10 Famous Lost Films You Wish You Could Watch
6. Hollywood (1923)
As more movies and TV shows become more self-aware about their place in Hollywood, some use this meta-humor to great effect, such as Cabin In The Woods and Community. It seems like time really is a flat circle as 1923 saw the release of one of the great, and sadly lost, examples of a Hollywood meta-film, appropriately named Hollywood.
The film tells the story of a young actress hoping to break out in Hollywood only to see her family accidentally get all the movie roles whilst she remains unemployed.
But what made this film so famous at the time was the enormous amount of star-studded cameos in which over 40 famous silent film era stars, ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Mary Pickford, play fictionalised versions of themselves. It was sort of like how Movie 43 managed to get a heap of stars to somehow star, except that Hollywood was actually considered a good film.
It is a bit ironic that a beloved Hollywood drama film that dramatises Hollywood and is titled 'Hollywood' can still somehow be lost. Even more ironic is that Hollywood was the film's lead actress' first and only role, so maybe she really took the film's cautionary message to heart.