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(intense music)

- [Narrator] One word can have a lot of meanings.

Hollywood is one of those words.

The word "Hollywood" first meant a place.

It was geography.

It started as a planned community

outside of Los Angeles, California.

Developed by H. J. Whitley, who was a buddy of Teddy Roosevelt

and Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daieda.

Harvey was a seasoned Kansas real estate developer,

and a Republican bigwig who came West with his new wife

to finish his life in golden California.

When he first came to Hollywood,

Harvey was 51 and his new wife was 21,

starting a marital tradition that has continued

until the present day.

So both Whitely and the Wilcoxes

claimed to have founded Hollywood.

H. J. Whitley liked to be called the "father of Hollywood."

While Daeida Wilcox,

especially after her elderly husband's death,

claimed the title of the "mother of Hollywood."

It is not known if the mother and father ever got together.

Eventually a place that was supposed to be a bastion

of sobriety and genteel country living,

became known for exactly the opposite.

The word "Hollywood" grew to mean everything

about the American motion picture industry.

The word was used to mean whatever you thought

about the movies and the people who made them.

You could say "Hollywood loves sequels"

or "Hollywood is full of perverts"

or "Hollywood hates America."

People would nod in agreement.

They still do.

The word "Hollywood" also means an attitude,

one not widely admired,

such as "Bert has gone Hollywood,

he doesn't have time for the little people."

For some reason, I actually live in Hollywood, the place.

I didn't plan it, but here I am in an apartment

near Paramount Pictures

and next door to Raleigh Studios,

which is said to be the oldest continuously operating

motion picture studio in the world.

Although now they make streaming shows here,

which I guess is the same thing, sorta.

It doesn't matter much how the name came to be.

Hollywood has always been about making money

or at least the illusion of doing so.

Whitley Wilcox did quite well, but the real truth

is that for all the people that flock here, year after year,

making money is the one thing

that generally doesn't happen to them.

The magic spell the movies cast over people

all over the world has always fascinated me.

And that spell has always gone hand in hand

with an irresistible attraction to fame.

And beyond that, an obsession some people have to be famous.

That obsession doesn't always end well.

Sometimes it feels like the desire to be famous

is the Achilles heel of the American Dream.

Way back in 1990, I decided to make a movie

about these things.

The idea was to take a small 16 millimeter film crew

on a road trip, talking to people across America

that had a passion for movies.

And to end the film in Los Angeles,

at the 63rd Academy Awards.

I planned to add classic film clips to the movie

to comment on and collide with

the documentary footage we shot.

I called the film "Tinsel."

Unfortunately it was the classic film clips

that undermined the release of the film.

The cost of licensing the footage

was many times the financial offers we got for the film.

I thought the classic movie clips

were an essential part of the film,

and because of the money it would cost to clear them,

the movie was shelved.

Years later, the film lab that was storing all the negative

and sound went out of business

and all the original film elements

were tossed in the local landfill.

A long time after that,

the only copy of the film was found

in an old videotape format that no one uses today.

Beyond the big 1990s hair, mullets and shoulder pads,

it showed a Hollywood that was both

completely different from today and in some ways,

oddly similar.

What we didn't know back then was that there was a law

called Fair Use that dealt with this very problem.

The law was first passed in the 1970s

and allowed small amounts of media

that was still under copyright to be reused

in new works for commentary or criticism.

And in those passing years, the Fair Use law evolved,

to allow the inclusion of short movie clips

in documentary films like this,

for comment and criticism.

That law allowed the film to finally be seen.

So I decided to revisit Tinsel,

to dust it off and see what this time capsule looked like

from the viewpoint of the 21st Century.

So here, 30 years later,

is Tinsel: The Lost Film About Hollywood.

(suspenseful music)

- I was in college when I went to see "Little Big Man."

And there's a scene where the troops attack

a peaceful Indian village

and you see a soldier take aim

at a woman who's running away with the baby on her back.

And he shoots and you see the,

obviously the bullet has gone through both the baby

and the mother, you see the blood spurt.

And just at that moment, the sound went out the projector

and it was absolutely quiet in this theater,

at that one moment... and a child,

a small child in the theater said,

"Mommy, they shot the baby."

And it was... it was stunning.

- Well, when I was 10 years old,

I saw "A Star Is Born" and I saw Barbara Streisand up there

singing her heart out

and I figured that's what I want to do.

I've always wanted to act, you know,

ever since I was two and,

"A Star Is Born" just inspired me a lot more.

(upbeat music)

- [Announcer] In Bayonne, New Jersey,

public school number three welcomes Sandra Dee.

An emotion charged moment for the ex-student

who went on to Hollywood fame while still in her teens.

Sandra and her relatives have a joyous, but tearful reunion

in the course of the school's special assembly program.

(upbeat music)

Sandra Dee completely captivates her old hometown.

Local girl makes good is big news.

( music conclusion)

- Oh, I'd just play, I'd watch TV and I'd watch other people

do characters and stuff and I'd read books.

And when I was older and I'd say, "Hey, I want these,

you know, these characters to come alive and everything."

So that's what I wanted to do.

- The story I'm writing, it should be made into a movie

because it shows not only the catastrophic effects

a nuclear war would have on the country

and the people surrounding it,

but it also shows what life would be like afterwards.

Who would survive and who wouldn't

and the effects it would have on the ionosphere,

on the ground and the land and the ocean...

- Acting is all I've ever wanted to do

and that's all I will ever want to do

and I'll become famous so I can make movies

and I can go up there and be on the silver screen.

(dramatic music)

- It's just celluloid.

It's just celluloid with some dye on it

and they shoot a light through it.

And it's an illusion, it's still pictures.

They don't really move.

I mean, it's, all this stuff is just amazing to me.

I still think about how remarkable it is

that you can throw these images on a wall

and people sit there and, and you,

you fall into that world and you,

you take that stuff to heart and you believe it

and you feel for these things and you,

you wonder what's going to happen next.

And if it's a good movie, when it's over,

you want to know more.

You want to go back and visit them again.

- [Man On phone] Well it's the biggest thing since radio

and I'm letting you in on the ground floor.

Oh Mary, Mary!

- I'm here.

- [Man] Will you tell that guy

I'm giving him the chance of a lifetime, did you hear it?

The of a lifetime!

- He says it's a chance of lifetime.

(phone hitting floor)

- Now you listen to me.

I don't want any plastic and I don't want any ground floors,

and I don't want to get married ever to anyone,

you understand that?

I want to do what I want to do.

And you're, and you're...

- George, George, George.

- Well, I think that a movie that can make an audience cry,

it's a wonderful thing.

So if you hear anybody say "I had a bad cry."

They would say "I had a good cry."

That release, release of tension, renewal.

It's a psychological bath.

And personally, I cry at the no smoking ordinance, you know.

- Some people say,

"Well, how can there be music in the middle of the ocean

or a band in the middle of the desert?"

And I would say, "What does it matter?"

It's, music comes sweeping in

and the performers start to sing and dance

and I just want to be up there and be a part of that.

And just, it's sweeps me away.

- It's everything we want, our fantasies, our fears

they're up there.

They're right in front of us.

We don't like to talk about them, there they are.

- Has to have a great protagonist and a great antagonist

and a great story adventure line.

- I like movies with, you know, action.

Movies, every now and then, you see a truck in it.

- I guess when it keeps you like, really occupied

and you want to keep sitting there and watch it

and not want to stop it and go to the bathroom.

- I was always more in my young age for love stories.

No sad stories, movies.

