THE EASTER EGG HUNT

The Hollywood story again as the author of Tiger In The Garden (1950) views it from watching, hungry and sometimes malicious Charley Thayer's eyes. From Miro, Louisiana, Charley looks up hometown Angela, married to assistant producer Laddie Wells, and takes his share of her promiscuousness. While he keeps secret her affair with George Martin he makes a play of his job with Life to get a story of oilman Culvers' attempts to boost his gin-drinking wife, Carol, to stardom and introduces Laddie into the big money Culvers is paying for Carol's picture making. Carol makes Laddie into the image of her first love, braves her aging husband's attempts to keep her sober and above suspicion and helps to intensify the coldness between Laddie and Angela. As the minor episodes pile up -- Culvers' flashy parties, dollar minded bids for recognition -- the end closes in and Laddie's death seals Carol's imprisonment as a star of the old-time tradition. An undisciplined world of distortion spawns its evil in impersonal to impertinent style. The Via Schulberg -- without the punch.