Hollywood Archaeology

Candy Hurlant

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Stephen Kilcullen

I miss John Candy. There are some days when I catch a movie of his on TV and that’s all I think about as he’s on screen. He had such a likeable, lovable and friendly presence, even when he was playing somewhat smarmy guys, which was very rare. This past March marked the 21st anniversary of his death, and it seems to me that his film memory is fading. There’s an entire generation who doesn’t know who he is. Sure, they’ll catch him in something from time to time, like “Stripes”, but their focus is most assuredly on Bill Murray. And a lot of Candy’s starring vehicles don’t get much playtime nowadays. It’s sad to think that kids today won’t know the joys of “Uncle Buck” or “The Great Outdoors” on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Let’s hope their parents do the right thing and introduce them to a great and funny actor, the same way my parents introduced us kids to such classics like “Lillies of the Field” and “To Sir, With Love”.

In my family, John Candy is still very much alive. Every Thanksgiving, along with “March of the Wooden Soldiers” and “Mystery Science Theater 3000”, a viewing of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is mandatory. And as many times as we’ve seen it, it never gets old. Candy is so good in this movie, ranging from being thoroughly annoying, grating, irresponsible, inventive… all culminating in that final moment when we realize how lonely he is, constantly staying on the road to distract him from the loss of his wife. And he never overplays any of these qualities, he just is. Like a goofy and affable Steve McQueen.

I grew up on John Candy, thanks to my parents. Even now when my family is together and we start laughing, my dad will wind up launching into his perfect impression of Candy’s chuckle. Which makes everyone in the room laugh even harder. Thinking back I can’t really remember the first time I saw Candy in a film or on TV. He always just seemed to be there, and it felt like he always would. In the mid-80’s we discovered “SCTV”, the Canadian answer of sorts to Saturday Night Live. But SCTV was always a little weirder and more off-the-wall. Focused around a fake television station in the fictional town of Melonville, “SCTV”‘s sketches centered around the conceit of programming, allowing performers like Rick Moranis, Catherine O’Hara and Harold Ramis, just to name a few, the ability to play tons of characters, both original and parodied, and to mess around with everything from talk shows to movies. And Candy was at the center of it. He brought so many hysterical, and sometimes strange, personas to the table. Yosh Shmenge, Divine, Orson Welles, Luciano Pavarotti, Julia Child, and my personal favorite, Angel Cortez, FBI Jockey. The list goes on and on and on. His gift for character work and mimicry seemed limitless, and if you ever get the chance, seek out the Canadian broadcast versions of SCTV. Your brow may furrow at just how strange it can be sometimes, but you’ll always have a smile on your face.

Around this time, John Candy started to land some great supporting film roles. I already mentioned “Stripes”, but he’s also memorable in such comedy classics as “National Lampoon’s Vacation”, “Splash” and “The Blues Brothers”. (“Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips!”) Pretty soon, by the mid 1980’s, Candy was carrying his own films, becoming a bonafide movie star and box office draw, working with some of Hollywood’s biggest and brightest. During pre-production of “Ghostbusters” he was even tapped to play Louis Tully, Dana Barrett’s nerdy neighbor. His take on the character was very different from Rick Moranis’ now classic portrayal and ultimately clashed with what director Ivan Reitman wanted; Candy wanted to play Tully as a German who kept Dobermans. His involvement in the movie was such that storyboards exist featuring him as Tully, and the actor appeared as himself in the Ray Parker Jr. music video of the title song.

One of my very favorite John Candy performances is in the cult, midnight movie “Heavy Metal”. Now by the time I first saw this film I was in junior high, and “Heavy Metal” was already the stuff of legend. My friends would tell me about this unbelievable cartoon that had violence, aliens, rock n’ roll and plenty of buxom, naked chicks running around. And everytime it appeared in conversation, the phrase “and John Candy is in it!” would always pop up. If you grew up in the 80’s as an adolescent, geeky lad, like I did, this movie was like the Holy Grail. Released in 1981, “Heavy Metal” never officially found a home on VHS, and then DVD, until the mid to late 90’s. Because of all the different recording artists, such as Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and even some very non-metal acts like Stevie Knicks, Glenn Frey and Don Felder, contributing to the soundtrack, the rights to release it on home video became tied up for years. After its brief theatrical run it was damn near impossible to see it. Unless you wanted to pay hundreds of dollars for a bootleg copy, or stay up all night to catch a rare broadcast of it on HBO or Cinemax, which my family didn’t have. I remember running into a kid I knew from school at a Star Trek convention in 1991; his name escapes me, but I recall he looked like the 7th grade equivalent of Sam Kinison. To me at least. So anyways, he runs up to me, hyperventilating and excited, because his uncle just scored a copy of “Heavy Metal” on VHS from a vendor, bragging about how he paid something like a few hundred bucks for it. I was envious, still not having seen it, but any chance of viewing his uncle’s copy vanished when my friend exclaimed something about “all the cartoon titties bouncing around” in front of my mom. And just for the record, cartoon titties never turned me on. I prefer the real ones. You get less ink on your hands.

