Wilk (The Moving Picture Boys; Get Out and Get Under) once again
takes a loving but only half-telling poke at that most-easily
satirized community, Tinseltown, USA. Eileen Tighe, ambitious
Hollywood executive of the 1980s, watches a kinescope of a vintage
1950s live-comedy series at her decorator's house and becomes
infatuated with the show's star, Miss Jody Cassel. Jody is pure
shtick, using enough sight gags, outrageous costumes and cornball
Borsht-Belt puns to make Milton Berle blush. Still, there is pathos
behind the brazenness, personality behind the trademark
"Wowoweeweewoh!," and real talent hiding beneath the send-ups of
mushy torch songs to convince Eileen that there is great movie
potential in Jody Cassel's life story. Unfortunately, though, Jody
has not been seen or heard from since 1964. Thus, through a series
of interviews by Eileen and some first-person reminiscences by
erstwhile friends, associates, lovers and genuine Cassel-haters, we
get a Citizen Kane treatment of Jody's meteoric rise and descent
during the "golden years" of television. Everyone seems to have
gone on to great success following their association with Jody.
Buddy Grimes, her first partner, is now Walter Grimes, affluent
television advisor to a huge conglomerate. First director Dick
Hatch is now a legendary TV drama director. Agent Buck Dawes
appears to be running an agency the size of William Morris.
Ex-roomie Claire is a powerful cosmetics tycoon. Finally, Eileen
tracks Jody down in a mysterious spa in Mexico, where she has been
living with her guru, Dr. Ben Katzen of Brooklyn, and his band of
assorted oddballs. Jody seems happy at last, free from the
love-starved ego that drove her to the comic excesses which, in
turn, drove audiences wild and associates in the business crazy.
Far removed from the tensions of Hollywood, the "new Jody" has
found the secret to joy and tranquility. Still, the idea of a movie
about her life seems to be seductively beckoning. . . Wilk
obviously knows his Hollywood prototypes well, but even Jody
doesn't have enough about her to rate much concern, much less a
movie. There is some attempt at humor, but the written slapstick
just doesn't generate belly-laughs. Sandwiched between the pithy
sequences that begin and end the book is, sad to say, just so much
soap-opera mush. (Kirkus Reviews)
Eileen Tighe, a 1980s Hollywood film executive, sets out to find
Jody Cassel, the one-time funny-lady star of early television and
encounters a host of colorful, secretive, and threatening
characters who knew Jody and her secret.
General
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