The best movie made about Hollywood is The Bad and the Beautiful. Vincente Minnelli’s 1952 classic depicts the passion of brilliant yet amoral producer Jonathan Shields (the great Kirk Douglas) to elevate his films over the refrain by his studio boss Harry Pebbel (the dependable Walter Pidgeon): “I’ve told you a hundred times, genius boy, I don’t want to win awards. I want to make pictures that end with a kiss and black ink on the books.”

So, what can account for the absence of love on screen? The thing that ruins everything, not only for men but women — feminism.
This used to be the yin and yang of old Hollywood — artistry plus, sometimes versus, profitability. But in new Hollywoke, both yin and yang are as elusive as a romantic feature on Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s month, or the entire decade. According to the perceptive entertainment industry observer Christian Toto, there will be no new romantic comedy to commemorate the holiday this weekend. Nor even a romantic tragedy like the top-grossing film of 1970, Love Story.
Wiseguys still knock the vintage tearjerker as a sappy chick flick, though they know the reason for its enormous success. Love may not conquer all, like an incurable disease, but it’s worth the battle, whether a heroic or humorous one. For the love between a man and a woman has been a recognized truth since the Bible.
See Proverbs 31:10. “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.”
This truth inspired literary fiction for 3,000 years, beginning with The Odyssey and Queen Penelope’s deterrence of suitors out of loyalty to her missing husband, Odysseus. Then followed some of the greatest romantic fiction ever written, including Tristan and Iseult, Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Gone With the Wind, Rebecca, and, arguably, Love Story by Erich Segal.
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