SERIES PREMIERE: When F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing
The Last Tycoon, Hollywood press agents and newspaper gossip columnists controlled the image of Hollywood, studio chiefs controlled them and everyone else, and writers, actors and producers worked within and without the system to make movies, and sometimes art, while going about (and often hiding) their private lives. Peeking behind the glittery curtain of show biz was a rarity then, but it’s commonplace enough to be tired now – and since Fitzgerald never completed
The Last Tycoon, this new Amazon series takes it upon itself to fill in not only the blanks, but virtually the entire narrative past the pilot episode. It’s the second Amazon series to tap the Fitzgerald era and mystique – the first was
Z: The Beginning of Everything, starring Christina Ricci as Zelda Fitzgerald, and that one, like
The Last Tycoon, stresses costume and set design and makeup more than writing and direction. Matt Bomer plays Monroe Stahr, a young, passionate producer who puts his studio’s money where his heart is, and where his art is. Kelsey Grammer is studio chief Pat Brady, whose influence is vast and imperious – and Lily Collins (pictured) plays Brady’s daughter, a beautiful woman with ambitions that stretch beyond, and behind, the silver screen. Based on the real-life Hollywood players of the period, Stahr is a stand-in for artistically ambitious producer Irving Thalberg, and Brady on MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer – but series creator Billy Ray (
Captain Phillips), once he takes the baton from Fitzgerald’s unfinished manuscript and runs with it, goes to all the predictable places, with all the predictable plots and subplots. Like
Z, this Amazon series looks glossy, but feels empty.
For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.