Amoeba Music

Set in Depression-era Hollywood, Inserts follows the lives of a has-been film director and his entourage of “degenerates” that helps him lead a career directing pornography. The movie might bring to mind a stage play as it is set in a single day, in one room, and follows the actions of the cast in real time. What made the story interesting was realizing that the glamorous and privileged approach to blockbuster films in the late '20s was also used with smut. The performances and heavy dialogue also allow you to mentally compare the fickle and sleazy attitudes in the filmmaking industry of yesteryear with those of today.

Richard Dreyfuss plays The Boy Wonder, a young director known for his achievements in silent film who discovered that he couldn't direct talkies. He's hit rock bottom, just like the rest of America during the Depression, and refuses to leave his Hollywood Hills home. He's dealing with a looming anxiety about not only being a failure but what will happen to his home when the city wants to build a freeway through the land. When a fellow called Big Mac (Bob Hoskins) offered him a contract to direct porn, he took it, not knowing that having such a brutish producer might be the end of him for good. Harlene (Veronica Cartwright) is his star in the picture, and a real handful. Sparing no time, she dives into a frenzy of antics and gossip before settling into her heroin fix. Her co-star is the young and naive Rex the Wonder Dog (Stephen Davies), who laps up praise from others so quickly that you'd think he was a bit dense. The three try to pick up from where they last left off filming and are disturbed by a knock on the door. Harlene's daily gossip comprised of telling the director that the then unknown Clark Gable thought he was a genius and wanted him to direct again. She gave him his address, and now he's come to talk. The Boy Wonder wants nothing to do with that world and sends Rex to shoo him away. They pick up again and grow close to finishing when Mac makes an entrance with his fiance Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), who is mesmerized by their activities. Mac's presence causes tension because he's paying for the picture and providing Harlene's drugs. Once the actors are paid and high, The Boy Wonder finds it nearly impossible to continue working. As Mac bullies everyone and makes them uncomfortable, Harlene exits the room to shoot up and the others talk of developments in both the film world and America's future.

A large amount of time passes and Mac and his fiance want to see things go back into action. Rex goes to retrieve Harlene and discovers that she's overdosed. With his leading lady dead and a film unfinished, the director must get creative and find a way to do “inserts,” replacing shots of her body with close-ups of someone similar in order to finish what he started. As Mac and Rex leave to try and figure out how to dispose of Harlene's body, a hasty bond forms between Cathy and the director. An idea sparks to use her for his inserts, but as an aspiring actress for the “real pictures,” she won't cooperate without a price. What she's asking for, however, in no way resembles something as tangible as money.

Richard Dreyfuss did an outstanding job of playing someone who is haunted by his talents and the desire to use them by any means necessary. The character calls for a large amount of neurotic behavior and mannerisms, all of which he performs gracefully. We don't sympathize with him because he is suffering, but rather admire him because he's at peace with his condition—so long as he never has to face the people who are still in the rat race. Bob Hoskins, known for his sleazy characters, matched Dreyfuss frame for frame and provided an excellent villain of sorts. Davis and Cartwright add a little bit of comic relief and Jessica Harper (Suspiria) gives this kind of performance that only a young and aspiring actress could; the kind that means baring all (literally) and setting oneself apart from others in an interesting way. The costumes and set design were, as always in films set in the '20s, very well done. The film received an NC-17 rating, which is understandable in the '70s, but when compared to today's cinema, hardly mentionable. As stated before, it's a lot like a teleplay and as long as one (approx 2 hours), with no resolution and a lot of material to ponder on. For the time and the industry it was made in, it's extremely progressive and simply would not have been made today. That alone makes it worthwhile.