I love to have a love story.

- Frog Men.

I think I saw that around 12 times

when I was around 10 years old.

I remember they used to fall off the side of the raft.

And I used to think that was great.

- When I was a child, I guess "Bambi"

and all that kind of stuff, but it was all miracle stuff.

- But there've been moments like where I'll catch a scene

and I'll just go.

(sighing)

- A dark theater with a thousand strangers,

something happening upfront.

And the entire group experiencing the same thing

at the same moment.

(dramatic music)

- Everyone has two businesses, their own and showbiz.

There's something that's so attractive about show business

that everybody wants to be part of it.

And of course everyone is part of it in the sense of being

the reacting half of the equation.

- Well, I remember one time seeing my father

in a movie called the,

The Little Big Horn and he was playing a commander

of the U.S cavalry troop.

And at the very beginning of the movie,

he gave the famous charge of the cavalry,

(screaming)

and he took about eight arrows right in the heart.

(dramatic music)

They dragged him underneath the tree

and he laid there for the entire movie dying

while the men came up and talked to him like this

and after about half the film,

people were laughing and jeering at him.

It felt pretty bizarre.

- So the very act of watching movies

makes you have a fantasy about being in them or making them,

or being around them,

which is why the old adage of everybody has two businesses,

their own and showbiz, is true,

because participating and going into the darkened theater

means a suspension of disbelief

and an investment in a fantasy story,

which just almost as a shadow idea

brings you into the idea "I could have made it better.

I wouldn't have had the guy go through that door

knowing the killer was on the other side."

You know, whatever the thing is

and suddenly you're rewriting the script.

And then people think, "Well, these Hollywood people,

they don't really know what they're doing, I could do it.

I'll write a script."

- My story is about a, a boy,

a next door neighbor that goes to feed a neighbor's cat.

- My movie is called "Tube Lube."

Call it a blend between "Nine to Five"

and "The Other Side of the Mountain."

- My movie is kind of a science fiction thriller

and it starts out with the man on the porch

saying goodbye to his date.

- It's sort of a cross between "Beetlejuice"

and "Amityville Horror."

- My movie's sort of a Star Trek from hell.

- This script is about unembodied spirits

that are just searching.

- It's kind of a cross between "Diner" and "Fandango."

- Love found, love lost, love found again.

That holds the whole movie together.

- He does this just for his own satisfaction.

He likes to see small animals and things squirm.

He, he likes pain.

- We intersperse this or interphase it

with the local celebrities.

- And together they bring their own lives

back into fulfillment.

- And it all comes together and it ends up

in a ball of flame and crashes through the house,

out into the crowd that's gathered in the front yard

and the preacher that's holding the Bible

goes up in smoke and, oh it's just a,

it's a mess.

- Has a lot of irony in it, a real...

lot of irony.

- Well, I'm in a rental business, I rent movies.

It's a farming community.

And in my point of view,

I think they should have more down-to-earth movies.

Down where the people are... a real story

- [Director] But you just told me

those movies don't rent.

- Yeah, but it might not rent, but this is what I'd like.

Now, if they want to rent movies,

they have violence and guts

and wherever you get an arm cut off every three seconds

in a movie or somebody's gets shot off.

That's the kind of movies everybody wants to see

and that's what they want to rent.

- The video industry does real well here

simply because there is no other form of entertainment.

- We are employed here in the store.

We, rent every type of movie from kiddy films to porno.

(laughing)

- Well, we're, we're trying to find something

that we can all sit down and watch as a family.

And hopefully it will be entertaining, humorous,

maybe something educational even.

So that the kids can all learn something by it.

Or we can enjoy it and not have to spend a whole lot of time

about saying, "Well, you guys better watch this later."

- [Director] If someone gave you a bunch of money

and said, "Make a horror movie," what would make it about?

- I would make it about,

I don't know, something with whips and chains

and knives and stuff like that.

- [Director] Do you think we're going to see it?

- Well, I don't know.

Yeah, probably.

- [Director] Okay...

( brassy music stinger)

- [Narrator] The reason Hollywood became so famous

is that by the end of the first decade of the 20th century,

almost the entire American motion picture industry

was located in this small town.

The very first Hollywood movie studio was here.

On the Northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard

and Gower Street.

There was a tavern on this corner

called the Blondeau Tavern.

Now it is a sushi restaurant and a coffee shop

and no one seems to be aware of what was started here.

When the residents of Hollywood voted

to make the town alcohol free,

the tavern was suddenly out of business.

The owners leased the building to producer Al Christie

and the Nestor Film Company in October 1911.

They had just arrived from New Jersey

where the American film industry had started

near the Edison Laboratories.

So the first Hollywood studio was born in a barroom

and grew from there.

Within a few years, the town was packed with film producers

taking advantage of the sunshine,

and a quirk in California law that helped them

avoid paying royalties to the motion picture

patent companies back East.

The sunshine in California was important

because it was what made movies possible.

Those early film stocks were extremely slow,

which means they required a lot of light to make an image,

so the early movie sets had no roof,

so the sun could light the scene.

That's why early movies are all lit with the same

bland overhead light, as if every building in 1916

had a glass roof.

So it turns out the corner of Sunset and Gower

was like the "Cradle of Civilization"

in terms of Hollywood movies.

Across the street from Nestor

is where Universal Pictures started.

Where this Denny's is now.

Columbia Pictures was at the same intersection

for many years.

Now its old studios are called the Sunset Gower Studios.

The Warner Brothers built stages and fancy offices

a few blocks away at Van Ness and Sunset,

where the Netflix Hollywood offices are today.

Fox Studio was here on Western Avenue at Sunset

and expanded across the street here, where McDonald's is now.

The Walt Disney Studios were here in this little storefront

at Vermont and Kingswell,

before they moved to Hyperion Avenue

where this grocery store stands today.

About a hundred years later,

Disney owns Fox and Star Wars and Marvel and Pixar,

and anything else they want to buy that is still for sale.

This corner, just west of Vine street,

at the intersection of Lillian Way and Eleanor

may be the most important in Hollywood history

in terms of fostering legendary films.

Metro Studios first set up shop here in 1915,

founded by future super-mogul, Louie B Mayer

and the forgotten Richard Roland.

Metro would later evolve into the mega-studio MGM.

In 1916, after signing with Mutual,

Charlie Chaplin set up his studio here

at the original Metro lot.

He was the highest paid person in the world at the time,

making more than $15 million a year in today's money.

He made "he Floor Walker", "The Fireman", "The Vagabond",

and nine other shorts here before building his own studio

on farmland here on La Brea Avenue.

It's now the Jim Henson Studio and at the gate,

Kermit the Frog stands guard,

wearing the Little Tramp's clothes

and sporting Charlie Chaplin's trademark bowler hat

and cane.

Back at Chaplin's previous studio,

there was a new tenant starting in 1920, Buster Keaton.

He did his best work here.

10 features and nine shorts in only eight years.

Years ago, people put a plaque here honoring Keaton,

but it was on the wrong corner.

More recently, Keaton fans placed this plaque

on the correct corner, also honoring Chaplin.

In all my years of walking and driving by this corner,

I've never seen anyone looking at it.

About a mile to the southeast, RKO and Paramount Pictures

both set up separate studios on Melrose.

Eventually, Paramount Pictures absorbed the RKO lot

when they bought it from Lucille Ball

who had renamed it Desilu Studios.

However, no one ever bothered to remove the old RKO globe,

which perched on the top of a stage

at the corner of Melrose and Gower.

