An Update on The Fractured Mirror, My Upcoming Book
I have devoted a good chunk of the last seven year and a half years of my career to an exhaustive deep dive into the fascinating, revelatory world of movies about the film industry for The Fractured Mirror.
The Fractured Mirror began life as a TCM Backlot column back in 2015, when the world was a more innocent place and the idea that Donald Trump would soon become the most powerful man in the world was still inconceivable. It moved to Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place last year.
Last year I also decided to make The Fractured Mirror my ninth book. So I have spent the last eight months or so binging as many movies about movies as possible, generally after my wife has fallen asleep or my children are away.
I recently reached a milestone in the wildly ambitious project when I watched and wrote up my two hundredth film so I figured I would give you an update on a massive tome that represents a huge part of my 2023 plans.
When I was conceptualizing The Fractured Mirror I saw it as an opportunity to delve deep into one of my long-standing obsessions. I’ve always loved movies about the film industry because of what they say about how Hollywood sees itself and its endless, alternating currents of self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation.
But movies about the film industry are also inherently about the horrors and wonders of capitalism, the eternal war between art and commerce and the wonderful, ridiculous city of Los Angeles and its residents.
I went in seeing this rich sub-genre as an ongoing reflection of the movie world’s bottomless self-obsession that spawned some masterpieces but also a lot of self-indulgent, narcissistic hogwash.
While this field is certainly not devoid of navel-gazing nonsense it’s far richer, deeper and more honest than I could have imagined.
I came to bury these films. Instead I find myself praising them.
Even when the movies I’ve been watching and writing about the for the book, my site’s Patreon account and the people who have pre-ordered The Fractured Mirror through Backerkit or Kickstarter have been less than stellar the stories behind them have been fascinating.
I get to share these crazy, terrible, amazing, revealing movies with you through the book and the column but also, just as importantly, the stories behind them as well.
For example, I’m currently in a Jean Harlow/Howard Hughes side-quest that’s way crazier and more compelling than I anticipated. I learned, for example, that two Jean Harlow biopics both named Harlow were released a mere five weeks apart.
The splashier and more entertaining of the two is a big-budget, handsomely mounted Joseph E. Levine-produced Technicolor extravaganza starring Carroll Baker, who just a year earlier starred as a Jean Harlow-like movie star in The Carpetbaggers, another Jospeh E. Levine extravaganza, this one an adaptation of Harold Robbins Roman a clef about Harlow’s star-maker Howard Hughes and, to a much lesser extent, Learjet founder Bill Lear.
That means that in the space of fifteen months three separate films were released about Jean Harlow, two of which were produced by Joseph Levine and starred Carroll Baker as Jean Harlow and featured characters based on Howard Hughes played by George Peppard and Leslie Nielsen.
Carol Lynley plays Jean Harlow in the third movie about her from the mid-1960s, which is notable primarily for its relationship with Levine’s classier but still sleazy take on the material and for being shot in the doomed, maddening format of Electronovision.
In Electronovision, a project was shot on high end videotaped and then transferred to film via a Kinescope, to give it the migraine-inducing look of an early black and white live television broadcast.
These movies are fascinating to me for the many, many ways in which they overlap and reflect each other at odd angles but also for their rancid misogyny and fierce hatred and fear of Jean Harlow and any woman who is boldly, unapologetically sexual in a society that hates and fears sexually aggressive women and always has.
I’m going to be writing up either three hundred or three hundred and fifty films for The Fractured Mirror. I had originally planned to write up 300 movies because that seemed like a nice, large, round number but I suspect that when I approach that goal there will still be movies left for me to write about for the book.
That’s partially because they never stop releasing new movies about the movie business, including big new ones like The Fabelmans, Blonde and Babylon but also because OVER a CENTURY of movies about movies is a lot of ground to cover.
My original goal was to write up pretty much every American movie about the film business but that’s going to be impossible so my new goal is to offer an exhaustive exploration of the field.
I’m very happy with what I have so far and where I’m headed and I’m feeling very confident about being about to publish The Fractured Mirror in July or August of 2023 so I invite you to join the ride by pledging to the site’s Patreon, where I am posting all of the new entries I’m writing up for the book or by pre-ordering it through Backerkit.
We’re having a whole lot of fun and in some ways we’ve only just gotten started! If nothing else I still have more Hughes and Harlow to cover and they represent just a tiny fraction of the weird, wild and sometimes wonderful movies I’ll be covering. What else will I be writing up? I’m glad you asked. Here’s what I have so far.
