It is around 1921. Indy is hired by Carl Laemmle to get legendary director Erich von Stroheim to finish his picture Foolish Wives, spiralling past the one million dollar mark (a fortune in those days), in ten days.
In actual fact, the total cost of production wasn't even $900 000, the studio just wanted to market it as "the first million dollar picture," which created the impression Stroheim was wasteful, which dogged him the rest of his short career. But never mind that, and never mind the fact that there is no pistol duel in Foolish Wives, or that Stroheim was from Austria not Germany (therefore did not sound like the "was ist das?" charicature we get here), or that Ford's first feature "Straight Shooting" was made in 1917, six years before Stroheim's Foolish Wives! Everything is simplified in this picture for consumption by a pre-teen audience. So bearing that in mind, its all fairly good-natured and harmless fun.
The makers of his picture had great love for Stroheim's picture: at one point they are looking at a scene from Foolish Wives and they say, quitely rightly, how wonferful it is, and that it could be one of the best ever, and therefore its "worth saving". They seem to indulge in the persona he created for himself in a loving way. Stroheim loved playing the villain, but he did it with more of a sense of humour than the hard-faced man who plays him here. Stroheim has to be a formidable villain here, to create enough conflict for Indy to go up against in getting him to finish the picture.
It looks like a midday movie/tele-feature, and Jason Patrick Flanery has the corny do-gooder persona of a children's television host, so the main appeal in this is for fans of the silent days. Its an ode to classic cinema, with swiring romantic scores behind love scenes and bouncing fun music to other scenes. Its really two TV episodes knitted together in the middle: Indy trying to get Stroheim to finish his picture in ten days and Indy working as John Ford's assistant. The two halves have little in common with each other, save the fact that they're both Hollywood-related.
John Ford, Erich von Stroheim and Irving Thalberg are the three major figures who are played with plenty of screen time, but also included are glimpses of Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Carl Bernstein and Carl Laemmle.
If you see this in the TV guide, its worth at least an hour of your time, as long as you don't expect historial accuracy. Especially fun if you're a fan of the silent era, or Stroheim and Ford in particular. Juvenile and simplistic, but lots of fun.