It sits there still today, mystifying tourists.

Paramount is the only Hollywood studio

that has stayed in place since the early days,

on Hollywood's southern boundary,

backed up against the Hollywood Cemetery.

There you will find the "Father of Hollywood",

H. J. Whitley interred,

along with his rival "Father of Hollywood", Harvey Wilcox,

and the man who leased the Blondeau Tavern

all those years ago, Al Christie.

As well as most of the people that made Hollywood, Hollywood.

Today, the original gate at Paramount Studios still stands.

It's called the Bronson Gate and it looks the same as it did

when William Holden walked towards it in "Sunset Boulevard"

in 1950.

- Wannabes.

Well, my first advice to wannabes would be,

"Listen to your mother and become a doctor."

- My movie is a story of two friends

who meet through telepathic time travel.

- It's about a, a woman who is dressed as a man,

goes and saves the town, you know,

along the lines of "High Noon" almost.

- I like talking.

So it makes sense that I like to write

other people talking also.

- It's something that will draw them in.

It'll bring tears, it'll bring suspense.

It'll bring comedy, it'll bring total enthusiasm.

- I don't, I don't really have a favorite scene

since I think it's all very good.

- And it'll be one of those movies where you see the TV ad

and the people are clapping their hands and raving about it.

- It goes from here, right to the keyboard.

I just think it all out, I can see it as it's happening.

So it just...

Just, it comes on out.

- There's a greater number of people going to films.

However, I don't know if they're going

for the right reasons.

- Well, all I can say is I would love to be able

to go to a party and say that I work in the movie business.

(upbeat music)

- What goes through my mind is

that I hope it's going to be a big hit in Hollywood,

that's what goes through my mind.

I'm going to keep my bank manager happy.

Because why do we write?

Professional writers, like Dr. Johnson said,

we write to make money.

Writers are spinners of dreams

and movies are all about dreams.

And we hope that a lot of people come and see our dream.

- If the public demand to,

to see you and have you as,

for entertainment,

that's equal fame.

And there is many of them here in this city.

Of course, it's very exciting that people come in

and rushing in and the bodyguard and the security

usually try to keep them away

but that's part of the game.

You know, they like it.

Although the they, you know, pretend that they don't.

Once you have fame, money will come, you know, with it.

And, answering your question, yes,

I'd like to have fame first.

- [Director] Would you marry someone very famous

or very rich?

- Famous.

- [Director] Why's that?

- So then you both could be famous

and then you'd both be recognized.

- [Announcer] Oh, here lies the most glamorous city

on Earth.

Hollywood, California.

A city where men and women skyrocket to fame

or plunge to oblivion.

What happens in the glamour of such famous gathering places

as the Ambassador pool.

The Trocadero on the gold coast of the film city.

At the Brown Derby where famous stars meet.

Or in the gay setting of Santa Anita Park.

It's all part of fantastic Hollywood,

Hollywood at playtime.

Here behind the walls of Selznick International Studio,

we see Hollywood at work.

A new Janet Gaynor is in the making.

(upbeat music)

- It's all who you know.

It's who you know and where you go.

That is the Hollywood mystique.

And I'll tell you what is actually behind

the Hollywood mystique is,

it's the glamour, the fame,

it's the, you know, just your, it's the fame.

I think people just go kind of "crazy," quote, unquote,

over the fame and the glamour.

- You see what my life is like Louella?

Not a minute to myself.

I work, I slave and what do I get?

Money, money, money!

A ridiculous fortune!

Oh, I do hope you'll tell every girl

to stay out of pictures.

- My dear, I've been telling them that for years,

but the glamour of Hollywood's too strong.

- But, uh... as I was saying,

I would not mind doing a little acting, you know and,

you know, any kind of acting, you know.

Sounds really nice as long as it's, you know,

within reason.

I don't, I do not do pornography.

I will NOT do porn.

- But I think what really pushes everybody

is it's some of your self,

self-satisfaction especially me being an athlete

at one time and you're always used to being

in the limelight.

And so I still want to stay in that particular limelight.

And that's what generates me usually to push forward.

It's not the money or the glory or anything like that.

It's just the self-satisfaction.

- [Director] Oh, that's a good answer.

- Sex sells, you know, sex sells,

but I'm not really interested in the sexuality of,

in the sexuality of, you know.

- Well, I'm an aspiring young musician,

just like everybody else in this town.

I'm aspiring to be a part of the entertainment industry.

- He told me that they were doing a movie

called the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

We got to go down on the field and then

go out into the parking lot, stomp on all these tomatoes

that were out there.

And they did a pan shot and I, and they got my face in it.

So now when I see my, I can see myself,

I say, "Hey, that's really neat."

You know, I finally got to be in a movie.

- My first entree into the business was loading trucks.

- Sweeping sets at 35 bucks a day, or less than that even.

- Anything, at that point was like, you know,

I couldn't get a job if I had a fist full of hundreds.

- Stay their kid.

You better take another one Joel.

Look, Bowers, take your hat off.

And be waving it.

And smile, give us a big smile.

One of those, "Hello, California,

I'm tickled to death to be here!"

You can't tell, you might like it.

- It's not as it appears.

It's a city like any other city.

There are people out there that'll take your eye out

and eat it for an olive if they had an opportunity.

- I don't know I don't think there is

a real Hollywood anymore except in the minds

of a lot of agents.

- This is a town in which a six point earthquake can hit

and everybody goes right back to work

like nothing happened.

This is Los Angeles.

And that by the way, is why LA is so weird

because the earth moves here on a regular basis.

And there's nothing solid to base your life on.

There is no solid ground in Los Angeles.

- You can't tell, you never know who's who, okay?

You never know who's who and the interesting part about it

is, you know, some people are real and some people are,

you know, fake, two faced and I'm real.

- I've never taken orders from anyone.

As long as I live, I'll never take orders from anyone.

I'm young and strong and nothing can touch me.

- You never know when the person

who was sitting next to you, who's out of work today

will be the studio executive of tomorrow.

That's how fickle this wonderful businesses is.

In the mornings of course, for breakfast,

we're in one of the best places, the Bel Age hotel has a,

a pretty hot little spot down in their coffee shop.

You can see the, the wheeler dealers of Paramount

usually down in the Bel Age hotel, and then if you hop

a couple of blocks away to Hugo's on Santa Monica Boulevard

you usually see, half the people out of work,

half the people in work.

The people out of work trying to hire the people in work,

you know, and walking past their tables

and trying to get in between some conversations,

trying to hear who's doing what.

When the sun starts setting here, we have the Le Domes,

the Spagos, the Chinois, the 72 Market Street,

the West Beach Cafe.

First of all, you have to know the maitre d'.

You have to know somebody in order to get a reservation

in one of these places to begin with.

And then once you're there, you want,

you want to get up a lot.

You want to be going to the bathroom,

want to be going to the phone.

I usually try to get my secretary to call me there

once or twice, you know.

It's Mr. Scheffer, you know, and then they call you over

and it's like, everybody knows you're at least working,

at least you've got something going on

and that helps, that helps a lot.

And then if you're really good and you do it well,

you pay the, you pay the, the valet guy

to come in and mention how you Rolls

was just hit out in the lot.

You know, "Mr. Sheffer with the Rolls, would you please?"

You know, and that usually gets some people knowing that,

that you're working.

And if you create the illusion that you're working,

people for some reason or another, give you projects,

give you stuff to do.

(dramatic music)

- My name is Paul Heppert.

