Escape from Film School

Real-life events and fiction merge in Walter's fresh take on the movie business and the film schools at USC and UCLA, which train Hollywood's future big-time writers and producers. Stuart Thomas dodges the Vietnam draft of the 1960s by going to Hollywood, hiding out in a ratty shack on the USC campus. When draft marshals come to arrest him, the chairman of USC's cinema department rescues the scrappy young man by claiming him as a student. Self-styled geek Stuart enrolls and, living out of his car, helps classmate Veronica Baldwin to create her steamy student sex flick, Extra Hot Sauce, writing and editing her film by adding improvisational Fellini/Goddard accents. The film takes first prize in the national student competition, Stuart and Veronica marry and Stuart scripts a feature, which she directs. They raise funds from doctors and rent theaters to screen Brutal Bad-Ass Angels--an adventure cut directly from 1970s film lore. Walter is a legendary teacher and chair of UCLA's film and TV writing program; much of his clever, entertaining novel is candidly informed by his own experiences. He traces Stuart's exploits from film school to a stupefying turn at Universal Studios, back again to USC, on to UCLA as a teacher and, finally, as a prolific hack writer. This hilarious sendup of the film industry is balanced by the author's evocative treatment of three decades of Hollywood's cultural transformations. Agent, Jane Dystel. (July)