Mit Out Sound

Former actor Lenz (Hello, Rest of My Life) delves into Hollywood film lore with his immersive latest, about a personal assistant’s quixotic 1970s quest to complete an obscure unfinished film rumored to have costarred John Wayne and James Dean. Emily Bennett first hears about Showdown’s 1955 production from a fellow extra on a 1973 TV shoot. A few years later, while working for an actor on the set of The Shootist, Wayne’s final film, she works up the courage to ask the taciturn star about Showdown but fails to convince him to finish it (“I’m too old to play myself,” Wayne says). After Wayne dies in 1979, she recruits Wayne impersonator Tom Manfredo and Dean impersonator Jimmy Riley to act in the film, and a love triangle develops as she falls for Tom while Jimmy nurses his feelings for her. Things get a bit unwieldy in the melodramatic third act with a pair of shoehorned and occasionally confusing Oedipal motifs (one character has killed his father and another may have had sex with his mother), but for the most part Lenz, who also appeared in The Shootist, offers a fascinating perspective on Hollywood’s Golden Age and its pull on his cast. This is worth a look. (Self-published)