IN AND OUT IN HOLLYWOOD

In a debut light on action and laden with whining, TV announcer and voice-over specialist Johnson looks at the fetid world of television celebrity journalism through the eyes of a naïve gay hunk unable to get with the program. Big blond Freddie’s as green as they come when he interviews for a co-anchor slot in a new magazine show, but he has the magic, apparently, and the studio signs him virtually on the spot. He has to change his name, among other things, but all’s well until the studio’s celebratory picnic, when Freddie (now Daniel) brings his black boyfriend, an exotic dancer, and picnickers start choking on their hotdogs. Then the studio publicity people receive a tape of Freddie earnestly outing himself on an LA radio talk show, and from there it’s a swift slide to oblivion. Yanked as the anchor just before the show’s launch, Freddie becomes Special Correspondent, but none of his interviews gets airtime—at least not with him included. Despairing, he can do little but observe the studio cutthroats at work—on him and others—while also watching his relationship with dancer Xavier slide into a cold, cruel farce. But a junket interviewing a troubled movie star gets Freddie a unique kind of access, and a flame for a Broadway actor/singer burns brighter. So come what may, Freddie isn’t completely without options.

The inside story about TV-land rings true, but when all is over, the hero seems only a bit less clueless than when he began.