I came down here from Chicago, with my wife, Tammy

and my son, Christopher and Stacy, my daughter, Stacy.

And we're here at Universal Studios.

And we're having a great time here.

Exploring the, innards of movie-making.

- This is a place where you get to see

behind the scenes of movies

and what special effects are.

- I dunno, it's real exciting.

It makes me get the bug, you know,

to want to get in front of a camera.

You see people running around and,

and there's a lot of people that are famous

that you might not know.

And you're always looking at people wondering,

is that a person? Is that a person?

- [Announcer] The Change of Habit has starred Elvis Presley-

- Elvis Presley and this, and this family!

- [Announcer] Thoroughly Modern Millie,

also starred Julie Andrews...

- Oh, it's neat, isn't it?

- Yeah, but it's old, very very old.

- It looks very very old. - It is!

- It's not really, it's only a facade.

That means a fake front.

A false front.

- Like, you know how they draw clouds on a picture?

And they put it up on the wall.

Well, they do that and then it looks real.

- [Director] Was this what you thought it would be like?

How people make movies?

- Yeah, sorta.

(screaming)

(loud sounds)

(screaming)

- It's pretty sick.

The most of the part is just killing.

Some have stories to them and some don't.

- [Director] Do you think these movies should be made

and kids like you should see them?

- No.

(laughing)

(screaming)

(dramatic noises)

- Here we are in Hollywood folks.

We're going to be taking a tour of the stars' homes today.

We'll be going along Hollywood Boulevard,

show you The Walk of Fame, take you up the Sunset Strip,

show you where some of the rock stars hang out from.

And then we're going to go up to the pink beauty

of the Beverly Hills hotel.

Maybe we could have tea with Nancy and Ronnie up in Bel Air,

and we'll bring it back down along Rodeo Drive

and show her where all the stars shop

and then show you the Hollywood sign up on Mount Lee.

We're going to have a good old time today!

Here on the right hand side,

where all the stars put their handprints and footprints

and autographs, that's the Chinese Theater right there.

Y'all heard about Lana Turner getting discovered at

Schwab's pharmacy a long time ago,

they tore it down four months ago

here on the left on the green walkways.

That's where Schwab's pharmacy was.

After Lana Turner got discovered there years ago,

I stood out there for about 35 years myself,

here on the Sunset Strip, looking good.

Going down to the Comedy Store where Arsenio Hall

does his monologue a lot.

If you want lunch today for $75 without wine

here on the left, Le Dome restaurant.

What are they serving for $75?

I have no idea, that's Le Dome.

Here on the left hand side, Nicky Blair's restaurant,

the green awning...

Sylvester Stallone having spaghetti and meatballs

at Nicky's last Saturday night.

30 people watching Sylvester Stallone eat.

Guy can't even eat anymore.

I've got to show you the Spago Restaurant.

A lot of stars at Spago's every night.

Opens at five tonight, no problem getting the bar.

Three weeks reservation for a table for dinner.

Next house I'm gonna be showing you, a lot of controversy

around here about three years ago, she moved out,

had a big house built on Mulholland drive.

Her ex husband wouldn't get out of the house

for the life of him.

Well, they started boarding up the windows and the doors.

He finally jumped out at the last minute.

You know her as Alexis...

Joan Collins.

Here on the left hand side, she passed away 10 months ago.

We all loved Lucy, didn't we folks?

Lucille Ball's house here in the left.

Her husband, Gary Morton's car in the driveway.

See it says "Gary M" on the license plate there.

Lucille Ball.

Now on the day that Lucille Ball passed away,

there were about 300 people standing across the street

just looking over our Lucy's house.

She was a wonderful lady.

The rooms you see up on the right with the black shutters,

that was Lucille ball's makeup room.

In the afternoon, you'd see Lucy up there

fixing her red curls.

She used to walk in front of the house a lot

and talk to people.

We really miss Lucille Ball.

Next door to Gregory Peck, this guy isn't friendly at all.

You see the razor wire up above the barbed wire.

Rod Steward folks, rockstar.

Rod Steward's house right here on the left hand side.

Now we're out here about a month ago,

talking about the house.

All of a sudden Rod Stewart came driving out

and his white Ferrari tested the roads

and we all smiled and said hello,

"Hi Rod, how you doing?"

He just covered up his face with his hands

and rolled down the street.

Well, I guess if we were all worth 150 million bucks,

we wouldn't have to say hello either, huh?

What a bimbo, Rod Stewart!

$65 million shopping mall.

The Rodeo Collection here on the right hand side.

Remember Nick Goldie run around and there

looking for his dog in a movie?

That's the Rodeo Collection right there.

Melanie Griffith coming out the other day,

smiled and said hello.

And down the Rodeo, left hand side ladies,

the way called Bijan Perfume.

Going to have to have an appointment

to get into Bijan's today.

Now who's just in the Rolls Royce?

Another local drug dealer?

Nice car pal.

- You got lots of stuff in here.

Oh Stacy, look at this dress!

Let's see who is, who wore this dress.

Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer.

Oh, can I pick this up? I wonder.

Look at this, Paul.

How much is it?

It's $600 honey!

- These are people that we see in the theaters

and on television that we get, you know,

that people get close to and they want to know better.

It's the whole, it's the whole myth, the whole image,

the whole feeling of glitz and glamor

and all that other stuff that they want to be a part of,

or at least be close to.

- Oh, Joan Collins.

Oh, size four, Joan Collins fits into a size four!

She looks bigger than that doesn't she?

- [Kid] Mom, look here.

There's a person from "Moonlighting."

- That's right!

That's Sybil Shepherd.

This is her dress.

$800, look at that.

No way would I be able to wear that, huh?

- We have Priscilla Presley, Farrah Fawcett, Mary Hart,

Prince.

We have a gown that Michelle Pfeiffer wore

in the "Baker Boys."

They just love it, they get to touch it and feel it

and take home a piece of clothing or jewelry or shoes,

any kind of accessories that we sell here and,

and show it to their friend.

- I think it would be neat to,

to buy, BUY something and take it home.

And you can take a piece of,

take a piece of Hollywood home with you.

- [Director] Do you feel like some people's fame might,

I know it doesn't actually rub off on the clothes...

- Yes it does!

Oh yes, it does, it rubs off of the clothes.

It sure does.

It rubs off on the clothes and it rubs off on the people.

- Well I'd find a little bit of pride of ownership,

knowing that you've owned maybe Jack Nicholson's boots or-

- They've got George Michael's boots on,

I would love you if you just wear George Michael's boots.

- No thanks.

- You know, this is Cinema Collectors, we're in Hollywood.

We're a movie collectors store.

We sell photos, posters, magazines, books,

just about anything a movie fan would want.

- And I don't understand quite what people do with them all

after all these years, but they sure collect them.

- Everybody in the movie could be dead,

but they're alive just that one, one time you watch it.

They're always going to be there and that's magic.

- Well, I guess Marilyn, Bogart, James Bond,

I don't know, whoever's new and hot at the moment

usually too.

- [Director] It's almost like it's hard

to take Marilyn Monroe as a person anymore

because we see her image everywhere.

- [Man] Yeah, I guess so, I don't know.

I just look at them as pictures, I guess.

- [Announcer] One of the most famous stars

in Hollywood history is dead at 36.

Marilyn Monroe was found dead in bed,

under circumstances that were in tragic contrast

to her glamorous career as a comic talent.

She never let her personal feelings interfere with her job.

And she was the idol of the GIs,

the animation of foxhole dreams.

- She never died, she never died.

I think she just became more famous.

