Hollywood review: This lavish period fantasy is a disaster

Hollywood review: This lavish period fantasy is a disaster Netflix For his second Netflix show, Ryan Murphy has imagined an alternate post-war Tinseltown in which minorities thrived. Netflix Among the youngsters looking to climb the industry ladder are screenwriter Archie, director Raymond and actor Jack Murphy, of course, made a very good series about old Hollywood a few years ago: Feud: Bette and Joan, a sadly affecting restaging of the showdown between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the making of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Elsewhere, there is a prostitution racket run out of a gas station, inspired by the real-life operation of celebrated Hollywood escort and pimp Scotty Bowers, and an excursion to one of director George Cukor’s notorious pool parties, full of young men bought in to shed their clothes and entertain the great and the good – a scene that provides a shot of insider gossip, though whose darker implications are left coyly unexplored. Netflix Broadway doyenne Patti LuPone features as an embittered studio head’s wife You can understand the thinking behind the imaginative exercise: Murphy, just like his gangbusting heroes, is clearly determined to make a statement, fashioning a tale of hope and triumph, at a time when POC and LGBT narratives, especially period ones, are so often still defined by suffering.