Word: tryon
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...Crowned Heads, Tryon...
None of this will matter much to those helplessly in thrall to the Hollywood mystique. Tryon's gloomy moralizing about crowned heads is window dressing; his loving reconstruction of a fading era is the work of a man still gaga over Stardust. Crowned Heads is not a very trenchant study of the ways of the Dream Factory, but it is certainly a symptom of them...
...other hand, ex-Actor Tryon is canny enough to know that it is a crock of gold. He has not, after all, chosen to unmask malaise on the assembly line or among welfare mothers. Crowned Heads is crammed with enough props to put MGM back in production. No clef is needed for this roman. Real stars parade by in abundance. Tryon also provides long lists of plausible but fictive movies and imaginary songs that set America humming (Ditto, Really Truly True). Even the four principal characters are amalgams of known personalities. Fedora owes something to Garbo, Dietrich and Gloria Swanson...
When all this glitter is draped over a strong story line, the effect is impressive. Lorna is a powerful vision of a woman's physical and mental collapse at an out-of-the-way Mexican resort. Nor does Tryon stint on nostalgia. Skillfully he conjures up the well-nigh irresistible grandeur that prewar Hollywood displayed to the world when "people were driven by their liveried chauffeurs in Duesenbergs . . . when polo matches were played at Will Rogers' ranch and Gable danced with Lombard at the Trocadero...
...Tryon's narrative and descriptive talent is often hamstrung by annoying mannerisms and cliches (in a scant two lines he tosses off "fresh as a daisy" and "in the wink of an eye"). He can resist neither foreign phrases nor their quick translation ("Entendu. Understood"). He fussily overexplains his English as well: "Her husband was a hatter. Yes, a maker of hats." Some of the language is, alas, inexplicable: "His nose was long and authentic-looking...