Maps to the Stars and 10 Other Essential Movies about Hollywood Inline
Photo: Courtesy of © MGM1/10Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
Directed and starring Buster Keaton, this classic silent is about a projectionist who falls asleep and enters into the film he’s been projecting. Filled with funny gags, this is one of the earliest (and sharpest) attempts to explore how Hollywood dreams enter our heads.
Photo: Courtesy of © Paramount Pictures2/10Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
In this uproarious Depression-era fantasy, writer-director Preston Sturges examines—and spoofs—Hollywood’s bottomless desire to be taken seriously. Joel McCrea stars as a filmmaker who specializes in fluff—he made Ants in Your Pants of 1940—but decides he should hit the road and make something about the real America called O Brother, Where Art Thou? Man, does he learn a lesson.
Photo: Courtesy of © Columbia Pictures3/10In a Lonely Place (1950)
If any figure in Hollywood movies is inescapable, it’s the disaffected screenwriter. None is world-wearier or nastier than Dixon Steele—played by Humphrey Bogart in his finest performance—whose surface charm masks, um, some issues. Accused of murder, he gets involved with his beautiful neighbor, Laurel Gray (a sensational Gloria Grahame), who quickly learns he’s a real piece of work (“Do you look down on all women,” she asks him, “or just the ones you know?”). Shot through with the industry’s anger and self-hatred, Nicholas Ray’s thriller feels as relevant today as it did 65 years ago.
Photo: Courtesy of © Paramount Pictures4/10Sunset Blvd. (1950)
This is the most iconic of all Hollywood films. Written and directed by that master of cynicism Billy Wilder, it stars faded silent-star Gloria Swanson as faded silent-star Norma Desmond, who lives in a gothic mansion with a desperate screenwriter boy-toy (William Holden), her faithful servant (Erich von Stroheim), and utterly hopeless hopes of regaining her old place in the Hollywood firmament. Very funny and crackling with a sense of the delusion that runs through the film industry.
Photo: Courtesy of © MGM5/10The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
In Vincente Minnelli’s riveting melodrama, Kirk Douglas shines as Jonathan Shields, a ruthlessly hard-climbing producer who uses and alienates a screenwriter (Dick Powell), an actress (Lana Turner), and a director (Barry Sullivan) to make his way to the top. Of course, those on the top in Hollywood tend to be lonely, unhappy, and a little bonkers. Seeing the film in a larger, more metaphorical context, you can trace a line from Shields’s miserable success to that of Don Draper.
