good insight into how low budget films were made at New World Pictures. The film features some funny bits and a winning cast. I particularly enjoyed the bits involving Dick Miller as agent Water Paisley (the name of the character itself is a reference to his role in Corman’s Bucket of Blood.) Mary Woronov is fun to watch in the film and it was nice to see her paired with Eating Raoul co-star Paul Bartel. The film also casts film director Jonathan Kaplan in a small role. 

On the other hand, the film has some comedic treatments of sexual impropriety that don’t play as well forty four years later and may turn off some viewers. It is definitely an uneven film, but as a fan of the people involved, it was important that I was able to see the genesis of their talents. It is probably a case where the story of the film is a bit more impressive than the film itself. As the tagline says, the film is “shamelessly loaded with sex and violence,” and it is pretty impressive what was accomplished given the constraints that the film was made under. I am thankful that it exists, because of the great careers that came out of it.

Video

Hollywood Boulevard has been given a new transfer by Scorpion Releasing using an MPEG-4 AVC encode from the original camera negatives. The film received twenty five hours of color correction for the release and the results are nice. Fans of the film will be amazed at the amount of work put into restoring the film. Considering the film was shot on short ends, the results are visually pleasing. Fine detail is solid and this is undoubtedly the best the film has ever looked.

Audio

Scorpion Releasing has provided an English DTS-HD MA Mono track that capably replicates the original sound design. The film sounds surprisingly clear. The film is not sonically ambitious, but dialogue is clear and the soundtrack by Andy Stein is in good shape.

Supplements:

Audio Commentary with Directors Joe Dante, Allan Arkush and producer Jon Davison – the three lifelong friends discuss how they “perpetrated” the film. This is a very funny track with lots of joking between the men.

Joe Dante – Dante discusses how the film took shape and reminisces about his tenure at New World Pictures underneath Roger Corman. He also touches upon The Movie Orgy which he made with Jon Davison and borrowed elements from for Hollywood Boulevard. This is a really good interview.

Allan Arkush and Jon Davison – the two discuss meeting at NYU Film School, how Jon landed his job with Corman, and the pivotal lunch meeting that landed them their opportunity to make the film. The interview also discusses how they cast Mary Woronov and others in the film. Another really enjoyable interview.

Roger Corman – the legendary producer and director discusses the history of the film and the pleasure he had in watching 

Mary Woronov – the actress reminisces on her role and her enjoyment of working with numerous people from the cast and crew on other projects.

Jeffrey Kramer – the actor best known for his work on Jaws discusses working on the film.

Miller Drake – a crew member on the film briefly discusses the ragtag nature of shooting the film.

Theatrical Trailer 

Trailers from Hell trailer – a very funny and informative trailer commentary featuring Jon Davison

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 5/5

Overall – 3.5/5

Hollywood Boulevard is not a great movie, but there are elements of the movie that still work well. I enjoyed the roles of both Paul Bartel and Dick Miller. I also enjoyed how the film captured a moment in time of low budget filmmaking in the Roger Corman school of filmmaking. Sometimes the story behind the film is more interesting than the film itself, and I feel like that is the case with Hollywood Boulevard. The film birthed the careers of Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, and Jon Davison, so I am thankful that it was made. The Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray has given the film a new life thanks to a great job performed on the new transfer with over 25 hours of color correction. The extras provided are superb and worth the price of admission. Fans will definitely want to upgrade to this edition, but the film is more of a novelty that one may want to rent prior to a purchase.