My review was written in October 1990 after watching the movie on Raedon video cassette.
The corny hem of how difficult it is to break in as a Hollywood scripter becomes a threadbare feature film "Hollywood Heartbreak", which might have worked as a two-reeler.
Filmmaker Lance Dickon commits the grave error of writing a naive, cliched heart-on-sleeve script that's not much better than the weak story plot line espoused by struggling hero Mark Moses. Worse still, the film's "illustrated" segments meant to portray Moses' endlessly pitched screen treatment are poorly staged, on a poverty row level.
Filmed in 1987 with the title "Pitch", the film unfolds oppressively like a silent-era or Hugo Haas 1950s tale of woe. In the opening reel, the destitute hero is stuck with the check twice at meetings with venal producers Ron Karabatsos and Richard Romanus. He finally finds a sympathetic ear in no-nonsense producer Harry Landers.
Just when the picture starts to get going on the basis of Landers' helpful advice, it's over.
Moses' script is a ridiculous post-apocalyptic version of "No Exit", with archetypal characters stuck in a shelter after World War III, arguing. Purporting to be about "the triumph of the human spirit", this storyline is relentlessly gauche, no matter how Moses changes it to fit the needs of each listening producer.
Dickson's spoofing of the "high concept" bias of Hollywood, as when a waiter come p with a female "Deliverance" is dated and superficial. The picture's whiny, complaining tone will be familiar to anyone who ever participated in a bull session by outsiders about what's wrong with American movies.
A more interesting and topical film might be about how a million-dollar bonus baby's script of recent vintage is bastardized by committee filmmaking and an ego-tripping director.
