Irma Gladden is a falling star, her sexual friction creating a self-destructive incandescence as she plummets through the Hollywood atmosphere. That sentence is ten-times more interesting than the film itself. Fred Newmeyer directs this poverty row picture with long static takes sans establishing shots or transitions as DP William Hyer often pans his camera trying to capture the action with minimal editing, so the film can be pieced together quickly for distribution. It’s obviously shot quickly with awful sound recording; this ain’t no Warner Brothers picture! What I find most interesting is the behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking in the early sound-era even if it’s a low budget insight. The film shows us rehearsals and lighting setups and the secondary character Valerie, Irma’s assistant, is also the Script Girl and she speaks about her job and duties to the Director of the fictitious film within the film.
The plot is fairly typical as jealous men fight for the love of the famous star Irma Gladden (Natalie Moorhead) until a spurned lover finally touches her heart…with lead. This murder comes halfway through the 60-minute narrative and the rest becomes a bumbling police procedural spiced with a developing love story between a reporter and Valerie. Though the film portrays Irma in an unkind light, I can’t help but to admire her. In this patriarchal system she uses men’s own weaknesses against them to attain success in the bitter Hollywood battlefields. Seems to me it’s the men who are at fault trying to remake Irma into their own fantasy image! Her fault is in not seriously understanding the potential consequences. Hell, after she’s murdered in her car the police don’t even remove her corpse or guard the crime scene from contamination: I suppose a women’s death is only as important as the headline.
The finale seems to be hastily written and acted as the police gather all of the suspects to watch a pre-release version of Falling Stars, the film within the film. As Irma’s fictitious murder scene reaches its climax the real murderer can’t take the emotional stress and jumps to his feet, screaming his confession to his peers. It’s quite overacted and with little narrative foundation: did they make this up as they went along?
Final Grade: (C-)
