The Day of the Locust (1975) review

Portrait of several people trying to make it in the early days of the Motion Picture Industry, and, predictably, about how 'Hollywoodland' is really just a Pandora's Box of sexual perversion and chaos whose very presence is a threat to humanity. While it's sad to say, William Atherton and Karen Black are noticeably miscast as the two key leads - Atherton, in particular, is too blank to become plausibly infuriated with the system (I'm not even sure Donald Sutherland's being cast as the spastic neighbor who is decimated by the lack of morality is the correct choice) while Black isn't glamorous enough to make everyone swoon when they see her. The ending is suitably ridiculous, however, as the cataclysmic event that takes place is precisely what the film was building up to - that of a DeMille premiere turning into grand-guignolesque fire-and-blood.