You know, I think it'd be,

I don't think it meant to be for her to live that old

because people remember her

for her young, beautiful self.

She's like Elvis, you know, Elvis.

When he started getting older, he kind of started, you know,

- [Director] Well, do you think about getting older?

- I am, I'm planning to grow old gracefully.

Yes I am.

And, and it feels good.

And, and you know, so I don't,

I think I'm going to die young as well,

but not as young as that, maybe 60.

75.

80. (laughing)

- You know, this area is pretty office-like

and it's the only peaceful place around here.

- [Director] Do you see a lot of tourists come in here?

- [Natalie] All the time.

- [Director] And what do they, what do they do?

- Mainly they stop and see Marilyn Monroe.

But I'm not from here, I'm from Caracas and

down there my name is quite unusual

because my name is Natalie.

So since I was a little kid, I always had to say,

"Well, you know, Natalie, like Natalie Wood."

And they would say, "Oh okay, now we know your name."

But one day I came down.

Actually, it was the first time I came down to have my,

my lunch here.

And I was sitting on one of the benches

and I saw there's tomb with a lot of flowers.

So I just, you know, walked by and stopped to see

who the person was buried there.

And I was quite surprised to see that it was Natalie Wood.

So I said, "Oh, there you are, I finally meet you."

- Look at that.

See Chris, you know who that is?

Do you see Ed Begley Jr. on anything else?

Oh, here he comes, here he comes you guys...

Look at that, he just looks like a normal person.

- That can't be real.

- I don't know, but I'm getting pictures.

Do you remember Ron?

You know who Ron Howard is?

Richie Cunningham.

What's, what's his show?

"Happy Days?"

I know, I know...

Wait, I'll try and get them both in the same shot.

No, he's standing by a tree.

Oh my God!

I got a real good one.

I can't believe it takes this many people.

There's so many people here.

I mean, there's people running around and people with lights

and the big spotlights and people sitting on the curbs

and everything.

This is great, this is great!

And look it in the neighborhood,

nobody's looking out their windows, this is just normal.

- It's like an everyday occurrence over here, you know?

It's unbelievable.

Like I'd be out here just hanging around.

It's fantastic.

- I could spit on Ron Howard right now, he's so close.

- The time you ever get to see him back home

is when he's on TV.

- Now it seems too hard.

I thought it'd be really easy

but now it seems too hard.

- It's amazing.

It's a lot more than it looks on TV.

I'll tell you that right now.

You can see all the work that's put into it.

Time after time it takes to get one scene done right.

It takes a lot of patience.

It's fantastic though.

It really is, just to get this far with everything.

It's just, see behind the scenes.

It's really, no words can describe it, really.

- A lot of people get paid a lot of money, never to grow up.

I mean, this can be fun.

It can be really hard work, but it really can be fun.

- The taste of the glamour is when you're working on a,

on a movie and you're on location

and the people who are on the outside looking in,

here are curious about what it's all about and,

and you know that at the end, whatever you're doing,

whether it's getting up at 4:30 in the morning

or working 16 hour days, you're getting up to be in a picture

on the screen and millions of people are gonna see,

and your name's going to be in credits at the end,

that's the glamour.

A lot of people are going to get to see your name and,

and you want that.

It's just something, I don't what it is

that makes people want it but I want it,

I like it.

- 'Cause I don't care how much mud or shit you stood in

or how miserable you were.

You get all cleaned up and you put your suit on

or whatever it is and you go to the premiere and you say,

"Hey, that's my picture up there."

And there may be 300 people who are sitting in there

saying "Hey, that's my picture."

'Cause every person believes it's their picture

and rightfully it is.

Because everyone, that's a collaborative effort.

That movie came about because of everyone,

not because of one person.

It's a lot of fun and it's permanent.

It's permanent, it's forever.

- [Announcer] The world premiere of "The War Lord."

A new Universal Pictures production

that weaves the love story of a Norman knight

and a village girl against a background of violence

and warfare during the dark ages.

To come back to the present,

have you ever seen a prettier billboard setting?

- [Director] Tell me what you learned

on your trip here to Hollywood, about movies.

What did you learn?

- That they're fake!

- You get the see stars and directors

who just pass by you and

well like, and they look at you

like you're a regular person that just fits on a set

somewhere along the line.

- I don't think it's all as glamorous as it may seem.

It's, it seems to be a lot of hard work.

I've seen a lot of hustling and a lot of running around

and a lot of things,

a lot of things depend on timing and the right light

and all the, you know, everything's gotta be perfect.

And I think that that's,

I think that that's just a little too much work

and that the glamour is there,

but I don't think it's glamour.

Everybody has to go home by themselves at night.

- [Narrator] One thing I like about this old neighborhood

is all the ghosts of old Hollywood.

All the spirits of past productions swirling in the air.

In the early silent days,

they just shot wherever they wanted.

No permits were needed.

Hollywood was mostly made up of the occasional cottage

surrounded by empty lots and dirt streets.

It was like a free backlot.

Back in 1914, the Fiction Player's Film Company

from New York, bought a farm right here,

where Raleigh Studios stands today.

And they built a stage.

Everyone from Douglas Fairbanks' "Zorro",

to "The Adventures of Superman", to "Gunsmoke",

to "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" were shot here.

Now Netflix has rented the whole place

to use as their personal Hollywood studio.

And I guess as a billboard as well.

But this corner here, Melrose and Bronson,

has a special meaning for me.

I found an old photo in a book showing Mary Pickford

and her mother standing on this corner back in 1915.

It was just a split second in time.

The setting sun casting long shadows behind them

as they looked west.

Mary and her mother not even aware

the photo was being taken.

The man on the right in the sunglasses

was director Alan Dwan, who must've had one of the longest

directing careers in Hollywood history.

Directing films from 1911 to 1961.

At the time of this photo, he was directing Mary Pickford

in A Girl of Yesterday.

That movie is now lost.

No one alive has ever seen it.

Pickford was 23 years old

and the biggest movie star in the world at that moment.

They are all gone now.

The trees, the grass, the buildings, the people.

13 years later, Mary Pickford was a central figure

in the establishment of the first Academy Awards.

The very first awards were held here at this hotel,

near the Chinese theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

She won the best actress award herself the next year

for Coquette, her first talkie.

Still playing a teenager, at age 37.

- I told ya, I told you everything don't ask me!

Daddy... Daddy...

- No, no, try and compose yourself.

- [Bob Hope] Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to "Suspense."

(laughter)

- We're here to watch the Academy Award-

- Rehearsals. - Rehearsals.

- To see the stars. - The stars.

- They don't come dressed up like they used to.

This is my 29th year for coming to take pictures

of the stars as they go in.

One year, Angie Dickinson came here and she talked to us

for a real long time.

Gave a lot of autographs.

Mickey Rooney.

And I think my biggest thrill on coming here

was seeing Laurence Olivier.

He doesn't stop and give autographs, but he stood,

you know, so people could take pictures.

- This is Jessica Lange's autograph.

- [Director] Was she easy to get, was she nice?

- Yeah, she's really nice.

- [Director] Tell me what else you have in the book.

- Okay, turn the page.

- We got, these are all the people that showed up.

We put what time they showed up.

- What they're wearing.

What kind of limo they came in.

- [Director] And what are the stars for?

- Their personalities.

- One star is "rude and impolite,"

they just ignored everybody.

Two stars is "they smiled," but they still ignored us.

Three stars is "polite and some autographs."

