Word: hollywoodizing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...seven passengers have paid $25 each to pile into a 1969 Cadillac hearse outside Hollywood's Chinese Theater and begin a 2 1/2-hour excursion into "the deathstyles of the rich and famous." As the brochure promises, Grave Line "takes you back through time to the tawdry, twisted, titillating tales of Tinseltown like no other tour service dares! You'll see Hollywood's Babylon at its most unflattering angle! The sizzling scandals, jilted romances, real murder scenes, hottest suicide spots, hospitals of horizontal dismissals and the churches of famous funerals...
Grave Line does not neglect the stately homes of more traditional Hollywood sight-sees. The hearse cruises past Jayne Mansfield's "pink palace," the one with the heart-shaped swimming pool, where the cantilevered comedian dwelt at the time she literally lost her head in a car crash. It decelerates outside Elizabeth Taylor's current home, which belonged to Frank Sinatra when his son was kidnaped and held for $240,000 ransom. It motors around the corner, past Ronald and Nancy Reagan's retirement villa. The original address was 666 St. Cloud Street, but because 666 is the number...
Triumph and heartbreak abound in this story, but it has taken Hollywood nearly a quarter-century to put it on the big screen. Now it is here with a bang. Mississippi Burning, Orion Pictures' $15 million drama about the FBI's search for the murderers of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, has arrived with critical trumpets leading the way and bitter controversy in its wake. It has already won National Board of Review citations for best picture, best actor (Gene Hackman) and best supporting actress (Frances McDormand) -- prizes the film may duplicate on Academy Award night. For Mississippi Burning is made...
...Viet Nam, copped lots of Oscars and grossed close to $300 million worldwide. Any successful movie creates a new market, and studios -- especially Orion, which has a rep for taking chances on political pictures -- were soon scrambling for the next Platoon. Cynicism is served with a twist in Hollywood, and Mississippi Burning has taken its licks as a ready-made Big Issue blockbuster. Before its release, even Hackman gibed that its producers "looked at how much Platoon made and they went, 'Yeah! What other causes can we make some money...
Here we go again. Exploiting white America's ignorance of historic racial oppression, Hollywood casts a spotlight on the rich but neglected story of the black struggle for equal rights. As has happened with every popular work on the subject, from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Roots, Mississippi Burning evokes a gasp of horrified discovery from many whites who act as if they are learning about the viciousness of slavery and segregation for the very first time. Unfortunately, the film does little to deepen the knowledge of its audience. Though its producers say the movie is fictional, they so artfully...