This book is often called the best book ever written about Hollywood.  It is the story of set designer Tod Hackett & a cast of lowlifes living on the fringe of the movie business, all of them drawn to the same wannabe starlet.

The characters are uniformly unsympathetic & it is nearly impossible to care what happens to them. Perhaps the book was more shocking when we knew less about the movie business & the personal lives of entertainers, but this tale of the dross behind the Silver Screen leaves one unmoved today.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (C-) Orrin C. Judd

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