Underrated Gem: Inserts

It's fair to say most folks--even my fellow film fanatics--have never heard of the film, Inserts, much less seen it. Starring an up-and-coming Richard Dreyfuss as "Boy Wonder," and supported by a stellar cast, Inserts plays out on a one-room set, bringing into focus the movieland setting. Rated X upon release, Inserts was rechristened with a less titillating, more establishment NC-17 in that rating's mid-1990's heyday. The strong rating is a result not only of the film's bounteous nudity but also its racy subject matter. Inserts is undoubtedly a product of its (1970s) time. Indeed, I cannot think of a single Hollywood distribution outfit that would back this movie today.

 

While it's not a classic (assuredly it is not), Inserts does bring an interesting attitude to the table. The setting is Hollywood circa 1930, a town in transition. Silent film is dead, and everyone save Chaplin has gone crazy for the talkies. Dreyfuss plays a washed-up film director who we know only as "Boy Wonder," once brilliant, now alcoholic, moping about his rundown palazzo in his bathrobe with a bottle of booze in one hand and a movie camera in the other, making "nudies," starring Helene (Veronica Cartwright), a heroin-addicted forgotten silent film star (a "ghost story," in the film's parlance). Joining them is Rex (Stephen Davies). Nicknamed "The Wonder Dog" due to his limited mental capacity, Rex, whose full time job is working for a mortician, is still naive enough to think a studio executive he is scheduled to meet at his hotel room will put him on the studio payroll with no strings attached.

One particular morning, after getting the first scene of the day "in the can," producer Big Mac (Bob Hoskins) arrives with Helene's fix of heroin and his girlfriend, a wannabe actress named Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper). Cathy knows Boy Wonder's work from the silents, and wants to meet him and see the filming of a stag film. Unfortunately for her, Big Mac and Cathy's arrival coincides with Helene's heroin overdose. When Rex refuses to have sex with Helene's corpse, Cathy agrees to serve as Helene's body double and film the titular inserts. While Rex and Big Mac dispose of Helene's body, Boy Wonder and Cathy begin filming and forming a bond.

Richard Dreyfuss as Boy Wonder, a washed up, alcoholic silent filmmaker
coming to grips with his lot in life

Although some books had been published about Hollywood's dark underbelly--most prominently, Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon--by the mid-1970s, any time the major studios considered Hollywood's Golden Age, the films, including W.C. Fields and Me, Gable and Lombard, Nickelodeon and Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (interestingly, along with Inserts, all released in 1976), tended to depict the more mainstream elements of that earlier time. Not that these films found their audience (they didn't, some deservedly so), but mainstream moviegoers, me included, still wanted to believe wholly in the facade of that so-called Golden Age. Inserts was one of the first films to focus on the less-than-golden parts of that Hollywood heyday. And focus it did. The film included full-frontal nudity and four-letter words that had seldom, if ever, been spoken in a mainstream film before. 

First-time director John Byrum, who also wrote the script, is dealing with difficult material here. Even Hitchcock found it challenging to film a movie on one set, trying twice before succeeded with 1954's Rear Window, and it goes without saying Byrum is no Hitch. But the film does have its fascinating moments, particularly when it references early Hollywood, including dialogue concerning Jack Pickford (Mary's brother, death by drugs), Wallace Reid (more death by drugs), Erich von Stroheim (a victim of his own directorial excess) and "that new kid at Pathe" (Clark Gable), who is desperate to meet Boy Wonder. With clever references to old Hollywood and contemporary references to 1970s' popular culture (Big Mac wants to make it rich in hamburger chains [get it?]), how could this film not succeed? Who knows? But it didn't. No one went to see it, and most critics shrugged it off. But that doesn't mean there is not some cinematic gold to be mined from this off-beat, wildly eccentric vehicle.

Left to right: Jessica Harper's Cathy Cake, Bob Hoskins' Big Mac, and
Stephen Davies' Rex cannot believe what Boy Wonder (Richard Dreyfuss) is suggesting. 

The cast is first rate and is the best reason to see the film. Veronica Cartwright's Helene is a heartbreaking mix of Marie Prevost, Mabel Normand, and all those no-name early film starlets who came to Hollywood to make it big, only to fall short for a variety of reasons--lack of drive, talent, luck. Helene is too sensitive and too impractical to survive in hard-hearted Hollywood. Cartwright--always underrated--gives heart to Helene's (lack of) status. Stephen Davies' Rex, "The Wonder Dog," is a basically good-natured, simple guy who should have stayed back in Iowa or wherever he came from. Bob Hoskins' pre-Roger Rabbit, Cotton Club, and Super Mario Bros (remember that one?!) is perfectly cast. I'm a sucker for all the American tough guys he played. Cult favorite (Phantom of the Paradise, Pennies From Heaven) Jessica Harper as Cathy Cake seems a tough case at first glance, with little, if any, empathy for what she witnesses at Boy Wonder's palazzo; however, as her character transitions from passive bystander to active participant (eventually--in a neat twist--directing Dreyfuss's director to allow his "rope to rise"), Harper gives depth to Cathy Cake's ambition. I've had a crush on Miss Harper ever since I first saw her in the 1974 Brian DePalma film Phantom of the Paradise. With her big eyes, pale complexion, and willowy frame, she fits perfectly into the Hollywood Byrum strives to recreate. Then there is Richard Dreyfuss. I love nearly everything the guy has done, up to and including his short-lived, underrated 2001 television show, The Education of Max Bickford.  As Boy Wonder, Dreyfuss brings his usual characteristics to the table--a nervous, quirky, energetic, Jewish personality--here combined with a heartbreaking pathos I find effective and engaging. 

Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), embraces the idea of doing "inserts" of the dead Harlene
and offers her services to Boy Wonder (Richard Dreyfuss). 

Nearly half of Insert's running time consists of a tete-a-tete between Boy Wonder and Cathy Cake in which roles reverse, and Miss Cake directs Boy Wonder, getting his "rope to rise" by using the same techniques on him that he has used on his actors. Here Boy Wonder, a master cynic who is nevertheless drawn to Miss Cake's seemingly innocent yet curious inquiries into how these nudies are made, finally meets his match. She draws him out, seduces him, and brings out the vulnerable side that he would never admit to having.

When Inserts opened in early 1976, it received mostly scathing reviews and barely made a nickel at the box office. While not a feel-good movie--at times it seems deliberately offensive--Inserts gave, and continues to give, some movie lovers a jaundiced view of Hollywood's Golden Age that is a world away from the glamour usually presented in films about that era. The film has a lot of humor, mostly supplied by Dreyfuss, but it is cynical, dark, and ironic. This cynicism combined with the setting is a major reason I am drawn to it. Forgotten and neglected until very recently (Twilight Time released a Blu-ray in June 2016), Inserts will not appeal to the casual movie viewer. If your idea of a good movie is the latest superhero blockbuster, Inserts probably won't hold your interest. But if you enjoy an off-beat, dark humored, tough yet vulnerable, and well-acted film, you could do a lot worse than to open up and let Inserts invade your cinematic soul. 

Sources

• IMDB
• Wikipedia