About a year later, I was sleeping over at my friend Jed’s house, along with a few other buddies. We were cool, man. Staying up all night, playing Dungeons & Dragons, watching horror movies, listening to Iron Maiden and The Sex Pistols (on vinyl, no less) and perusing his older brother Zach’s collection of Heavy Metal magazines, which the movie was inspired by. (Side note: Jed and Zach’s full names were Jedediah and Zachariah. His parents were neither religious or Amish. Figure that one out.) The magazine blew me away. Great stories and comics, ranging from hard sci-fi to Robert E. Howard style fantasy tales. All spiked with nudity, sex and violence. What more could a skinny 13-year-old with thick glasses ask for? Now I had to see this movie. And one night, at Jed’s, I did.

It must’ve been really late at night because I had already fallen asleep, and we tended to stay up way past the midnight hour. Jed was shaking me out of my slumber, whispering excitedly “dude, dude! ‘Heavy Metal’ is on!” I don’t think I’ve ever sprung to life quicker, and within moments I was viewing the rarest of geek-centric movies, losing myself in the different stories that revolved around the mysterious, powerful and destructive green orb known as the Loc-Nar. And of course, losing myself in major boobage, which years later would become the title of the South Park episode that paid tribute to this movie. I have to say that at first, I was disappointed. The animation wasn’t of the highest quality, and each segment was done by different animation houses as well, so it all seemed a bit disjointed. At first. It took some time during that initial viewing to get used to the style, and once I realized that it was a cinematic version of the anthology format of the magazine, I became totally lost in it. It had everything – dystopian noir, stoner aliens, Cheap Trick, sexy girls, WWII era zombies. All of what a growing boy needs. It seemed to be this irreverent slap in the face, like a sci-fi/fantasy filled punk rock song, put to a soaring, adventurous score by Elmer Bernstein. By the time it was over I wanted, needed, to see it again. And I wouldn’t get my chance until the end of my senior year in high school when it was finally released on video. To this day I can watch it anytime, anywhere and with anyone. Except my mom.

Which brings me back to John Candy. One of the joys of watching “Heavy Metal” is his voice over performance in the segment titled “Den”. (Candy also provided a few other voices in the film, including a robot skilled in “highly proficient sex”) Based on the Richard Corbin story featured in the magazine, “Den” was about a nerdy, skinny kid who finds the Loc-Nar in his backyard one night and it magically transports him to a far off planet, turning him into a muscle bound hero named Den. Throughout his adventures, Den battles barbarians, monsters and even beds a few bouncy beauties in the process. As the character, Candy narrates the tale with the inner thoughts of the still dorky and awkward Den, reveling in his exploits and his new-found luck with the ladies. (“Wow, 18 years of nothing, and now twice in one day! What a place!”) This story was always, to me, the quintessential adolescent geek fantasy. You’re plucked out of your Earthbound, wimpy existence and wake up a near-invincible hero, saving the damsel in distress and in the process becoming a legend. All without breaking a sweat.

Out of all of John Candy’s roles, Den has always resonated with me the most. I was an awkward kid, never comfortable in my body. I was skinny, had glasses, into Star Trek and NASA, a real nerd. I’d get made fun of, even bullied, and because my dad was an officer in the Army my family moved all the time, so I was always the new kid. I’d get lost in sci-fi, fantasy and horror books, comics and movies, fantasizing about being a cooler than cool hero. I think any kid like me who grew up in the era that I did dreamt about being Han Solo, Conan the Barbarian, Rambo… but ultimately we were Lewis Skolnick at best. “Den”, for me, put a face on the fantasy I never knew I had; to be spirited away and miraculously gifted with abilities I could only dream of possessing. I still dream about those things.

