A short history of Hollywood’s poison-pen letters to itself

Hollywood loves making films about the movie industry. In this genre, the peculiarities of Tinseltown are sent up—from the enormous egos of the stars to the preciousness of the screenwriters—but the message is that there really is no business like show business. “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941), for example, ridicules its protagonist, a socially liberal director who wants to make serious films; in the end Sullivan (Joel McCrea) realises that what the disenfranchised really want is not some bleak drama but an escapist comedy—rather like the one he is in. “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) features Gene Kelly as a silent-movie idol who risks career oblivion with the advent of sound. What does he do? He invents the musical, of course.

Some films are more plainly hagiographic. “Saving Mr Banks” (2013), a Disney film, set out to prove how wonderful Walt Disney was, with the help of Tom Hanks at his most avuncular. The Coen brothers depicted Hollywood as hellish for the titular screenwriter in “Barton Fink” (1991), but when they returned to their fictional studio, Capitol Pictures, for “Hail, Caesar!” in 2016, all was sweetness and light. Even Quentin Tarantino couldn’t help but produce an adoring (if bloody) love letter to his trade with “Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood” (2019).

That is not to deny the harsh criticisms of the industry produced from within. Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) is perhaps the best example: William Holden plays a writer whose association with an aged starlet ends with him face-down in a swimming pool. Humphrey Bogart also took on the role of a storyteller for “In a Lonely Place” (1950). His screenwriter is so jaundiced that, on becoming the suspect in a murder, he seems himself unsure if he is innocent. From Kirk Douglas’s brutal producer in “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952) to Jack Palance’s exhausted actor in “The Big Knife” (1955), Tinseltown didn’t seem like a glittering place to be in the mid-20th century. Perhaps it was the gloomy mood of the post-war period, or the communist witch-hunts and the prospect of being blacklisted.

“The Beta Test”, a new and wickedly funny satire, upholds this poison-pen tradition. Jim Cummings and P.J. McCabe, who co-wrote, co-directed and co-star in the film, were conscious of the legacy of those works as well as “The Player” (1992), which follows a paranoid movie executive. “‘Sunset Boulevard’ is such an ugly picture of Hollywood,” Mr Cummings says. “And ‘The Player’ was just as ugly as our film and it came out 30 years ago.” But for the creators of “The Beta Test”, ugliness was desirable. “We talked about not having that world be pretty. So much of Hollywood that we show is backstreets and chain-link fences,” Mr Cummings says. “We wanted to de-glamourise it as much as possible.”

“The Beta Test” tells the story of a Hollywood agent, Jordan (Mr Cummings), whose life, at first, appears as polished as his teeth. He is to be married in six days and is also intent on closing an important deal with a potential client. But things begin to unravel after he accepts a mysterious invitation to an anonymous sexual encounter. The private duplicity is a reflection of his public role, Mr Cummings says, with “the constant doublespeak, the constant lying”. The film explores “what it’s like to date someone who you’re watching lie all the time and how that affects your relationship.”

The entertainment landscape has changed irrevocably in the last two decades with the advent of streaming services. As the film was released in Britain, negotiations were being conducted in Hollywood to avoid a strike of 60,000 workers who were demanding better wages and reasonable hours. These are the changes that Jordan is trying to navigate in the film. His company seeks to carve out a role for itself in “packaging content”—ie, assembling several stars for projects and collecting a fee for the work—which represents a shifting of roles from representation towards something more like production. (The practice recently led to a protracted dispute between the Writers Guild of America and major talent agencies.)

Another significant change occurred with the #MeToo movement, which gained momentum in 2017 after several women came forward to accuse Harvey Weinstein, a producer, of sexual misconduct. The obnoxious Hollywood boss is no longer simply a figure of fun. Watching Jordan publicly yelling at his secretary in “The Beta Test” brings to mind Kitty Green’s drama of 2019, “The Assistant”, in which an unseen executive berates, abuses and bullies his staff.

In recent years executives renowned for such hectoring behaviour have been sacked. Does Mr Cummings think any meaningful change has occurred? “Obviously Weinstein’s in prison but the support system that got this guy to where he was is still working. They’re still at the same companies…so no.” Perhaps Hollywood has never needed self-reflection more than it does today. ■

“The Beta Test” is playing in British cinemas now and will be released in American cinemas on November 5th