Main Cast: Candice Rialson, Mary Woronov, Rita George, Jeffrey Kramer, Dick Miller
Release Year: 1976
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Allan Arkush and Joe Dante co-directed this campy spoof of exploitation films -- Roger Corman's schlock factory in particular. Candice Rialson stars as Candy Wednesday, a movie hopeful who wants to be a star. Her slimy agent Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) directs her to the portals of Miracle Pictures, where she lands a plum role in the film "Machete Maidens of Maratau." Lead actress Mary McQueen (Mary Woronov) becomes jealous, and a series of disturbing murders occur, culminating in a shoot-out on top of the Hollywood sign. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Richard Doran - Producer; Tara Strohmeier - Jill McBain; Paul Bartel - Erich Von Leppe; Jonathan Kaplan - Scotty; John Kramer - Duke Mantee; W.L. Luckey - Rico Bandello; Charles B. Griffith - Mark Dentine; Joe McBride - Drive-In Rapist; Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen - Themselves; Barbara Pieters - Drive-In Mother; Miller Drake - Mutant; George Waggner - Cameraman; Todd McCarthy - Author
Credit
Jack de Wolf - Art Director, Jane Ruhm - Costume Designer, Allan Arkush - Director, Joe Dante - Director, Allan Arkush - Editor, Joe Dante - Editor, Amy Jones - Editor, Andrew Stein - Composer (Music Score), Jamie Anderson - Cinematographer, Jon Davison - Producer, Teri Schwartz - Producer, Roger George - Special Effects, Richard L. Anderson - Supervising Sound Editor
The movie is best known for its re-use of footage from other movies. Roger Corman offered to let Dante make a movie if he could keep the budget very low. Dante achieved this by writing a script about a B-movie studio where he could shoot plot scenes cheaply with the actors and intercut them with action sequences from other movies that Corman owned, such as Death Race 2000. Although this wasn't an unusual technique for low-budget movies of the era, Hollywood Boulevard took it to extremes.
Several key people in the crew went on to bigger careers, from director Joe Dante, Gremlins, to art director Jonathan Demme, Silence Of The Lambs. Hollywood Boulevard would end up grossing upwards of a million dollars, not a bad return on a $25,000 budget. Hobgoblins director Rick Sloane credits this movie as the inspiration for his film making style.