And more often than not, I hear John Candy’s voice, summing it all up beautifully:

“On Earth, I’m nobody. But here, I’m Den.”

In A Lonely Place

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Stephen Kilcullen

If you’re like me, (and I know I am), then you have to love Humphrey Bogart. And I do. I love the guy. And if anyone said otherwise I’d probably smack ’em around the way Sam Spade did to Joel Cairo, shit eating grin included. There’s the old cliche of “oh, such and such actor could read the phone book and it’d be amazing”. And in my not-so-humble opinion, the only actor that walked the face of this planet that could pull that off, is Bogie. Sure, there’s plenty of amazing, legendary thespians that would slay the yellow pages, but the only one that would look up half-way through his performance with a “you believe this shit?” glare, continue rattling off names and make it legend, is the man himself.

I became obsessed with Bogie in high school, maybe even a few years before. See, I’ve always been enamored with the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s (and sometimes 50’s, but that’s primarily a rock n’ roll thing)… the world seemed dangerous, new and open for adventure. Steam trains, tramp freighters, luxury airliners, ancient enigmas and secrets that could make you rich, saucy women with an air of mystery and menace, all of these wonderful and dangerous archetypes seemed to dot the landscape of our little rock as it hurtled through space, a thoroughly romantic notion I definitely got from the movies. And at the heart of it all was a world weary man who lived his life 24-hours a day, took no guff, could shake off a punch or a bullet, but was still susceptible to the most dangerous wound of all… a broken heart. And the man who embodied all these mythical things effortlessly was Humphrey Bogart. “Casablanca” is a timeless classic for a reason, and I challenge anyone to not start puddling up when Rick is alone with Sam, trying to find refuge at the bottom of a bottle, wondering why of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, that “she” walked into his…

I can go on for hours about “Casablanca”, but why should I? Anyone reading this should have seen it already, and as many times as I have. And if you haven’t, well… what the hell’s wrong with you? If you’re one of those people who won’t watch it, or any other film like it, because it’s “old” or in “black and white” then you should probably buy yourself a t-shirt with the words “shallow and has bad taste, don’t let me breed” emblazoned on it. You know what John Waters says about people who don’t own books? That’s how I feel about people who refuse to watch classic or silent films. I’m kidding, of course… but not really.

Instead, I’m going to jaw a little about my absolute favorite Bogart film, “In a Lonely Place”, released in 1950. It’s a movie about the business of making movies, one of three released in that year. The other two being “Sunset Boulevard” and “All About Eve”, which are iconic classics to this day. For whatever reason, “In a Lonely Place” seems to have slipped into semi-obscurity, at least from my point of view. Which is a shame, really. It’s a great noir story, with a terrifying and simultaneously sympathetic performance from Bogie. And it features the unbelievably ethereal and sultry Gloria Grahame.

Most folks will know Gloria Grahame as the flirty little minx Violet Bick, the gal that flustered Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey and effectively stopped traffic with her unfairly shapely legs, in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. An Academy Award winning actress, for “The Bad and the Beautiful” in 1952, Gloria was cast in “In a Lonely Place” opposite Bogart, beating out his wife Lauren Bacall for the part, who was still under contract with Warner Bros at the time… they wouldn’t loan her out to the independent production, mainly out of spite and fear as they felt movies made outside of the studio system were a threat to the way things were done.

I won’t go into too much detail about the film. This isn’t a review. You should seek it out and see it for yourself, you’ll be richer for it. It’s that good. In the film, Bogart plays a hard drinking and hard smoking screenwriter named Dixon Steele. Man, what a name! Dixon hasn’t had a hit film in a while, and has a pretty short fuse as well. In the opening scene he even gets out of his car at a stoplight to start a fight with a fella in the car next to his after Steele insults his wife. In contemporary terms, he’s a more badass Hank Moody. While he’s having drinks with his agent, he gets talked into adapting a new book into a screenplay, though he’s not too wild about reading it to get the job done. The hat check girl agrees to go home with him to tell him the novel’s story out loud, since she’s actually read it, and after zero hanky panky, Dixon sends her on her way. Except she never makes it home… she’s been found murdered. And the volatile Steele is the prime suspect. During the course of the film, Dixon becomes involved with his neighbor, Laurel Grey, played by Grahame. The two fall in love, but Laurel begins to fear Dixon, who she discovers has a history of violence and even witnesses a few rage filled outbursts from him. She begins to suffer from the anxiety of the relationship and starts to doubt Dixon’s innocence.

