A promising story concept about a down-on-his luck screen star suffers from middling execution, but benefits from some clever references to Hollywood's Golden Age and a solid lead performance by real-life legend Richard Dix.
Dix is Tim Bart, a star of silent Westerns whose career hits a full stop when sound comes into the picture. He is offered a second chance by the studio boss to play a villain in a gangster film, but Bart still gets letters from the kids who love him as a cowboy and chooses to stay out-of-work instead.
"I ain't never played no lowdown, sneaking, cop-shooting gutter rat, and what's more, I ain't gonna start now!" he says.
"It Happened In Hollywood," which was also titled "Once A Hero," came to my notice in a DVD collection devoted to the work of Samuel Fuller, who was attached to it as a young screenwriter. But it's Dix who impresses, with his low-key, charming, frill-free performance. It's not easy playing a good man in a light comedy and stick out, but Dix does so.
Unfortunately, "It Happened In Hollywood" is rather mawkish, especially when a sick boy shows up at Bart's door and cries until Bart agrees not only to host him but to throw a party for him. Bill Burrud as the kid and director Harry Lachman are quite the tag team for emotional blackmail; Lachman even giving Burrud a surfeit of teary close-ups.
The central sequence in the film is the party Bart throws for little Billy. This features the real-life stand-ins for a number of Hollywood's biggest names: Charlie Chaplin, Victor McLaglen, Bing Crosby, Greta Garbo, Mae West, Fay Wray...
Well, that's not Wray's stand-in, but Wray herself, playing Bart's long-time co-star. She makes an impression in a sheer black gown, and like Dix stands out in a part that requires little more than being nice. "I've always liked your way of saying things," she tells him.
The whole film is like that, nice. It doesn't have much of a story, and the left-field ending is a head scratcher sure enough, but it's too amiable to dislike.
Dix is Tim Bart, a star of silent Westerns whose career hits a full stop when sound comes into the picture. He is offered a second chance by the studio boss to play a villain in a gangster film, but Bart still gets letters from the kids who love him as a cowboy and chooses to stay out-of-work instead.
"I ain't never played no lowdown, sneaking, cop-shooting gutter rat, and what's more, I ain't gonna start now!" he says.
"It Happened In Hollywood," which was also titled "Once A Hero," came to my notice in a DVD collection devoted to the work of Samuel Fuller, who was attached to it as a young screenwriter. But it's Dix who impresses, with his low-key, charming, frill-free performance. It's not easy playing a good man in a light comedy and stick out, but Dix does so.
Unfortunately, "It Happened In Hollywood" is rather mawkish, especially when a sick boy shows up at Bart's door and cries until Bart agrees not only to host him but to throw a party for him. Bill Burrud as the kid and director Harry Lachman are quite the tag team for emotional blackmail; Lachman even giving Burrud a surfeit of teary close-ups.
The central sequence in the film is the party Bart throws for little Billy. This features the real-life stand-ins for a number of Hollywood's biggest names: Charlie Chaplin, Victor McLaglen, Bing Crosby, Greta Garbo, Mae West, Fay Wray...
Well, that's not Wray's stand-in, but Wray herself, playing Bart's long-time co-star. She makes an impression in a sheer black gown, and like Dix stands out in a part that requires little more than being nice. "I've always liked your way of saying things," she tells him.
The whole film is like that, nice. It doesn't have much of a story, and the left-field ending is a head scratcher sure enough, but it's too amiable to dislike.