Back in the 1950s, Robert Evans suddenly found himself working as an actor in films. He decided, however, that he wanted more power than that, and so became a producer instead. Finally Evans was made the vice-president of the somewhat decrepit Paramount studios, and was charged with the awesome responsibility of turning around its commercial fortunes and saving it from being closed down. This he did by producing such hits as Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, and Chinatown, before Evans’ world came down in the 1980s in a blizzard of drugs, murder and madness.

The Kid Stays In The Picture is a new documentary on Robert Evans’ life and times, and is based on Evans’ autobiography of the same name. Indeed, the film is so closely based upon the book that excerpts from the audiobook version, read by Evans himself, are used as the narration of the film. This is in keeping with the nature of the film as being almost entirely built out of pre-existing film footage and photographs, but it highlights some of the film’s problems.

For a start, Evans’ reading from the book simply doesn’t work as a narration for a documentary, and structuring the film around it tends to make it kind of frustrating. On a technical level it’s not always very well mixed in with the sounds from the other film material, which occasionally makes it difficult to make out, but apart from that it just doesn’t work. It’s a reading straight from a book, not a script for a film.

Plus there’s some fairly significant gaps in the story, including a ten-year one between Evans’ giving up acting to his appointment as v.p. of Paramount Pictures. What exactly was he doing all that time? That’s probably the worst example of the film not giving us enough information (apart from the way the story ends in 1990 and just skates lightly over the next twelve years), but it’s not the only one; and since the film is structured around the narration, those parts of the story where you’d like to know more do stand out.

The other thing to be aware of is that this is Evans’ story, told by Evans. No one else gets to have their voice heard, which is a shame, as I suspect some of them would have interesting stories of their own to tell about working with Evans. Francis Ford Coppola in particular would probably have some interesting things to say, given that he banned Evans from the set of The Cotton Club. The Kid Stays In The Picture isn’t exactly a balanced picture, so don’t expect anything of the sort.

There’s a lot of things this film makes you wish for. Obviously it made me wish for a longer, more detailed and more objective documentary on Paramount. That said, however, for all my reservations, I’m still going to recommend the film. Even if it is one-sided, Evans’ story is still an interesting one, and a more objective documentary about Paramount probably wouldn’t have included such things as Evans’ showreel for the owners of Paramount announcing the production of The Godfather, his anti-drug commercial from the early 1980s, or that bizarre skit with Dustin Hoffman playing Evans during the closing credits.

A mixed bag, but worth checking out as long you don’t expect a full and fair telling of the story.