A has-been tale, an A-list cast

THE Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles recently had a very Hollywood moment. As writer James Ellroy was being interviewed at the bar as part of a press junket for “The Black Dahlia,” there was gathered in the restaurant a group capturing more local archetypes than, well, a James Ellroy novel.

Here, surrounded by all the requisitely colorful grips, gaffers and stylists, was the Famous Actor, the First-time Writer-Director, the Hot New Ingenue and the Second Generation Star (with the Always Funny Sidekick thrown in for good measure) shooting a film.

And on top of having a perfect template of a cast, this is a film being made the old-fashioned way -- in town. While other films conjure L.A. from sets built in Toronto or the capital of Bulgaria, the makers of “The Great Buck Howard,” starring John Malkovich (Famous Actor) and Colin Hanks (Second Generation Star), have spent the last month making the L.A. area into a national map. From Crenshaw to Long Beach, First-time Writer-Director Sean McGinly used theaters in various states of disrepair to tell the story of Buck Howard (Malkovich), a has-been magician, and Troy, his young new assistant (Hanks), as they wander the country and rekindle the ashes of his career.

That it is the latest in an inexplicable string of films dealing with magicians -- including “The Illusionist,” “Scoop” and “The Prestige” -- does not concern McGinly much. He takes comfort that “Buck Howard” is not a period piece and that the magic aspect is almost incidental. Instead, he sees his film as more a mentor-student tale overlaid with a sideways look at the vagaries of success.

“When I first came out here,” he says, “I met a lot of people who had had a lot of success early on, or brushed with success, or almost brushed with success, and the effect was always strange.”

Of course, if he’s not careful, he’ll be feeling those strange effects soon. McGinly arrived in Los Angeles as a law school dropout with no contacts, no friends and no precise idea of what he was going to do except that he wanted to write. USC film school was his first step, and a couple of short films and a feature sale later, he was shopping “The Great Buck Howard” around. When he got Hanks fils interested, Playtone, the production company run by Hanks pere, soon followed -- along with Malkovich, Tom Hanks (as Troy’s disapproving father), cinematographer Tak Fujimoto and other niceties not always available to first-time filmmakers.

Having made several short films and a documentary in which he interviews 31 men who, like he, lost a brother to the attacks of Sept. 11, he was not particularly worried about the logistics of a feature film. What he was nervous about was Malkovich.

“I have never worked with an actor like John,” he says. “I thought he would be really tough and impatient, you know, this very actorly actor, and instead he is completely the opposite. Every day he does something new that brings the character alive, and I had no idea he could be so playful.”

Rather than lean on the bravura of a Catskills performer, as Woody Allen did with his magician in “Scoop,” Malkovich brings to Howard the arrogance of aristocracy fallen on hard times -- insufferable as he is unshakeable, the magician embodies creativity’s often opposing motivations.

“No matter how well a career is going,” McGinly says, “there’s always a question of, ‘Are you doing it to be creative, to make art, or are you doing it to get attention?’ ”

Howard certainly seems to require a fair amount of the latter. During the late morning, the cast begins shooting a scene in which Howard has dinner with Troy and the good folks who have brought him out to Cincinnati. In the Biltmore’s now-defunct restaurant, Bernardo’s, dressed to look like a Midwestern Italian joint, the scripted dinner conversation turns from Howard’s upcoming show to a discussion of other celebrities, which Howard interrupts with a rant against the nice-guyness of Jay Leno before storming off.

Round and round the camera rolls along the dolly tracks laid just outside the table, as a Howard fan (Steve Zahn as the Always Funny Sidekick) good-naturedly shoves meatballs in his mouth and discusses the ideas for movies he’s had, as the young publicist played by Emily Blunt (Hot New Ingenue) extols Keanu Reeves, and as Malkovich’s magician attempts to regain center stage before leaving in a huff.

For the love of it

AS an actor, Malkovich says he identifies with his character’s need to keep performing, even when all indications prove he is long past his prime.

“Oh, I definitely admire him, how he keeps doing what he’s doing no matter what. Probably because I spent much of my youth playing to completely empty theaters with no one caring one way or the other,” he says. “And if I stay in the business long enough, I’m sure I’ll be doing just that again.”

But he was drawn to the simple, selfish quality of Howard more than anything else.

“I love to play someone who is so utterly narcissistic,” says Malkovich. “It’s just delicious. A license for self-congratulating, self-aggrandizing, self-remembering, all of those things. Despite the sort of work I do, I’ve met only a handful of truly narcissistic people and it’s a quality I truly admire. People like Buck, who really think that everything he does is of the utmost importance, who can say things like ‘When I was on top,’ or ‘When I’m back on top.’ It’s like they missed hearing that the sun’s burning out or about existentialism.”

Certainly he is not among those swelled heads. At the Biltmore, he seems unaware of his place as Ranking Star on set. When, in between takes, he sees that his costars have reassembled while he has been chatting in a corner, he rushes onto the set, asking in a worried tone, “Is everyone waiting?” as if such a thing would be unthinkable (they weren’t).

Drawn to the story

LATER, along a hallway on the third floor of the hotel, a half-dozen people stand frozen in midstride like kids in a game of “Red Light, Green Light,” while at the end of the hall a woman leans her right ear toward a closed door. “Cut,” someone from inside yells, and everyone begins to move again, hurrying down the hall, slipping in the door with a speed and silence more normally associated with illegal activity.

Inside is a suite; in the bedroom, covers up to his chin despite the temperature, which has to be pushing 83, maybe 85, Colin Hanks answers the phone, informing the caller that he doesn’t know where she is but that he is heading to the theater right this moment. He is surrounded by lights and reflectors, cords and cameras and microphones and the many men and women who operate them. A group of people slump onto a couch, some conferring quietly; another few huddle nearby around two monitors or pace in small, uneven patterns.

Hanks took the part of Troy not because he wanted to play an assistant or a guy who wants to be a writer but because he loved the story. That his dad will play his film dad is just the cherry on the cake -- “I think he wants to be captured on film being displeased with his oldest son,” Hanks says. “But when an actor like that wants to be in your film, you don’t say no, even if he is your father.”

He loved the story because it is a sweet, sincere movie about a young man who learns to appreciate the work it takes to just keep on living. “There is a noble aspect to Buck,” says Hanks. “He may take himself too seriously and may expect things to go a certain way. But he just can’t not do it. And Troy realizes the value of that.”

“And, action,” says a young man in a white shirt. The phone rings again and Hanks answers it again, still not knowing where she is, still just on his way out to the theater. He does this in a sick voice, an irritated voice, a startled and guilty voice. The lights are adjusted, his makeup touched up and he does it again.

mary.mcnamara@latimes.com