March 18, 2023
I'm so sorry I didn't post this yesterday as promised. It was purely a stamina issue, which I am in short supply of as I recover.Thanks INSIDE: “Truly, there is rarely a film made like “Hollywood’s Delusion,” a calm look at the hurricane of heart-breaks that has inundated Hollywood’s street level — and the real-life solution. The film is about the Hope of Hollywood, not the hurts of it, setting it apart from other efforts easily showing the pains, but not the promise of deliverance from them”.
“It’s as if most people Thompson speaks to find suddenly find themselves sitting in the eye of a huge storm, the storms of problems their lives have centered on. There is genuine peace and redemption in their eyes. How is that? Who can they experience that?”
“Hollywood’s Delusion”, 1983, 53 min, Documentary by TNT Productions.
Pimps, Prostitutes, Drug Runners, Detectives, Directors, Movie Stars, Stunt men, along with surprised ministers, runaways, throwaways, astonishingly abused kids and volunteers are all redeemed in the astonishingly-frank-film-minutes that make up “Hollywood’s Delusion.”
To be honest, I’ve never seen a film like it. If you have a movie “bucket list,” put this one on on it, and now view it online for free. You will be the better for seeing it an hour later. The Web address where you can find it, will be at the end.
This now vintage documentary, produced by Los Angeles film industry volunteers supporting Centrum of Hollywood — a 24/7 faith-led rescue center in the heart of Hollywood — “tells it like it is,” and more importantly, presents a real-life solution that is proven to actually work.
SHOULD YOU SEE IT? Yes, if you want to know the why, and how, the volunteers did it and what still works to address today’s twisted problems (and perhaps people you know) more on that later.
Truly, there is rarely a film made like “Hollywood’s Delusion,” — a calm look at the hurricane of heart-breaks that has inherited Hollywood’s street level. What makes it different from all other documentaries I’ve ever seen about Hollywood, is the astonishingly positive outcome. Now more than ever, don’t we need to see this?
IS IT WELL MADE? The best parts of this earnest documentary are the genuine responses made by minor-aged teenager runaways and young adults; the late actress Katherine DeMille Quinn, the daughter of Cecil B. DeMille; Detective Lloyd Martin of the Los Angeles Police Sexually Abused Child unit; Sydney the former pimp; Chaplain Priscillia Davis of Los Angeles Junvinel hall, and casting director and writer Kleg Seth, the leader of Centrum.
Film maker Jim Thompson approaches all his insightful interviews with a refreshingly non-hysterical or modern-hype manner. He calmly talks to kids in jails, in rescue homes, along with law-enforcement professionals, film stars and others in a way that pours a certain kind of peace on the sheer panic that could easily be stoked by this story.
It’s as if most people Thompson speaks to find suddenly find themselves sitting in the eye of a huge storm, the hurricane of problems their lives have centered on. There is genuine peace and redemption in their eyes or voices. How is that? How can they experience that? Can we?
To be honest, I’ve seen this film a number of times, and there are still moments, tears of gratitude almost come to my eyes, that these kids have found a way out and people cared enough to bring it to them. I’m thankful for the volunteers who put their time and effort into a fabulous redemption story, and hope someone, somewhere will do it again — and in fact they have.
THE PLOT : Kleg Seth, a film industry professional who has been characterized by some religious leaders as “the Mother Theresa of Hollywood” is the volunteer director of Centrum. His calm and unflinching leadership of his band of volunteers out on the streets of Hollywood day and night — compelling young people to seek shelter in the storm — is a model for future volunteers who see American’s social problems and are searching for a way to effectively address them. More on that later, as well.
There is no doubt the young people in one of Centrum’s three shelter houses, are grateful someone was there to toss them a lifeline — the name of Centrum’s 24-hour phone line staffed completely by volunteers, the Hollywood Life-Line.
The film could easily be about this remarkable man, Kleg Seth but it is not. In fact, the documentary is half over before he arrives.
Instead, Thompson calmly guides us through the many rivlets of influences that make up the bigger picture of Hollywood’s hurts, and then provides the healing answer. This film is about the Hope of Hollywood, not the hurts of it, setting it apart from the myriad of efforts I’ve seen that easily show the pain, but are baffled by any promise of deliverance from it.
IS IT GENUINE?” In my view, actors can rarely re-capture the naked honesty, tone and timbre of the real-life victims they portray, but is truly captured in an honest documentary film. In any re-enactment, an actor has to imagine the pain to recreate it. No one speaking in Hollywood’s Delusion is imaging anything, it’s as real as it gets. It’s frank, honest and can be shocking. For that reason, see it first before letting young teens see it. I don’t recommend it for children at all/
So, this is not a movie to be easily swept aside as an hysterical dramatization — it most obviously is not. Hollywood’s Delusion is a calm, professional film; an unrivaled account of what ordinary people in the hands of an extraordinary God can do if they just make themselves available. There is nothing false about it.
This is also genuine Jesus-Movement era film, where people who experienced the life-transforming power of Christ during that movement, took it to the streets of Hollywood, Calif., to literally to a “cast” of thousands … that’s the estimated number of runaway kids on the streets of Hollywood at any given moment, the film explains.
See Hollywood’s Delusion free of charge, with no appeals for money at this Web address; TheChristianStudio.com. It will be the first thing seen when the Web page opens, so no searching.
And Centrum lives on today through Hope for Homeless Youth, led by intrepid Centrum alumnus, Clayton and LeAnn Golliher, and in Las Vegas at Centrum of Las Vegas. Next week, I will focus on them.
Good Viewing to you!
