AVENUE OF THE STARS

An evil Japanese businessman tries to take over Hollywood in this alarmingly tasteless melodrama concocted by a TV soap-opera writer and a producer. Jake Baron, the last private owner of a Hollywood movie studio, may be a nice guy (you can tell because he wears a baseball cap), but he has some major problems. He's in love with his studio president, the already-married Kelly Kristopher; his studio, Constellation, is on the verge of bankruptcy; and his stepson is selling the company's secrets to help pay his gambling debts. Baron travels to Chicago in search of new investors, little realizing that a corrupt and superpowerful Japanese billionaire, Hiroshi Takishima, is moving to take over Baron's studio and destroy it. Since 1945, when Takashima watched the Americans drop an atom bomb on his hometown of Nagasaki, Takishima has plotted the ultimate revenge--to destroy the Americans' most prized possession, their film industry. As the evil businessman (usually referred to as ""the Jap"") maneuvers through the Hollywood jungle--firebombing Constellation, scaring off other investors, buying the studio's lending bank and then taking over the studio when its notes come due, and taking time off to whip American prostitutes, host all-night orgies, and arrange the murder of Baron's stepson--Baron nobly resists the yellow peril's attacks. But when Takishima goes so far as to kidnap Kelly and, even worse, raise the Japanese flag over Constellation's lot, he goes too far. Takishima's empire collapses under the weight of its own corruption. As its leader is arrested, Kelly's husband conveniently runs away to England, she and Baron vow undying love, and Hollywood lives to see another red-blooded. American day. Ceaseless incantations of celebrity names fail to sweeten this sloppy confection--and its racial stereotyping leaves a particularly nasty aftertaste.