There’s a great essay written by Louise Brooks about Bogie’s portrayal of Dixon Steele in this film. In it Brooks writes that the character he played was the closest to the real Bogart, saying that the movie “gave him a role that he could play with complexity because the film character’s, the screenwriter’s, pride in his art, his selfishness, his drunkenness, his lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence, were shared equally by the real Bogart.” Sorta spooky to think that he was capable of those kinds of mood swings as shown in the film. There’s an incredible scene where Dixon is hypothetically describing the murder of the young girl to a friend of his, and the friend’s wife, asking them to act it out while he narrates. As Steele gets more and more intense, his buddy nearly strangles his own wife without even realizing it, not stopping until she screams. The look on Bogart’s face is borderline sadistic, lustful and almost rapturous. We start thinking that maybe he did indeed kill the poor girl…

“In a Lonely Place” was directed by Nicholas Ray, famous for helming the film “Rebel Without a Cause”, and, at the time, was married to Gloria Grahame. This is where the behind-the-scenes gets a little interesting. There was trouble in paradise for the couple as they were going through a separation. Ray spent his nights sleeping on the set, citing he needed to work late on the script before the next day’s shooting. He didn’t want anybody to know that he and Grahame were having marital trouble as he thought the producers might replace either one of them, or both. In addition to this Grahame was forced to sign a contract stating “my husband [Ray] shall be entitled to direct, control, advise, instruct and even command my actions during the hours from 9 AM to 6 PM, every day except Sunday…I acknowledge that in every conceivable situation his will and judgment shall be considered superior to mine and shall prevail.” She also couldn’t “nag, cajole, tease or in any other feminine fashion seek to distract or influence him.” Sounds harsh and vindictive, but I can’t say I blame Ray. Part of the reason for the couple’s split was due to the fact that he caught Gloria in bed with his then 13-year old son, Tony, who was the product of his previous marriage. The fact that they were able to work together at all and get through a day’s filming has got to be some kind of miracle. If it were me, I’d probably lose my mind. But hey, this is Hollywood, maybe things like that are par for the course. Sheesh, I sincerely hope not. What’s crazy about the whole thing is that Gloria eventually married Tony and had two sons with him. So that would make the son she had with Nicholas the half-brother and uncle of the two sons she had with Tony. You hear something like this and can’t help but think that the scandalous celebrities of today are amateurs. In any case, the whole mess created such a ruckus back then that the ensuing stress caused Grahame to have a nervous breakdown, and she wound up getting electroshock therapy as a result. Sounds like fun!

The scandal that surrounded Grahame and Ray has since colored my impressions of the film, but it never ruined it for me. If anything, it made a sad and dark film even more so. As glitzy, glamorous and carefree as Hollywood can seem to those who dream about it, there’s also a dark side, a dangerous side, a down side. Even a deadly side. “In a Lonely Place” depicted those seedier elements in the story it told. Bogart’s Dixon Steele may or may not be guilty of the girl’s murder, but he’s certainly capable of it. Grahame’s Laurel Grey discovered that as her relationship went on with him, and it drained her. Some of us in our own lives have been in that situation, unfortunately. And no matter how much we love that person, sometimes we have to run away, we have to escape.

Despite Dixon being cynical, jaded, even violent, one can’t help but feel for him. Especially when he utters that classic line…

“I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”

Gilbert and Garbo

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Stephen Kilcullen

Women. In my experience a fair number of them have been troubled, aloof, emotionally distant or guarded, purposefully mysterious, fast (and slow)… but above all, dramatic. Which makes me think of Greta Garbo. And the man that loved her.

In 1925 John Gilbert was featured in director King Vidor’s war epic, “The Big Parade”. The movie was a huge hit, and his performance in the film made Gilbert a star. More film successes followed, and soon Gilbert was commanding enormous paydays for the time, raking in millions of dollars a year. After the death of Rudolph Valentino, John Gilbert inherited the title of cinema’s “Great Lover”, and was, for a time, the biggest movie star in the world.

A young, Swedish actress, named Greta Garbo, took notice. According to legend, when Garbo arrived in Hollywood the first words out of her mouth were “I want to meet John Gilbert”.

