MOVIE REVIEW : ‘HOLLYWOOD IN TROUBLE’: NO SALE FOR PIZZA PLOT

“Hollywood in Trouble” (at the Monica 4-Plex) has no trouble living up to its name. It spells big trouble for fledgling film maker Joseph Merhi and his screen alter ego, played by Vic Vallaro.

Merhi, a 32-year-old operator of three Las Vegas pizza parlors, is an ex-film student with a burning desire to make a movie. In “Hollywood in Trouble”--a nonsensical title--Vallaro is 20 years older, has only one pizza place in Vegas, a loving wife (Jean Levine), a nice home and $67,000 in the bank. He wants to take $50,000 of his savings and make a movie to be called “The Spying Pizza,” which he describes as a cross between “The Sting” and “Jaws”--without the shark.

Unfortunately, Merhi has no more idea about how to make a full-length feature film than his character does. He is quite good at establishing relationships between Vallaro, a lanky, balding guy, and his wife, and also between Vallaro and his best friend (Jerry Tiffe), a veteran lounge entertainer with a bad cocaine habit. But the film nose-dives when Vallaro gives up baking pizzas to shoot his numskull movie, the making of which is the source of tedious, feeble humor. (Although little known, all three actors are seasoned professionals who are far better than the film.)

Merhi has overreached disastrously. Some of his early scenes suggest that he might be capable of bringing off a short vignette; in any event, the ineptly shot “Hollywood in Trouble” (Times-rated Family), suggests painfully that Merhi has lots to learn, even in a movie with a $120,000 budget. It’s hard to go along with his--and his hero’s--notion that what counts is getting a film made, not how good it is.