And four stars was, they were the, I put the

- "Ultimate star." - "Ultimate star"

because they signed anybody they can get.

- [Director] So who rated 4 stars?

- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Diana Ross and Jessica Lange.

- [Director] Who will get the worst so far?

- Michelle Pfeiffer definitely.

She, she was very rude.

(percussive music)

- We're in Beverly Hills, California.

The capital of the entertainment industry.

And right here is CAA,

which is an agency, that's having a party tonight with,

for Jane Fonda.

And I'm here to park cars.

We're a very social town.

There's parties every night of the week.

People say, "Oh, what are, I know you're busy on Saturday

and Friday or Sunday, what do you do Tuesday?

I'll do six or seven parties.

So every night of the week,

and I'm not saying, well, every night of the week

and here!

Look at this man right here!

This is, we go back when I was parking cars.

- How are you? - I'm wonderful.

- How you doing? - I'm doing real well.

- The best.

- That's what this has done for my life.

People like him, who are celebrities.

And that's how nice it's been.

That's, the entertainment industry has been so good to me.

And they're all now my friends.

Well not all, no.

But a lot of them.

- Well it's 7:05 on Sunday night.

We're at the bleachers for the Oscars.

Starting to get a good crowd here now.

I've been coming for about six years

and just pretty much get out of work for a day.

- Well, I'm a photographer.

This is my seventh Academy Awards.

What kind of has become a tradition for me

is I have pictures of the celebrities

and I've been coming in the stands

and kind of letting people buy pictures

of the different celebrities.

People stay out, we all bring food and share food

and share blankets and tell jokes and sing along songs.

So, you know, we stay.

It's become kind of a group thing.

- I come from Italy and it's the second time

coming up for the Academy Awards.

And I came here just for, for a while,

just five days for the Academy Awards.

That's so crazy you know. (laughing)

- We've been here since about eight o'clock this morning.

We're from Huntington Beach, California.

We're native Californians.

And this is the first time we've ever done this.

And these are my children. - Something crazy like this!

- Yeah, something crazy like this!

- [Director] So who do you want to see the most

in the stars?

- Michelle Pfeiffer. (laughing)

- Tom Cruise.

- Jack Nicholson. - And Jack Nicholson.

- Tom Cruise! - Tom Cruise!

- Tom Cruise! (laughing)

- I came here last year when it was at the Shrine.

I came for the sole purpose of seeing Tom Cruise.

- [Director] And how was he?

- He was cute

(laughing)

He was cute and everybody knows I love him and they all,

it's a big joke.

- Look at the guy, you know,

if we could both look like Tom Cruise, hey, right?

We'd both be happier.

But anyway, no Tom Cruise and I have some pictures

of New Kids On The Block for the 15-and-under age group.

- There is a lot of responsibility

that goes with being famous.

And there's a lot of responsibility that goes

with being a human being.

And I think the fact that,

that you are being made famous,

you're being made famous by the people,

they make you famous.

Nobody else makes you famous, the people make you famous.

- But they have to believe that it's,

it's not real completely.

That the spotlight may be gone

from their aurora later.

You know, they're hot at one time, may not be.

And they shouldn't really believe in that image

that they're gods.

You see that some stars do

and they, they run away from us.

They think they're bigger than they are.

On screen they are, you see,

but in real life, they are not.

- [Announcer] Hollywood's biggest night of the year.

The Academy Award ceremonies at the Pantages Theater.

(applause)

Returning to Hollywood after 10 years absence,

Ingrid Bergman attracts an extra measure of attention

among the dazzling roster of luminaries on hand.

Janet Lee and Tony Curtis are others

of the hundreds of stars and celebrities present

for Hollywood's own accolade to it's finest.

(upbeat music)

- It was a little cool last night.

Wasn't too bad.

Once you get inside the bag, it wasn't bad.

People walking by.

Bumping me and stuff, they dropped,

like, coolers on my feet

'cause they're hanging off the side.

Then the lights, they turn on the lights

at three in the morning and spotlights right on you.

- I'm from Brazil. - And I'm from Italy.

- [Interviewer] And what are you doing here

at the Academy Awards?

- Okay, I wanna see Tom Cruise.

- [Director] That's the only reason you came?

- Yeah.

- Tom Cruise.

- [Director] Why's that?

- 'Cause he's awesome.

- He's a great actor.

He should get Best Actor.

- I'd take him to my prom. (laughing)

- [Director] And then what?

What would happen when you walk in with him?

- I would just go, "Hi everyone."

(laughing)

You know Tom?

- We come down here and expect, and we see the fans,

you know, the actors and them go by but,

it's really the fans that make the whole thing.

- I'd really like to talk to him.

And find out if he is really as wonderful as I think he is

and make sure he's not a real jerk.

- Oh, it's getting so excited because you know that the,

all the limos,

all the limousines are gonna come rolling through

and then all the actors and actresses get out.

The excitement is just something, because you know that

there's the chance for them to win the Oscars

is such an incredible opportunity.

- Everybody's waiting for the stars to come and everything

and it's just real exciting

'cause everybody's all nervous inside and everything.

Not knowing what's gonna happen.

(tribal music)

(screaming)

- Thank you for coming.

- Congratulations Tom.

(fans screaming)

- This is the party that really is the, I don't know.

I understand it's tougher to get to this party

than it is actually to get to the Oscars.

But Mr. Lozar sometimes knows as Swifty Lozar

is an agent and he's been giving these parties

for many years at the Bistro before

and now at Spago's and

everybody will be here tonight.

I'm all jittery, you know.

It's Oscar Night, you know, and it's,

I'm performing, if I may say, you know,

I'm doing my thing and I'm parking cars

and I'm orchestrating all the top celebrities,

all the top studio heads, every one of 'em are here.

So I have to make sure that their car is taken care of.

That their limousine is brought up to them

and there can't be any mistakes.

And it's, it's tough, but that's why I'm here.

- It's like a national holiday in Los Angeles, I think.

It's kind of like one of those things.

Everything kind of stops and everybody gets into it.

And it's kind of like one of those,

I don't know it's kind of like a community sort of thing.

It's close as community as Los Angeles gets.

- This is worldwide.

This is a billion people.

This is, everybody is involved with Oscars.

Movies are all over the world.

Mardi Gras is nice for the South,

but Oscars is the world and this is it.

And this is the party to be at.

- [Announcer] The whole world loves Oscar

and the whole world loves parties.

But the Oscar party to be at was at Spargo.

- The host of the star studded affair is literary agent

Irving "Swifty" Lazar.

- Why do you think this party has become so big?

- I think it 'cause they get in free.

- Okay, just stay on with us.

- [Voice] I'll stay on with you dude.

- Okay.

Don't say, don't use the F word, we have guests here.

- You think you've seen it.

Because you know, you think your blitz-out on Oscar,

but I mean, I was glued.

- I think it's one of the best shows that we've done.

- Hi, I'm John Tesh. - And I'm Mary Hart.

Comedian Billy Crystal got great reviews

for his Oscar hosting chores Monday night.

Crystal's jokes were wide-ranging.

Few were spared and some were offended.

Actually, it sounds like we're referring to the jokes.

Were wide ranging.

- "Few people were spared." - Yeah, we have to say so.

- "Few people were spared and some were even offended."

Put in an "even."

- Her style on stage is sexy and sensual,

but off stage Lola Falana is one star

who practices what she preaches and that's celibacy.

Jean Wolfe takes a look at Lola's unconventional lifestyle

and her battle with the tabloids.

Wow.