In 1926, Gilbert and Garbo starred together in the film “Flesh and the Devil”. They smoldered on screen, and for good reason. Upon meeting, there was an immediate and intense attraction, and the two stars began a passionate affair during the film’s production that carried on off screen as well.

To modern audiences, silent film acting can look hokey, or over the top. But that’s kind of an unsophisticated and impatient way to look at it. Sure, folks these days don’t get it, or even want to. But that’s okay, they’re stupid. Silent actors had to convey intense emotions, using their entire body and soul to communicate what everyday words would usually express. Pantomime was the name of the game, and the best of those actors were able to dance a very thin line, able to tap into the raw truths within them and shine in the most operatic of ways. Was it exaggerated? Of course, it had to be. Was it fake? Never, not from the stars of that time, that’s why they were stars. In my opinion it was mesmerizing. A cinematic hypnotism. Gilbert and Garbo became a source of endless fascination for audiences, especially since the chemistry they created on screen wasn’t faked, and for a few years, the two lovers were pure movie magic, starring in a number of romantic films together.

Now the next story I’m going to pass along is a doozy. Even sounds like it came right out of a movie. But truth is always stranger than fiction, and sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. Not to mention a number of people through the years that were there have recounted the following events on many different occasions. Sure, sometimes the details are a little different from person to person, but memory is funny, especially as we age. But somewhere in between the cracks is that unbreakable cement we call “the truth”, and those are the details that never change…

Madly in love, John Gilbert asked Greta Garbo to marry him. She said yes. Around this time, King Vidor was marrying actress Eleanor Boardman, and Gilbert convinced his director friend to have a double wedding. The big day came, and Garbo was late. As the hours went on, Gilbert began to drink, something he had a problem with during his life. The time kept ticking, the guests kept waiting, and Gilbert kept knocking them back, hoping that his love would show.

In the church’s bathroom, Gilbert was nervously pacing back and forth. The mass amounts of alcohol he was consuming obviously wasn’t stemming the tide of his anxiety. His friend Vidor could only watch in pity as he and his Eleanor waited patiently for Garbo to show. It soon became apparent that she wasn’t ever going to. MGM studio head Louie B. Mayer, who famously detested Gilbert, approached him, saying something to the effect of “don’t marry the girl, just fuck her”. Gilbert turned in a rage and socked the mogul in the mouth, knocking him flat on his ass. Mayer, obviously embarrassed, screamed at the star. “You’re finished”, he yelled. “Even if it costs me a million bucks, I’ll ruin you!”

The wedding ultimately went on, with Vidor and Boardman tying the knot. But not for John Gilbert. Greta Garbo never showed, and never told her lover why. Many years later, Garbo was asked about this and was quoted as saying “I was in love with him. But I froze.”

Soon after, John Gilbert’s career began to wane. It was around this time that movies were making the painful transition into the talkie era, and many of the screens biggest stars didn’t survive the change. In fact, entire facets of the silent film industry completely disappeared, such as live orchestras that would perform the music for films in many of the palatial movie theaters of the day. Almost overnight, thousands of artists found themselves out of work, thrown away and forgotten. Suicide claimed many of those who were unable to cope.

Gilbert had appeared in a talkie before, a film called “The Hollywood Revue of 1929”, and his voice made a good first impression on audiences. But during this new time of sound in movies, it was the film “His Glorious Night” that unfortunately left a dark stain on his career. Audiences famously laughed at Gilbert’s voice, which sounded high and piercing, contrasting his image of the “Great Lover” that made him a superstar only a few years before. Literally being laughed off of movie screens, John Gilbert’s career crashed hard, and it crashed fast. Some insiders claimed that Louie Mayer had made good on his threat, and had his voice pitched up and manipulated on the film’s soundtrack. In 1933, Garbo, whose career was soaring, requested that Gilbert co-star with her in “Queen Christina”, and in that film, his distinct and dashing voice was far from being what audiences jeered at in 1929.

Unfortunately, the damage was done, and Gilbert’s career and stardom never recovered. The actor succumbed to depression and alcoholism, and in 1936, at the age of 38, just one year older than myself, John Gilbert died. I’m sure his career woes and drinking didn’t help, but I believe he died of a broken heart, his last thoughts being of the beautiful Swedish girl he loved so much, and had lost. It’s the romantic in me.

