Hollywood Without Make-Up

Ken Murray came to California in the 1920s as a homesick vaudeville actor. He wanted to stay in contact with his family back east, but hated writing letters. Instead, he got a camera and sent home 16 mm reels he'd shot of actors like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford when they weren't working. Thanks to his grandmother (who faithfully squirreled away all his "letters" from Hollywood) after three decades he had enough footage to piece together "a day by day film diary" of Hollywood's golden age at play. Narrated by a tuxedo-and-crew-cut wearing Murray (whose suavity is undercut by a still-broad New York accent), the clips are utterly unrehearsed and carefree in a between-world-wars way. A few shots are revealing: Marion Davies lighting up San Simeon with her sunny, sincere smile, Johnny Weissmuller as the most sadistic participant in a snowball fight, and Mae West turning on her man-eater swagger at will. It adds up to an unvarnished portrait not only of early Hollywood, but of a previous era of fan worship, where fame's eye was simultaneously more laudatory and less predatory.

By Violet LeVoit