This American mini-series (1980) in two parts based on a novel by best-selling author Harold Robbins that was published in 1949 was broadcast in January 1985 on the then West German television station ZDF.
It's about the beginning of the film industry at the beginning of the 20th century, when films were shown in so-called nickelodeons. In America, most films were initially shot in New York until the increasingly successful film entrepreneurs moved to sunny Hollywood and turned the orange plantations there into the most successful film metropolis in the world. A mixture of sex, business and intrigue depicts the early years of the film industry up to the transition to sound films at the end of the 1920s. The cast consists of a then-usual mix of attractive young stars who would become TV series stars in the 1980s, and deserving old stars who practically became film gods in the Hollywood heyday of the old studio system could become.
The leading roles are played by the attractive young stars Mark Harmon as the self-made man Johnny Edge and Morgan Fairchild as the charming, calculating actress Dulcie Warren. After this appearance, both would become the stars of the (unfortunately) short-lived prime time soap "Flamingo Road". Other roles include: Morgan Brittany (Dallas), Red Buttons (The Greatest Show on Earth), Howard Duff (Flamingo Road, Knots Landing), Jose Ferrer (Moulin Rouge), Fernando Lamas (father of Lorenzo Lamas), Ray Milland (Oscar for "The Lost Weekend") and Chao Li Chi (Falcon Crest).
Mediocre as a series of intrigue, not uninteresting as a chronicle of the beginning film industry!
