Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story (2015)

(On Cable TV, April 2020) The best documentaries are not always about obvious topics, and so the oddly endearing Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story gives us a glimpse at a couple that occupied two crucial but little-known positions in the studio system. Lillian Michelson was a film researcher, providing archival material and answering questions that enhanced the reality that the film wanted to recreate. Meanwhile, Harold Michelson was a storyboard artist, working with great directors to also bring to life the vision behind several well-known films. Together, they married, worked, raised kids and celebrated (at the time of the film) sixty years of marriage. The blend between Hollywood nitty-gritty detail and romance strengthens both aspects of the film. What’s remarkable here is that, through the Michelsons, we’re not looking at famous directors or actors, but at the crucial behind-the-scenes work required for a team to make a movie. Hollywood history may only remember the names above the marquee, but it rests on the competence and professionalism of thousands of capable craftsmen and artists who helped enable the collaborative nature of moviemaking. In many ways, the film goes about its business like most others—archival footage, interviews with known names, and so on. But it’s the topic that distinguishes Harol and Lillian from other documentaries—such as using very cute storyboard drawings to illustrate the couple’s married life. Looking at storyboards both validates and questions the singular vision of a director—the reality of it isn’t quite so clear-cut as the director coming up with every single detail. Along the way, we get insights into Hitchcock’s process in making The Birds, and a look at The Graduate that outlines the fidelity of the storyboard to the finished him. Appropriately enough for its two stars, the film is frequently very funny, heartwarming and also a bit wistful in contemplating a pair of careers that spanned the end of the studio system into the new Hollywood and beyond. Harold and Lillian is not what I’d call an essential film, but it’s clearly something that will make Hollywood history fans happy.