In true Hollywood fashion, it took nearly a decade for "The Kid Stays in the Picture" to get made into a movie.
That, despite the fact that the source material — former Paramount Studios senior vice president Robert Evans' vivid warts-and-all autobiography — is such a good story that it practically begs to be told on the big screen.
Now it's been turned into a feature-length documentary, which means that the story can be told with Evans' trademark bluster intact and without being "fictionalized" . . . at least not by others.
"The Kid Stays in the Picture" picks up Evans' story in 1956, when he was "discovered" by actress Norma Shearer, who convinced studio execs to have the then-unknown actor play Irving Thalberg in "Man of a Thousand Faces."
His performance in that film convinced legendary producer Daryl Zanuck that Evans would be the "next Valentino," and Zanuck cast him in a supporting role in "The Sun Also Rises" (a controversial move that led to a minor insurrection among the cast and crew).
However, a series of less-than-successful follow-up roles led Evans to pursue a behind-the-scenes career in Hollywood. First, he managed to latch onto a hot property, the best-selling novel "The Detective." That led to his lofty vice president position at Paramount in the '60s.
And over the next two decades, Evans turned what had been the last-place studio into an industry leader, with such successes as "The Godfather," "Love Story" and "Chinatown."
That's probably enough material for a movie right there, but the film also touches on Evans' unsuccessful marriage to actress Ali MacGraw, as well as his falling victim in a drug sting and a sensational murder trial that caused him to be blacklisted in Hollywood for nearly a decade.
Unfortunately, co-directors Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen can't maintain the same energetic pace and colorful style throughout the film (particularly in the downbeat final third). But Evans' narration (taken from the memoirs and compiled by Morgen) makes it consistently interesting.
"The Kid Stays in the Picture" is rated R for frequent use of strong sex-related profanity, vulgar sexual slang terms and ethnic slurs, violence (movie violence, shown in clips), drug content (discussion of drug deals), brief gore and brief female nudity (photos). Running time: 91 minutes.
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