The Kid Stays in the Picture

Dir: Brett Morgen, Nanette Burstein

2002

***

Based on the 1994 autobiography of legendary movie producer Robert Evans, 2002’s adaptation The kid stays in the picture was one of few documentaries to breathe new life into the genre and make them popular again. The early 00s saw documentary after documentary, a real surge in the field with each success setting a benchmark. While many of these documentaries were important in subjects such as war, politics, environment and history, The kid stays in the picture focuses on Hollywood and a character who changed the way movies were made like no one else. Robert Evans was a child actor, starring as an extra in a couple of mid-sized productions. He worked with his brother developing ladies pantaloons and the pair made a good living from it. He decided to spend an afternoon one hot summer day in 1956 at the pool at The Beverly Hills Hotel when actress Norma Shearer approached him and asked if he’d like to play her late husband Irving Thalberg in Man of a Thousand Faces. Whether he went for a swim at The Beverly Hills Hotel out of genuine need for a soak or to seek out opportunity is never made clear, you’ll have to read between the lines but the offer was clearly out of the blue for the young man. He did end up in the film alongside James Cagney, who was very complementary about his performance, especially as he’d had very little time to prepare himself. Evans then landed himself a role in Darryl F. Zanuck’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, as Pedro Romero the matador. Zanuck saw something special in Evans and when a group of actors, producers and writers, including co-star Ava Gardner and Ernest Hemingway himself, lobbied to have Evans removed from the film, Zanuck put his foot down, and reminded everyone that he was hired to be in charge of the film, stating “The Kid Stays in the Picture”. Evans upped his game after that and gave a great performance. His next few performances weren’t as great but by then he realised that he didn’t want to be an actor, he knew that the one who can shout “The Kid Stays in the Picture” was the one with the power and that’s what he really wanted. The adaptation obviously leaves out certain aspects of Evans’ life and career but it covers all the important things, the parts Evans himself wants to get through and of course all the juicy bits. The film feels all that more authentic as it is narrated by Evans throughout using his own words, but of course, you have to take his word for everything said. He addresses many aspects of his life and career, specifically his doomed love affair with Ali MacGraw, his cocaine bust in 1980 and his implication in the murder of Roy Radin (aka The Cotton Club Murder). The man is no pussy cat and he has a fierce reputation but the press really went for him whenever they could and he didn’t always have the best of lucky, indeed, when he was lucky he was really lucky, when he wasn’t, he really wasn’t. The film is entirely made up from still photos and scenes from films he was in and films he produced including Love Story, The Sun Also Rises, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Godfather and Man of a Thousand Faces. The only new footage film was around Evans’s beloved home, which he sold and managed to buy back, thanks to Jack Nicholson and a persuasive favour. The film has a daydream-like quality about it and it is easy to get lost in, like a child being read a story. It’s rather self-indulgent but always entertaining, I didn’t care that much for Evans by the end of it but I was still strangely satisfied by what I had watched.