I'm Going to Be Famous

Probably best known for his wonderfully-retitled exploitation opus I DISMEMBER MAMA, Paul Leder is a directorial figure whose dubious talent leaves him not exactly awaiting rediscovery. Still, Code Red gave him a go with a tape-sourced double-header featuring the equally well-titled RED LIGHT IN THE WHITE HOUSE and the much more bluntly monikered I'M GOING TO BE FAMOUS. While it's tough to top RED's obscurity, FAMOUS probably does it, having never appeared on US home video nor, I believe, in cinemas. Its sole bow ('til now) was on UK VHS and one television broadcast. As it turns out, we weren't really deprived of much.

Kind of a poor man's NASHVILLE, FAMOUS, god help us, is seemingly trying to be a legitimate expose on the day-to-day lives and loves of a small group of Hollywood hopefuls looking to land the male lead in a new Broadway play (why exactly it's casting in LA before moving to New York is never specified - is this common practice?). The director (Dick Sargent) is of course schmoozing all the young leads, while the female star, herself the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress driven to drink by the expectations that carries, is simply trying to stay afloat while maintaining her singing career. For the young hopefuls, we get a bail bondsman who moonlights (or daylights, really) as an actor, an earnest young guy from the sticks with a religious fixation and self-abusive tendences, a model whose mistress shows up carrying his child, etc. Basically, it all reads like the aftermath of a brainstorming session titled "Interesting Movie" by someone who couldn't quite tell the difference between legitimate drama and mere theatrics. While the film pants and heaves dashing between these tabloid-fodder subplots, it does so in vain, since the characters are too thinly drawn and poorly developed to merit any interest.

Basically, what we have is the ensemble movie from hell, which drags on interminably and rarely generates even a modicum of interest among its large cast. I had expected some kind of navel-gazing, poison pen letter to Hollywood a la the execrable 90s "comedy" INSTANT KARMA, but somehow this is worse, a dumbfoundingly earnest attempt at community portraiture delivered by someone steadfastly ill-equipped for the task. I'd say it would've been best leaving it to the dustbin of history, but given the recent DVD reissue has seemingly already fallen off the face of the Earth, I suppose fate has seen to setting things right...