This footnote, Falana says she's flattered

by tabloid reports that Webster star Emmanuel Lewis

has a crush on her,

but Lola says, even if they're true, right now,

there's no room for a man in her life.

By the way, if you don't believe this story,

dial 1-900... (laughing)

- Well, you know, I called Dana just two days ago

and complained about the old one

and now we have this new one.

- They're going to do their solarization first

and then we'll go.

Give you time to eat that now.

(buzzer beeping)

- Standby!

Five, four, three, two.

- Thanks Lisa, on our Inside Story tomorrow,

actress Margo Hemingway, whose talents have been shown.

- Well, I'm sorry, what's the Lisa piece

we're coming out of?

- The piece was just uh, Robin Harris.

Here we come, "cause a commotion."

- [Margo] I did it to cause a commotion...

- Margo Hemingway bears all for Playboy.

That's the Inside Story tomorrow

here on Entertainment Tonight.

(synth music)

- [Mary Hart] Coming up next,

Lola Falana, the sexy star sets the record.

No way is she going to become a nun.

- I think when it gets down to it,

as much as people want to know about the personal details

of stars lives,

they also want the illusion because they want that man

or that woman to have an existence

that's totally different from theirs.

- And what you'll see here is that we deal

with maybe four cameraman and a director

who's not even in this room,

he's in the other room.

So you really, you don't think of, I don't anyway.

I don't think about what's out there.

- [Floor Manager] Five, four, three.

- Oscar host Billy Crystal's jokes

were heard around the world, but not everyone laughed.

This is Entertainment Tonight for Wednesday,

March 28th, 1990.

- That's a buy, set for the walk-on.

Five, four, three, two, - March 28, 1990.

(theme music)

- Hi everybody, I'm John Tesh. - And I'm Mary Hart.

- Oh, Leonard Nimoy, Leonard Nimoy, Ron...

Oh, never mind, got it.

Two, one.

- Up music, stand by dissolve one.

Stop, cue.

Stand by playback, BT 13,

ADO first, 13 here okay.

- However, fans will never forget the role.

- ADO roll, mirage, track.

- And then all of a sudden one day,

I was on the phone with my mother.

It was about two years after I'd, I'd been on the air.

And she said, "Gosh!"

She said, "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" grossed

so much money at the box office!"

And I knew right then and there

that we had the potential to become an institution

in the business because my mother, who was from mid-America,

was quoting me box office figures.

And you know, even using the lingo.

- In taking people inside and behind the scenes,

that's what, that's what perpetuates the fascination and,

and the myth and the, and the,

and the things that people want to think about Hollywood,

or think about show business,

because we show them just enough

to make them want to believe and they do believe.

(rock music)

- Screenplays might be the easiest way

to break into the film industry.

You read quite frequently about people

that write their first script and sell it

for half a million dollars. It's a

gateway into being in movies and making a lot of money.

- What I do is I register material

that's been sent in through the mail

and I review the material and try to determine

whether it's a screenplay or a teleplay.

A dead giveaway is when you see foul language

so you know it's not for television.

You know it's not for CBS or ABC or NBC.

You know it's for theatrical release.

You see over here.

I'd say is about a good month's worth of material

that's coming through the mail.

And it comes in from

Florida,

Washington,

California of course,

France, Mexico,

all over the world.

They'll send in a script and they'll call back

two days later and say, "Well, have you sold my script?"

And we tell them, "No, that's not our job."

We're just a legal depository of their scripts.

- [Director] But do you think that you say it nicely?

- Oh, I see it as nicely as I can.

- [Director] But the 50th time you get that question...

- Sure, after a while, it just becomes rote,

but you still have to have a smile in your voice

'cause these are, as my father said to me,

no matter how unrealistic a person's dreams may seem,

it's their dreams and you should respect them.

- So you have to pitch to somebody,

a producer or a story editor who usually has 50,000 things

on his mind.

His attention span is, you know,

like that of a jack rabbit on angel-dust anyway.

And you're trying to hold his attention

by selling him a story that's better

than the other 50 stories he's heard today

and which are all jumbled up in notes on his desk.

- I'm hit and miss on pitching because,

I mean, one of the reasons I'm a writer

and not a performer is I'm, I get nervous.

I, you know, and, and it depends too,

'cause it's, it's a little bit like tennis.

If you're pitching to an idiot, you're going to break out.

You can see it.

They look like they smell something bad

when you're telling them the story,

they started going like this.

- And then you go in and,

and you look at somebody's face

and you realize they're not going to get it,

but you still have to be enthusiastic and try to sell it

and you kinda just see their,

a lot of times you just kind of see their eyeballs roll back

or they pick up a phone call or they'll say like,

"Hold that idea."

- You literally get like two sentences in.

And the guy goes, "No, no, no, we're not doing that.

What else do you got?"

You know, and, and you just,

you want to run, to leap out the window

or something at that point.

- The first fellow we pitched it to said,

"Wait, wait, stop, stop right there.

Everyone on earth dies, who cares?

Go on to the next story."

We thought, you know, bad idea.

Later on that day, we get to that part of the story

he says, "That's fabulous, everyone on earth dies.

How important these people's lives become

just what a great idea, go on, go on!"

Now, the important thing to remember is both of them

were probably mistaken, somewhere in the middle.

You know, there was the truth

and it's very easy to get swayed by their title,

by the fact that you know that their shoes

cost more than you made last month.

- There's a lot of great writers who are nervous wrecks

and can't pitch to save their life.

- 'Cause most people become writers

because they're very shy, quiet, retiring people

and they like to hunch behind their word processors

and just type and tell their stories,

they don't like to get out in the limelight.

And yet when you sell the story, you've got a, you know,

it's a show, you got to put it on.

You got to say, "And this happens, an the dam breaks!"

- No other business or,

are business decisions have such massive scale

and importance made on, you know, the,

the whims of, if the guy had a bad lunch

or he got in a car accident that day,

you're out of there, forget it.

- All right, Gilles, you've got five minutes.

What's your story about?

- It's about a baseball player, a rookie shortstop,

that's batting 347.

Poor kid was once mixed up in a holdup,

but he's trying to go straight,

except there's a bunch of gamblers that won't let him.

- So they tell the poor kid,

he's got to throw the World Series or else, huh?

- More or less, except for the end.

I've got a gimmick that's real good.

- You got a title?

- "Bases Loaded," there's a 40 page outline.

- Call Readers Department.

Find out what they have on "Bases Loaded."

- They're pretty hot about it over 20th,

except I think Zanuck's all wet.

Can you see Tye Powers as a shortstop?

You got the best man for it

right here in this lot, Alan Ladd.

Good change of pace for Ladd.

And there's another thing, it's pretty simple to shoot,

lot's of outdoors stuff.

I bet you could make the whole thing for under a million.

(burping) - Excuse me.

- We are commercial writers.

We enjoy, we enjoy going to the movies.

We see probably three or four movies a week

and we like what's out there, you know.

And we,

and so we know what's out there

and we write to the market.

- But, no, no... that sounds,

it sounds like we're writing down.

I mean, we're trying to write the good stuff.

We're trying to write stuff that we think is intelligent

and funny and vaguely sophisticated, you know.

Whether it turns out that way is something else,

but, we're not, we're not writing down to the marketplace.

We're not writing, we're not saying,

"Oh, this is going to be commercial.

Someone's going to want to buy this."

We've never done that.

We've always said, "This would make a great movie.

This is a funny premise.

This is an interesting character."

And you go from there.

- I guess I don't consider the marketplace "down," you know.

