I’m pretty sure I read the book by Robert Evans of the same title as this movie, got it cheap in a college book sale I think. I may though be blurring my memory of it with the Don Simpson autobiography by Charles Fleming, “High Concept” – they’re similar stories, about legends gone wrong and the highs and lows of showbiz, the latter, albeit, a little more tragic. Simpson, of course, died; the low-point here is probably Paul Newman singing a song about “Bein’ yourself,” and Evans describing it as “The Woodstock of the Eighties,” lol. I find it odd how these kinds of lives so often go so sour; I guess the people who are capable of achieving such highs must also by nature be capable of descending to such lows.

I often get annoyed at this kind of documentary – that is, in a sense, non-documentaries – the whole thing is heavily biased in favour of its subject, hell he even narrates it. But what saves it for me is a single quote from Evans that opens the movie on a title card: “There are three sides to every story. My side, your side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each one differently.” All documentaries should open so.

Evans narrates his story in an almost clichéd manner – he’s truly the fast-talking Hollywood type you always hear about – and it took me a while to get used to him. In fact he speaks so fast you’d think he was just reading the book out in one session. But in the end I warmed to him more than I’d ever have expected. He really tells his story well. His career soared and folded and then he was rescued on the way down by the people he didn’t kick on the way up. He’s the guy who made Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, Marathon Man and Rosemary’s Baby, dammit. Nobody puts Evans in the corner, no matter what he did since. This is one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, about one of the best movie people in history. It made me laugh out loud, made me cry (okay, mainly during the Love Story clip – you know the one – must watch that again some time soon), it’s told with some wonderful visual flair, a giant leap from “the Ken Burns effect”, and it left me buzzing to try to achieve a fraction of the creative success he has.

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