I just returned from seeing Hail, Caesar!
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you would have read some blog posts about Eddie Mannix, the former vice-president of MGM back in the 1930s to the early 1960s and his possible involvement in the George Reeves case.
Well, Hail, Caesar! has Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) in it, but this Eddie Mannix is with a fictional movie studio, Capitol Pictures. Like the real-life Mannix, he is the "fixer" of problems that crop up involving the studio and its contract actors.
While a docu-drama on the real Eddie Mannix would be quite an interesting picture, this one is actually a screwball comedy.
According to Google:
In the early 1950s, Eddie Mannix is busy at work trying to solve all the problems of the actors and filmmakers at Capitol Pictures. His latest assignments involve a disgruntled director, a singing cowboy, a beautiful swimmer and a handsome dancer. As if all this wasn't enough, Mannix faces his biggest challenge when Baird Whitlock gets kidnapped while in costume for the swords-and-sandals epic "Hail, Caesar!" If the studio doesn't pay $100,000, it's the end of the line for the movie star.One of my favorite scenes was when Mannix bitch-slapped around Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). Maybe it's because I really can't stand Clooney. The period of the early 1950s was nicely re-created.
My grade: A.
