I Laughed, I Cried, I Went to the Mall

We were waiting for the previews when the trivia question appeared on the screen. It said something like: What valley is featured in the upcoming film, “2 Days in the Valley”?

It so happened that this particular multiplex was deep in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley, but this wasn’t a trick question. Only a rube would have thought the answer was San Gabriel. Or Pomona. Or Santa Clarita. Or Conejo. Or Antelope. Or San Joaquin. Or Silicon. If it’s made in Hollywood, the Valley must be the San Fernando, a place where so much of The Biz lives and works. The San Fernando Valley is the sound stage for the fabulous drama of their lives. It has become America’s Valley, if only because it is pop culture’s suburb-in-residence.

Once, there was the Valley as Promised Land. “I’m going to settle down and never more roam,” the song went, “and make the San Fernando Valley my home.”

Later would come the happy land of the Brady Bunch and, on the flip side, the Valley of the Malls, the natural habitat of the Valley Girl.

And now, with “2 Days,” there’s the suggestion that America’s Valley, fading along with the American Dream, is yearning for redemption.

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A phone call to MGM Pictures secured an invitation to an advance screening--in Santa Monica, not the Valley. The publicist described “2 Days” as an ensemble piece with intertwining stories--”sort of like ‘Pulp Fiction,’ but not as violent.” A co-worker who had attended an earlier screening gave it a big thumbs-down.

Maybe lowered expectations helped. The protagonists are a down-and-out middle-aged hit man named Dosmo and a down-and-out middle-aged writer-director named Teddy Peppers. Some creepy characters want to kill Dosmo, to make him the fall guy for a murder-for-hire. Teddy, meanwhile, is thinking about killing himself. Fate brings them together and gives them second shots at courage and hope.

It’s also very much the Valley. Along with goofy regional humor, some of it self-deprecating, there’s also the sense of Paradise Lost.

Among the characters is an LAPD vice cop obsessed with busting an “Oriental” massage parlor that is a front for prostitution.

When his young partner questions his priorities, the cop angrily explains how he grew up in the Valley and it used to be a nice place to live and he wasn’t going to let it go to hell. Later we find him at his home in Studio City, ranting after an errant golf ball shatters his picture window. Still later we learn that the source of his anger is more personal.

John Herzfeld, the film’s writer and director, happens to live in Studio City. The media kit explains that he, while visiting the VA cemetery in Westwood, found a tombstone bearing the name Dosmo. Soon he was driving around the Valley, dictating his ideas into a tape recorder.

Herzfeld’s take on the Valley may well sum up Hollywood’s.

“A lot of people look down on the Valley--hot, dry, blanketed in smog. They think successful people only live in Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood . . . and that the Valley is the home of the also-rans, the never-haves and those who will never make it. Whether it’s an Olympic athlete who has never won a medal, a cop who can’t get where he wants to be, a hit man who screwed up, or a writer-director who’s a flop . . . they’re all frustrated.”

In hyping this film, MGM is giving the Valley star treatment. There’s a reason it has “the title role,” suggests producer Herb Nanas.

“The Valley is a definite character in the story. It is the canvas for the mural that John painted, and that mural is colorful and it’s hot and it’s sweaty.”

L.A. has long been given star treatment in Hollywood. Think of “Sunset Boulevard” and “Chinatown.” The Valley usually has a supporting role. Many other movies have been set in the Valley, but they could have just as easily been set in Anysuburb, USA.

This time, there’s a difference. The San Fernando Valley, ready for its close-up.

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What can I say? I liked it. Fine cast, fun story. A great movie, it ain’t. Maybe I was seduced by the trappings of MGM’s “Executive Screening Room.” Or maybe my judgment is just colored by a certain hometown bias.

One of the nice things about living in L.A. is to see something familiar up on the big screen. Everything is exaggerated, but that’s part of the fun. It’s sort of like seeing a famous actor on the street and realizing, in the larger scheme, he’s just a bit player. We live in a place that has a cast of millions, all starring in their own dramas.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.