Figure 1.--The "Day of the Locust" was set in 1939. One of the characters was a boy whose mother wanted to get him him into movies. She dressed him in a Fauntleroy-type suit to make him look cute and more appealing for movie roles.
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Figure 1.--The "Day of the Locust" was set in 1939. One of the characters was a boy whose mother wanted to get him him into movies. She dressed him in a Fauntleroy-type suit to make him look cute and more appealing for movie roles. |
Nathanael West's book is a classic of Hollywood literature, that often dark and satirical subgenre populated by
such authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion and Aldous Huxley.
It is a negative look at the decadent Hollywood of the late
1930's. A young artist (named Homer Simpson) searching
for glamour encounters a dismal world of broken people
and shattered dreams. Here, West tells the story of
characters on the fringe of the entertainment industry, Homer Simpson (coincidence?), Faye
Greener, and Tod Hackett. The reader may be left a little flat by the spare prose West uses in his
tale, remeniscent of noir fiction. The story is terse and biting. Each character has come to California
seeking fame or health in the shining city, and each carries his own history of bitterness and dreams.
The imagery West uses to illustrate the moral decay of this fringe population is sometimes disturbing,
sometimes inspired, and occasionally presages events still decades into the future for Los Angeles. I,
myself, was left looking for more depth to the characters, as well as left dreaming of the romance of
Depression-era California.
The basic plot involves a young scene designer and aspiring
actress in 1930s Hollywood. She is naive, manipulative,
self-centered, yet full of life and hope. He falls in love with
her, but she has no intentions of falling for him. Any plot
summary about the surface storyline is almost beside the
point though, because this movie is far more a study of
human nature, both of individuals and of groups and
crowds. It seems to be a movie about appetites as much as
anything....hunger for fame, sex, riches, recognition; and
about rage, both repressed and terrifyingly expressed.
Its pace is slow, and it is not light viewing. If you watch
without paying too much attention, or wander off for 5
minutes here or there to get some popcorn or whatever,
you probably will find it rather odd and rambling. I can't say that I cared for the film, but it is
well written and complex characters will draw in the careful
viewer, and by the time you do reach the end, it will leave
you very, very disturbed.
The Day of the Locust depicts a child in Hollywood
who in an effort to make him look cute, is dressed up in a Fauntleroy-like suit. The suit was not velvet. It was rather like a shortbpants suit, but worn with a frilly collar and bow. Like many boys wearing Fauntleroy
suits in this era, he was depicted as a terrible brat--the cleche of the era. In fact, he is the classic Hollywood example of outfitting brats in a sissy suit. Theboy is perhaps the quentisential Hollywood brat. The film was based on a book published by a playwrite in 1939
about his experiences in Hollywood.
I'm not sure how accurate the costuming is. It is true, however, that Hollywood was full of mothers trying to get their kids in the movies. Especially in the 1920s, these mothers would dressy the boys in fancy costumes. Even the boys who had made it in the movies like Jackie Sear, Jackie Coogan, and others were dressed in fancy outfits.
I'm not sure who the boy was that plays the child. Perhaps William
Atherton
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