Movies Within a Movie: Only the Coen Bros Could Zing 1950's Hollywood Culture: All the World's a Movie

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2019)

From the very beginning of film as manufactured entertainments to be consumed not unlike candy and popcorn until circa 1965, the Hollywood studios were giant movie factories. They cranked out films like the latest dessert or candy bar to be quickly devoured and ingested until the next time. The studios were often making multiple films on different sound stages. When television became serious competition for entertainment seekers in the 1950's, the studios fought back by making large epic pictures in a new format: Cinemascope, a widescreen format which could not be accommodated by current television technology. Cinemascope films often took place in ancient times: "The Robe", "Ben Hur", and "The Ten Commandments". (Only by circa 1990 did some films begin appearing on VHS tape in their original widescreen formats.)
The Coen brothers attack the old Hollywood studio system and culture with the subtlety of a hacksaw and apply it to pre-1960 Hollywood like King Kong escaping from his bonds. Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is a "movie star" in the old pre-Marlon Brando sense. He plays over-the-top characters in love stories and epics, not just to please cinema-goers who like the stories of his films, but also his adoring fans who will pay the box office to watch whatever he stars in. He's currently in "Hail, Caesar!" (undoubtedly similar to "The Robe", the first ever Cinemascope movie, and "Ben Hur") as a centurion who will experience the humanity and divinity of Christ in ancient Palestine.
Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is a movie mogul probably modeled after Louis B. Mayer (who executive produced MGM musicals) and Darryl F. Zanuck (producer of "Gone with the Wind"). The actors under contract under the studio Capitol Pictures are his chess pieces, and he moves them around from film-to-film, the studio being like a giant chess board. Mannix assigns his actors and directors at will. But he not only controls the projects; he also governs the lives of the Hollywood people. He determines who will go with whom to film premiers, and even occasionally gets involved with directing their person lives in terms of marriages and families. (In point of fact, Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller was forced by the studios to divorce his wife. The conventional wisdom: female audiences would be less interested in attending his Tarzan films if they knew he was married and unavailable.)
The film "Hail Caesar" is only a few scenes away from completion, but their star, Whitlock has been kidnapped! Interspersed with this plot are sequences in which we view other films being shot. In particular we meet a country-western airhead who is playing in musical westerns. He's tapped by the studio to play a supporting character in a sophisticated costume drama which has dire consequences! We also see a bar scene in a movie musical being shot where all the off-duty sailors break into song and dance! In the meantime, a horrid stand-in takes the place of Whitlock, and they shoot his scenes with his back to the camera!
While most critics enjoyed this scathing reality check of Hollywood culture, general movie goers were less than enthusiastic. There are many in-jokes about the entertainment industry, not all of them flattering, some of them sobering. In some scenes which are supposed to be "real life", the scenes look like film shots, particularly with the sky appearing more like a painting than real. I think the point the Coen brothers are making is that the entire Hollywood world is an endless movie in and of itself. Especially when you consider the gossip columnists who endlessly used their pens like swords to expose the latest scandalous behavior behind the scenes. A really fun movie if you understand the unreality of Show Biz. All the world's a movie, without the credits!