Review of Hollywood Fantasies: Ten Surreal Visions of Tinsel Town

When looking at purchasing yesteryear anthologies, I almost always look to the contributing authors rather than theme. Theme a fluid, relative thing, it’s more about the authors’ treatments of it than any central idea that might transcend their efforts. Otherwise, I can’t think of any other way an anthology like Hollywood Fantasies: Ten Surreal Visions of Tinsel Town (1997) makes its way into my reading list. Several of the authors also known to me, was it worth it?

Addressing the Daoist wheel of Hollywood actors through the lens of westerns, Hollywood Fantasies kicks off with “The Never-Ending Western Movie” by Robert Sheckley. It features an ageing western star named Washburn (John Wayne, no?). Recently remarried to a much younger woman, he has signed up for his last big show, his last Western on the silver screen, and so heads on set. Slightly slipstream and wholly western, Sheckley’s sharp, intelligent style exposes one of the darker yet human aspects of Hollywood ego. More a vignette than a story, “Reality Unlimited’ by Robert Silverberg sees a couple attending a new virtual reality exhibition. Proving itself to be ultra-real, it’s so real in fact that it affects the couple. But like a train wreck, can they look away? A story that film connoisseurs will likely appreciate more than casual watchers, “One For The Horrors” by David Schow tells of a small, down-on-its-luck cinema which plays “lost” movies—movies which fell into development hell and were never made. Schow’s effort is a short but erudite piece that has passion and verve.

A spot of straight forward crime fiction (with a touch of the fantastic) set in Hollywood, “Werewind” by Michael Reaves features an actor struggling to find work. A serial killer on the loose, the tension in the actor’s life ramps up when the titular winds hit L.A. Reaves crosses his t’s and dots his i’s, but this story remains vanilla. At a stretch, “The Man Who Wanted to Be in The Movies” by John Jakes might be said to be a metaphor for the lengths people will go to be a star. A guy named George wants to be on the silver screen, so he visits a local soothsayer to have a spell cast on him. But there is a far stronger argument this is just a cheap bit of fiction.

I am a person who enjoys watching the background in movies. It’s easy to be sucked into what is happening front and center, but in the backdrop one finds the anchor to our real world. Robert Bloch, in his story “The Movie People”, likewise turns his eye to the backdrop. About a professional extra who boasts he’s been in more than 450 films, Bloch asks you to pay a little more attention what is happening back there. It isn’t the best story in the anthology, but it at least moves along atypical lines. One of the lesser known but most brilliant Ellison stories, "Laugh Track" is a story whose brief description barely scratches the surface of actual content. But here goes. It is the story of a man who continually hears a beloved, dead aunt’s voice in laugh tracks for bad television sit coms. But at its heart, Ellison skewers the saccharine nature of most mass-market comedy, then puts his money where his mouth is by providing a scalpel-edged humor of his own.

A short, sharp story cutting at the Joker-smile undercurrent to American culture, “Gunslinger” by Ed Gorman blurs the line between reality and the silver screen, but accentuates the line between American culture and public shootings. Openly playing off of James Dean, “Dead Image” by David Morrell tells a story about a Hollywood director looking for a rising star for his new film. He finds him in the exact same visage of an older actor who died in a car accident after making three movies. In terms of theme, I’m still trying to get my head around this one. History repeats itself? Personal problems cannot be overcome for fatalistic reasons? I don’t know...

In the end, Hollywood Fantasies is a mixed bag. Absolutely not a criticism; editors who scatter the dartboard with stories compared to those who aim for the bullseye every time are preferable. When encountering such mixed bags, I am reminded how boring and repetitive Jonathan Strahan’s Drowned Worlds anthology is by comparison. Every story has the same setting, and the same underlying tensions for it. While not every story in Hollywood Fantasies gets the mental juices churning and spitting, there is a variety which keeps the door open for: maybe the next one? The reader is rewarded often enough that the pages keep turning (or in this audiobook’s case, the mp3 keeps running). For me, Ellison, Sheckley, and Gorman’s stories caused salivation. If you are a fan of film, acting, Hollywood, dark fiction, and speculative fiction, then it’s likely there is enough content here of substance worth investment. If that lot does not grab your eye, then perhaps the author list will? If neither do, move on. (And lastly, be aware this is only available in audiobook form.)

The following are the stories collected in Hollywood Fantasies: Ten Surreal Visions from Tinsel Town:

“The Never-Ending Western Movie” by Robert Sheckley

“One For The Horrors” by David Schow

“The Man Who Wanted To Be In The Movies” by John Jakes

“Laugh Track” by Harlan Ellison

“Reality Unlimited’ by Robert Silverberg

“The Movie People” by Robert Bloch

“Werewind” by Michael Reaves

“The Movie Makers” by Henry Slesar

“Gunslinger” by Ed Gorman

“Dead Image” by David Morrell