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Between silents and talkies (art and exploitation? body and soul?), "the valley of indecency." The crux is Richard Dreyfuss' resemblance to Sternberg as a ruined auteur scrambling for genital close-ups ca. 1930, the rest of the Hollywood-Babylon apparition falls in place as corroded facsimiles of Jeanne Eagels, Louis B. Mayer et al. The proscenium is a colonial California mansion barely held together with chewing gum, padding through in floral jammies is the sarcastic Boy Wonder, swigging cognac and addressing his porn cast as "pioneers in the neoplastic arts." The star is a hophead flapper (Veronica Cartwright), the stud is a dim gigolo (Stephen Davies), the producer is a wannabe hamburger impresario (Bob Hoskins). Creative juices have long dried up, the search for the elusive creative erection leads to the moneyman's mistress (Jessica Harper), a demure dame swiftly purring for defilement. "The trick is to limp to the edge and let yourself fall." Cinema is equated to bootlegging, grave-digging and meat-wrapping (and unwrapping), yet Fassbinder's holy whore in John Byrum's rollicking exposition of the artist's dilemma is also a vivacious gal in a cyclone of splayed crotches and wisecracks. Much material is registered from Sunset Blvd., Singin' in the Rain and Baby Doll, fearless performances find a comic timbre of their own—the raunchy-sweet switcheroo of the muse's seduction, the validation of the "fancy crap" of camera expressiveness, the overdosed corpse of the Jazz Age carried out in a sheet. "Are you talking about cunts or audiences?" A film best appreciated by other filmmakers, Russell (Valentino) and De Palma (The Black Dahlia) among them, the critical reception is anticipated in the stumbling stag-party, "where the fuck's the cum shot?"
--- Fernando F. Croce |