Double Feature: "Hollywoodland" and "Hail, Caesar!"

Universal Studios, Buena Vista International, Universal Pictures

Eddie Mannix is a complicated historical figure who becomes increasingly interesting as you learn more about his life. Several films have tried to encapsulate and explain his role with MGM, as a general manager and comptroller, but it’s difficult. To come out and say what he did, and to who, and why, is still tricky business, even if his reign ended some fifty years ago with his 1963 death. Mannix is considered a complex figure, someone who is seen as both a gangster without remorse and a straight shooter who helped stars remain out of the public light. Today there are few people who do the work Mannix does with such surety, and he was the only man who covered up truly heinous crimes: murder, rape, vehicular manslaughter, and more. Two films have tried to tell opposing narratives, with differing results, though neither completely explains the life of MGM’s fixer.

Universal Studios, Buena Vista International

Hollywoodland (2006) dir. Allen Coulter

Around 2006-2008 studios became obsessed with telling speculative stories about unsolved murders (The Black Dahlia, Zodiac). True crime was still a decade away from understanding nuance and subtlety. In 2006 aspersions were cast, and the people who tried to solve these crimes became as important as the actual players. Adrien Brody stars as fictional character and plot device Louis Simo, who is hired by George Reeves’ (Affleck) mother to investigate whether the star really killed himself, like the police believed, or if he was murdered by Mannix (Hoskins) for breaking his wife’s (Lane) heart. Simo is easily the most infuriatingly unneeded part of this entire film. They’re already focusing on Reeves’ life and career, which is not as interesting as Mannix, and then they shoehorn in a side character to create exposition, who then takes up most of the screen time. Every scene that includes Simo is gross, unimportant, and uninteresting, and hopefully I don’t have to write anymore about him.

The real story that this film focuses on is that of George Reeves, a very talented actor who played the original television Superman in the fifties. During this short rise to fame he became enamored with the older wife of MGM fixer Eddie Mannix, Toni Mannix. Reeves died in 1959, under suspicious circumstances, though the official ruling was suicide via self-inflicted gunshot wound. The film weaves between what could have happened, the PI tracking through the evidence, and George Reeves’ real life. Honestly Reeves isn’t all that interesting. He had a show that he was way too good an actor for, and he loved a man’s wife who may have killed him. Why we focus on Reeves in-depth is beyond me, because even if you are interested in his life there’s nothing much to tell.

Mannix is played by Bob Hoskins, and his wife Toni is played by Diane Lane. While in truth Eddie was a fixer who covered up unwanted pregnancies, homosexual private lives, and scandals, this film barely scratches the surface. There’s one scene where he deals with these kinds of issues, but otherwise he’s barely ever mentioned or seen onscreen. His depiction is of a studio exec who wields influence, and that’s it. Instead of focusing on his affairs, dealings, and impact we get stuck with Reeves.

Besides these unnecessary flaws it’s just not a very good movie. The direction is stale, it looks ugly, and it’s uninteresting, flat, and egregiously boring. Diane Lane is given so little to work with that she comes off as either shrewish or a simple background player. Ben Affleck, who plays Reeves, is cocksure as always, but his performance is also lacking in any depth. Everyone just seems to be phoning it in, perhaps knowing just how lazy and unoriginal the script was. It’s also historically inaccurate in many ways, and didn’t have much support from DC Comics, making his alter ego that much more unimportant. If Superman isn’t really an important aspect to the story, then why tell it? Again, George Reeves isn’t that interesting. So in conclusion, this is a film very much of its time that isn’t remarkable and may have been better ten years down the line.

Hail, Caesar! (2016) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen

The Coens love telling stories about Old Hollywood, evidenced from the fact that this is their second film on the subject (Barton Fink is the other). They also love period pieces and modest humor, which is seen aplenty in this send-up to Hollywood scandals and genre pictures, from the forties and fifties. Josh Brolin plays a fictionalized Hollywood fixer who is named Eddie Mannix, for the fictional Capitol Pictures. In no uncertain terms the Coens made a film celebrating the unique and odd job of the fixer, but didn’t want the unpleasantness of what Mannix actually did. In this version he is married to a loving woman, he has kids, and he’s offered a better paying job at another studio. Though he will get a pay raise, and get to spend more time with his family, he has loyalty to his studio and the people who need his help.

In reality, Mannix was loyal to MGM, mostly because he had undue influence and famous friends, including Sinatra, Spencer Tracy, and Clark Gable. He saved many stars’ careers, and covered up numerous infidelities, affairs, unwanted children, and other unpleasantness. In this film he’s a chipper strongman who just wants the best for everyone. All the supporting characters are homages to famous stars of the time (Scarlett Johanssen plays an Esther Williams type, Alden Ehrenheich is a Kirby Grant lookalike, George Clooney is Robert Taylor, and Channing Tatum is a tribute to Gene Kelley). Tilda Swinton also stars as identical twin reporters to address the rivalry between real-life gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.

This is a much more interesting film than Hollywoodland because by covering the life of Mannix you inevitably cover those of all the stars he helped. In real life Mannix covered up vehicular manslaughter and a love child for Clark Gable, Joan Crawford’s pornographic film Velvet Lips, and Jean Harlow’s rumored murder of her husband, Paul Bern. In this film the scandals are much tamer: stars becoming influenced by the Communist party, pushing women into sham marriages to hide their pregnancies, and creating romances between studio personalities for the publicity. Mannix is nothing like his real life counterpart, but for the good of the film it’s a needed change. There’s something so charming and cavalier about the idea that a fixer could be paternal and clever rather than bloodthirsty and evil.

The main criticism that I have heard is that the film doesn’t say anything, and that nothing much happens. As a lover of Old Hollywood and especially its scandals I found the homages and blatant caricatures of famous stars to be both hilarious and thought provoking. The mechanics of older films are never really revealed in modern films because the purity and piousness of those stars seems untouched by time. Though we all know the truth now, back then women were saints, men were screw-ups, and every lens was covered in Vaseline. While not especially scandalous, this is a film that looks at the unsavory backdrops of that era and uncovers a layer of truth.

A true and authentic account of Eddie Mannix’s life will happen someday in my lifetime. As these films currently stand I would definitely recommend Hail, Caesar! It’s truer to the life of Mannix, by actually explaining his reach and position, it includes many references to real people, and it was well produced. Though Hollywoodland did get to use the real names and real lives of its subjects it feels dishonest in comparison to the faithful recreation that is Hail, Caesar! For more information on the life of Eddie Mannix I recommend listening to the episode on him from Karina Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This, which goes farther in depth about his life, and the George Reeves scandal.