Thursday, August 19, 1999

AMC visits '30s Hollywood in new series

There's a lot to like about "The Lot," a new four-part series on cable's American Movie Classics (7 tonight and Friday) set behind the scenes at a movie studio in 1937. Its period setting allows for some deliciously witty dialogue and some campy references to big stars of the era as the show blends actual Hollywood history with made-up tidbits.
   Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn, Loretta Young and Carole Lombard are the offscreen divas whose names are dropped in for authenticity. The series gives us fictional Norma St. Claire (played by Sara Botsford), a past-her-prime Joan Crawford type reduced to acting in B-pictures opposite a monkey.
   "Yesterday Mr. Jiffy licked me and pawed me for over an hour. Just like my date with Buddy Ebsen," moans Norma.
   She wants a shot at better material, but studio head Harry Sylver (Allen Garfield) has no sympathy for thesps. "We shoot too many movies around here and not enough actors," he growls.
   Norma's nemesis at Sylver Screen Pictures is young June Parker (Linda Cardellini), a budding Lana Turner-style sex bomb whose mother (Stefanie Faracy) toils as a studio makeup artist and wishes her daughter would enroll in nursing school instead of nursing hopes of stardom.
   Hollywood, warns June's mom, is "a sunny place with shady people where the stars twinkle till they wrinkle."
   Hollywood high jinks
   Providing the "scoop du jour" in this tawdry corner of Tinseltown is radio gossipeuse Letitia DeVine (played with her trademark evil purr by Holland Taylor). Her reports open and close each of the four episodes.
   The plot, such as it is, has pretty June busting out in a stellar screentest for the coveted role of "Veronica Blaire," the most sought-after part since Scarlett O'Hara, according to "The Lot."
   When June's on the verge of being cast, her rise is stymied by the studio moneyman (played by Jeffrey Tambor). A scheming publicist (Perry Stephens) and a prissy costumer (Francois Giroday) step in with a plan to make her a star. But June has a mind of her own. She cancels a studio-planned date with Mickey Rooney to go out with a lowly screenwriter.
   "The Lot" features cameo appearances by Eric Stoltz and Rue McClanahan. Jonathan Frakes is dandy as lecherous business mogul Roland White.
   If this series falls short anywhere, it's that it's too short. I could stand at least another few hours of dishy fun based on Hollywood's glamour years.
   A Dandridge weekend
   HBO's slick movie bio, "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge," premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday. Halle Berry stars as the tragic glamour queen, the first African-American woman nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. It's a fine movie, but it glosses over some of the rougher details of the actress' stormy life.
   To get more of the story, tune to a timely rerun of E! Entertainment's "Mysteries and Scandals" series for "The Life and Death of Dorothy Dandridge" at 5 p.m. Sunday. The half-hour edition of the nightly show biz history series hosted by A.J. Benza looks closely at the tragic demise of Dandridge, who died mysteriously and suddenly at age 42.
  
  
  
  

 
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