Movies I have written about for The Fractured Mirror
Abbott and Costello in Hollywood
Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Cops
Adaptation
Affairs of Annabel
An Alan Smithee Film! Burn, Hollywood Burn!
The Amateurs
American Movie
America’s Sweethearts
Annabel Takes a Tour
The Assistants
Baadassss!
The Bad and the Beautiful
Barton Fink
Be Kind Rewind
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Big Fat Liar
The Big Knife
The Big Picture
Blow Out
Bowinger
Brutal Massacre
The Bubble
The Buster Keaton Story
Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star
The Cameraman
The Canyons
The Carpetbaggers
Cats Don’t Dance
Cecil B. Demented
Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers
Chump Change
Cold Souls
The Comeback Trail
The Comic
CQ
Confessions of an Action Star
Crazy House
Dangerous Game
Danny Roane: First Time Director
The Day of the Locust
The Deal
The Death of “Superman Lives” What Happened?
Destroyer
Directed by John Ford
Director’s Cut
The Disaster Artist
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Ellie Parker
Entourage
The Errand Boy
The Fanatic
Fedora
Finding Bliss
Finishing the Game
For Your Consideration
Four Girls in Town
Free and Easy
Get Shorty
Gods and Monsters
The Goldwyn Follies
Hail Caesar!
The Hard Way
Harlow
Harlow
The Hearts of the West
Hellzapoppin’
He’s Way More Famous Than You
Hollywon’t
Hollywood & Wine
Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Cavalcade
Hollywood Ending
Hollywood Hotel
Hollywood or Bust
Hollywood Party
Hollywood Shuffle
The Hollywood Sign
Hollywood Story
Hooper
How to Make a Monster (1958)
Hurlyburly
I Love Your Work
In a Lonely Place
In the Soup
The Incident at Loch Ness
The Independent
Inside Daisy Clover
Inside Monkey Zetterland
Irreconcilable Differences
It’s a Great Feeling!
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jim and Andy in the Great Beyond
Jiminy Glick in LaLaWood
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Just Write
The Kid & I
The Kid Stays in the Picture
King Kong (1933)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
La La Land
The Last Movie Star
The Last of Sheila
The Last Producer
The Last Shot
The Last Tycoon
Living in Oblivion
Lobster Man from Mars
The Lonely Lady
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Lord Love a Duck
Love Me or Leave Me
Love, Hollywood Style
The Man of a Thousand Faces
Mank
Matinee
Mistress
Modern Romance
Mommie Dearest
Movers & Shakers
Movie Crazy
The Muppet Movie
The Muse
My Tiny Universe
National Lampoon’s Another Dirty Movie
National Lampoon’s Dirty Movie
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Nobody Knows Anything
Nope
Not Another Not Another Movie
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Orgazmo
The Oscar
The Other Side of the Wind
Overnight
Paparazzi
Paris When It Sizzles
The Party
Pauly Shore Is Dead
Pawparazzi
Pick a Star
The Pickle
Pipe Dreams
Playing it Cool
Rented Lips
Return to Horror High
Room 237
Rules Don’t Apply
Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street
Searching for Bobby D
See This Movie
Seed of Chucky
Shoot or Be Shot
Showgirl in Hollywood
Shut Up and Shoot!
Silent Movie
Silver Bullets
Simone
Singing in the Rain
Slipstream
S.O.B.
Southland Tales
Special Effects
The Star
Starry Eyes
Starstruck
Star Spangled Rhythm
A Star Is Born (1937)
A Star is Born (1954)
The Stunt Man
Sullivan’s Travels
Sunset
Sunset Boulevard
Supporting Characters
Targets
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies!
Terror Eyes
That’s Adequate
Three Amigos
3 Geezers
Three Holes and a Smoking Gun
Tinseltown
Tropic Thunder
Two Weeks in Another Town
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Uncle Kent 2
Under the Rainbow
Urban Legends: The Final Cut
The Valley of the Dolls
Wag the Dog
W.C Fields and Me
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
What Just Happened
What Price Hollywood?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Wild Party
The Wizard of Speed and Time
The Woman Chaser
Won Ton Ton, The Dog that Saved Hollywood
World’s Greatest Lover
Actually, since I wrote this 5 days ago I’ve watched and written up five more movies for it, including Scream 3, Terror Firmer, the 2005 King Kong and Entropy.
What do you think NEEDS to also be covered? Bonus points for unexpected titles because I’m obviously going to be writing up stuff like Ed Wood, The Player, All About Eve and the rest of the usual suspects.
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