Garbo on the other hand, became a superstar in the talkie era. To this day she is a Hollywood legend, whereas John Gilbert is almost a footnote, and was infamously ridiculed in “Singing in the Rain”. Would things have been different for Gilbert if Garbo hadn’t stood him up at the altar? Would things have been different for her? And why did she freeze, as she said. Maybe it was Gilbert’s track record. It could’ve been. I mean, the guy was married four times within a span of 16 years, he obviously wasn’t a fella who was afraid to pop the question. Maybe it was her moodiness, her depression that she admitted to in later years, that kept her from taking the plunge. Perhaps she didn’t want him to see her suffer. Maybe she had been hurt before and, because she loved him so much, was afraid that being hurt by him would kill her, as I believe it killed Gilbert. We’ll never know. Garbo never talked much about it, or anything really for that matter. After retiring from the film business in 1941, she lived a reclusive lifestyle, and while having a few supposed affairs through the years, she never married. The closest she came was saying yes to John Gilbert’s proposal. At the age of 84, in 1990, Greta Garbo died alone…

I started this musing by saying how I didn’t understand women. But you know what? I don’t understand men, either. Hell, I just don’t understand people. Especially in matters of love. But that’s just from my own experience. I can understand Garbo’s hesitance, but I feel sad when I think about her dying alone, possibly living her entire life thinking about “what if” in regard to John Gilbert. From what I’ve read about her through the years, Gilbert was the only man she ever said that she loved. And as far as John Gilbert goes, well, the amount of times he’s been married tells you he didn’t have any problems telling a woman he loved her. But none of his marriages lasted more than two or three years. That doesn’t exactly say “love” to me, but who knows. What I do believe, however, is that the woman he truly loved more than anything, was Greta Garbo. Hell, he punched out his boss, which ultimately had some hand in his career’s demise, for making a snide comment at her expense. Most men in that position would probably think twice about acting out like that if their worldwide stardom and livelihood were at stake. But John Gilbert didn’t think twice about it.

In the end, John Gilbert and Greta Garbo were in love with each other. And they died without each other. Whatever men think of women, and whatever women think of men, the truth is this: tell the one you love that you do, indeed, love them. Don’t be afraid. Take the armor off, let the past go. Be vulnerable. No regrets. I’m guilty of this, I’ll admit it. Like everyone in life, I’ve been hurt, and I’ve been made made to feel like a fool when I express my feelings and emotions. I’m terrified of the past repeating itself, scared of saying how I feel, how I really feel about someone. Will it scare them? Will it turn them off? Has their life and past made them so hard and guarded that they’ve become jaded and just don’t believe in those sorts of things anymore? Do they feel the same? Are they afraid to express it as well? Our modern world is so choked with cynicism, nihilism and selfishness that the beauty of romanticism and all the wonderful things that come with it are getting lost. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. We might get hit by a bus, or an asteroid. Do we want our final thoughts to be “I wish I had the guts to say what I wanted”? We have the ambition to chase careers and impossible dreams, the drive to succeed, to party all night, have fun, chase instant gratification, and other frivolous things that just aren’t made to last. But when we crawl into bed alone, and we stare up at the ceiling thinking of that special someone, why are we so afraid of letting those three little words escape our lips? Are people afraid they’ll end up like John Gilbert? And will that fear drive them to live the rest of their life alone, like Garbo, always wondering?

Honestly, I don’t have a clue. But I’m fairly certain that John Gilbert’s final thoughts were of Greta Garbo, and he probably said to himself “I’m glad I told her”. Or something like that. Like I said before, it’s the romantic in me.

Welcome to Hollywood Archaeology!

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Stephen Kilcullen

Welcome everyone!

This is something entirely different and new for me. A blog. About Hollywood (nobody’s ever done that, he said sarcastically), especially the golden era, and its history, triumphs, tragedies and the gods and goddesses that shaped it and were created by it.

I’m no scholar. I’m just “some guy”, really. But I love movies, especially the classics. They’re in my blood, and in my bones. For better or worse, movies have shaped me into the man I am today. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m very happy with being me, and the sheer joy and love that cinema and the history of the town I call home fills me with. There’s nothing better.

This site, and the musings I’ll be posting on it, are nothing more than a fantasy of mine, an outlet for my “armchair Hollywood historian” persona. It’s all in good fun. And I hope whoever stumbles across this little page will have some fun as well.

So cheers, everyone! And I’ll see you at the movies.

All the best,

Stephen Kilcullen

via Welcome to Hollywood Archaeology!.