John Schlesinger's The Day of the Locust (1975)

There was a wave of films in the 1970's about Hollywood of the '20's and '30's. I saw a few minutes of The Day of the Locust on HBO at the time, but I was 13 and it wasn't my thing. It was set in the 1930's so I assumed there were actual locusts on top of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

What stood out to me now were Donald Sutherland playing a character named Homer Simpson, the one nice guy in the movie although he did something awful later, and Jackie Earle Haley as a weirdly androgynous child actor named Adore. I didn't recognize him and wasn't sure he wasn't a girl. He did a Mae West impression. His character was a truly horrible brat but who can blame him.

I was happy to see Natalie Schafer---Lovey Howell from Gilligan's Island---running an escort service and high class pornographic film parlor.

About a perfectly nice man who came to Hollywood to design sets and costumes, but then tried to rape Karen Black who played a failing starlet. Her father (Burgess Meredith) is a chronically ill vaudevillian. The closer he is to the brink of death the more he falls back on his schtick, creeping people out or at least annoying them with his mirthless laughter.

Even studio executives enjoy cockfighting. Billy Barty as a foul-mouthed racist. Fans bring cameras to strangers' funerals hoping to spot a celebrity.

A big budget movie based on Nathanael West's 1939 novel of the same name.

Free on Movieland TV.