I like going to see movies.

- Even thought most movies are terrible.

- Sure, but I like, I still, I still go see them anyway.

- Yes.

- The reality is,

is that good ideas are a dime a dozen.

Great ideas and concepts are hard to come by.

And so the currency that we deal with,

are great concepts, great ideas.

- The "Big Idea."

I mean, most of our stuff has been pretty high concept

and I think basically, you know,

we've- - But in a good way.

- In a very good way. (laughing)

- That can sound like crap if you're not careful.

- Sure.

- Yeah, I'm a trip and who's to blame?

My father, a swell start you gave me!

Ever since I was 14, what's it been?

Nothing but men, dirty rotten men!

And you're lower than any off them!

I'll hate you as long as I live!

- Well, it's a disease.

It's truly an addictive industry.

And you really have to love what you're doing

to deal with a lot of the rejection and the headaches

and the screwing around with money that goes on.

The half-truths.

- It's too hard to get in the movie business

and as a struggling filmmaker or writer

or director or actor,

you have no idea if it's going to take five years,

10 years, 20 years.

- It's not bragging to say that my television programs

have been seen by more people than ever saw Shakespeare.

And it's a really weird thing to think about.

Certainly while Shakespeare was alive

and I in no way compare myself to Shakespeare,

but I've had more power to affect minds than he has had.

And that is a really scary thing to think about.

- Once when I was a reader many years ago

for Mike Medavoy, who just became the head of Tri-Star,

has been ahead of Orion for years,

I was sitting in this cubby hole and I had tons of scripts

to read out.

I had just gotten hired, and I was my first job, way behind.

And I pulled a script out from the "slush pile"

and I had these rules,

like I'd never read two scripts in a row

that had yellow covers and you know,

just, mounds of this stuff.

And I started reading it.

And at first it said,

it looked like it was going to be an action picture.

And then I started reading it

and then it took this other twist.

And then I kept reading it and twisted

and it went this way and it went that way

and it went the other way.

And finally, I got to the end and I said,

"Holy crap, I have just read the Great American Screenplay.

And I was 23 years old

and I think it was probably the eighth screenplay

I'd ever read, but I was convinced it was great.

And I went running down the hall to Mike and I said,

"Mike, Mike, this is the Great American Screenplay.

This is the greatest script ever written!"

And he said, "Give me two pages on it and leave."

So I went back and wrote up my little synopsis

and I went running back.

"Well Mike, this is the greatest,

this is going to win the Academy Award, Mike, Mike!"

And he read the two pages and he said to me,

he looked up, he said,

"Is this as good as you say it is?

Because I'm about to call a studio and sell it.

And if I send it over there and I'm embarrassed

because it isn't the great Great American Screenplay,

I'm going to fire your ass right out of this office.

How good is it?"

I went, gulped,

"It's the Great American Screenplay Mike."

And by the end of the week,

it had Redford and Newman and it was "The Sting".

- I wrote the first draft of "Rambo."

And I just did it.

I was, I was living on dog food at the time and I, you know,

I needed a gig and I wanted to finish

a spec script I was writing.

And, you know, they called, Stallone called me in and

they had this idea about what they should do

in the sequel to "First Blood" and I said,

"Well, how about if maybe he searches for POWs

in Southeast Asia and back in Vietnam?

He said, "Great, let's do it."

- It's a mindset that says

that this gross, unnatural act of making movies.

And it indeed is that, you know,

making a feature film is, you're trying to make Nature,

turn handsprings in reverse order.

You're trying to fight against natural forces

to get a script rendered onto a screen.

And to me that takes not only skills and talents

and experience,

but it takes an attitude that really isn't

part of a lot of people's makeup, it's,

it's kinda like why Super Dave keeps going into a wall

every now and then.

It's a combination of Evel Knievel and Job.

- It's like, it's like almost like having an affair.

You know, you go in, it's like intense.

Everything is like, the colors are bright.

Everything is really happening.

It's beautiful, and then you come out,

you have this fruition and then it's over.

And you're sad when it's over, but in another way,

the intensity that you had doing it,

you'll never have again without the film.

- I got out of the,

the writing game for a while to become an agent

'cause I thought, "Oh, I'd never, I'd never make it."

And fortunately, I gave it another try.

I don't think anybody would trade this business.

- Well, there's no, there's nothing else to do,

but to continue trying.

And you can do it on any scale you want,

but you, there's no alternative,

unless you want to give up being that kind of person.

- It builds up and builds up all the, the plots build up,

the conclusion, big climaxing, good ending.

And they don't want something that ends on a bad ending,

they want something that ends good.

Like the good guy wins, or

like in Rocky, where the good guy wins at the end.

- I always, I think people want what I always wanted,

which was something, not just escape because

escape only goes so far, you still have to face reality,

but there's something that illuminates reality in some way.

"High Hoon," Gary Cooper,

how many people have ever, have ever

been faced with

some kind of terrible decision, and

and you know, they think of Gary Cooper

and that kind of, puts starch in their backs.

Which is not to say, which is that to overvalue movies.

I mean, they're just movies

and you still have to make the decisions on your own,

but there's still, there's something about it.

You can think back and say, "Yeah, I was Gary Cooper or

God, I should have been Gary Cooper."

(old lullaby)

- [Director] Why do you think people like movies so much?

- Because there's nothing else to do.

- [Narrator] So the question is all these years later,

what has changed?

In 1990, no one had mobile phones,

much less powerful networked mini-computers

in their pockets.

There were no social networks, no instant messaging.

Today, Narcissism and the Cult of Celebrity

are the twin testicles of the Apocalypse.

They taint every bit of media that flows into our eyes

from the multiple screens we feast on daily.

They dominate modern society like the Medieval Church

dominated the Dark Ages.

Today it seems everyone is a narcissist.

And everyone is a celebrity, or they can be

in some small way.

Today, your average 12 year old has more posed photographs

taken of them and broadcast to the world in a year

than Marilyn Monroe did in her lifetime.

More by multiples.

It is estimated that by the end of the second decade

of the 21st century,

more than one and a half trillion photographs

will be made each year.

That's 125 billion photos a month.

And a very large portion of those photos

are of the photographer's favorite subject, themselves.

If this is the Second Dark Age,

then Celebrities are the Saints and Royalty merged together.

And every Average Joe is just a viral hit away

from joining that club.

Back in 1990, there were clearly two classes of humans,

the celebrities and the rest of us sitting in the stands,

hoping to catch a glimpse.

There was no question of who was famous and who wasn't.

And when a regular person saw a Celebrity God in the flesh,

it was something of a miracle.

Today we know when some celebrities

have a good bowel movement

because we get pinged with their update on Twitter.

In 1990, HBO and Showtime ruled the premium cable business.

The other media options were going to a movie theater,

running a video cassette or watching broadcast TV.

In this age, we are flooded with

what seems to be an infinite amount

of media options and platforms.

From high-budget corporate media franchises

to no-budget content made on mobile phones.

But what about the power of movies themselves?

I don't think anyone has tried to measure it,

but the movies do appear to deeply affect people.

Movies give us a shorthand language

and also form the fabric of our worldview.

Many people opt to watch the same movie over and over again,

digging into it deeper and deeper,

an option first made available to us as the video cassette,

but infinitely easier in our digital world.

We still want to share movies that are important to us

with people that matter to us.

And although the experience of seeing movies in a dark room

with hundreds of strangers feels under attack,

it seems unlikely to ever go away.

But then again, this art form is still young

and anything can happen.

(1920's music)