Robert Evans documentary on his life in Hollywood

July 2, 1:40 PMSan Jose Movie ExaminerDanny Derakhshan

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DVD cover of The Kid Stays in the Picture.

Robert Evans started out as an actor but that wasn't his real passion. He wanted to produce movies, he wanted to be the one that made the decisions. He has produced for Paramount such films as Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, Chinatown, the Godfather, among many more.

In this documentary about the legendary producer of Hollywood films for over thirty years, we follow Evans as he starts out in the moving picture business in the late golden days and getting his chance to produce films by purchasing options from novels that were being written at the time such as The Detective which he made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra in 1968.

The film is based on the autobiography, The Kid Stays in the Picture, which  follows Evans's career as he becomes King of Hollywood, through his trials with cocaine in his early 40's, and into not producing one movie for almost a decade and eventually coming back with Paramount Pictures where's he been ever since.

Robert Evans has a true passion for filmmaking. He doesn't always get the credit, such as with Chinatown, but without him, the movies would not have been made the same way. The documentary is a very honest showing of the man that went as high as could be thought of and then crashed down to nothing. While down in the dumps, he fought his heart out to climb his way back to the top and he did it. That is true character in any profession.