If TV movies count, there’s Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, probably best remembered today for having appeared as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Raul Julia stars as a petty functionary in a future dystopia, who is obsessed with Casablanca. At one point, with his mind transferred into a computer, he even appears in a simulation of Casablanca, and thus we have Raul Julia dressed in Humphrey Bogart’s white dinner jacket, recreating Bogart’s dialogue from the earlier film.
As the robots of MST3K said, “Never reference a good movie in the middle of your bad movie.”
*Last Action Hero. * It’s not exactly central to the plot, but Arnie gets a visit from Death from The Seventh Seal, which is a real movie. Many other real movies referenced.
The Beaver Trilogy Part IV. It’s a documentary about an independent movie (1979) that was itself remade twice (Once staring a young Sean Penn in 1981, and again staring a young Crispin Glover in 1985). The original 1979 movie was itself a documentary of sorts about a regular guy obsessed with Olivia Newton-John. So its a documentary about a documentary (that was fictionalized in two remakes) about a guy obsessed with a celebrity… if that makes sense
It’s not a great documentary, but I found it a pretty interesting story.
Well I think this fits the OP pretty well: In The Human Centipede 2 the main character obsessively watches the film Human Centipede and is inspired to create his own centipede creature.
In a sense, we are warching the movie of Gloria Swanson’s return to acting though the fictionalized Norma Desmond. Swanson was a silent film star for many years amd then worked in ‘talkies’ before retiring in near seclusion for nearly a decade, and was directed by Erich von Stroheim in Queen Kelly, who plays her buttler and former director Max von Mayerling in Sunset Blvd. It doesn’t really meet the criterion of the o.p. but it is an interesting study in the intersection of fiction and reality, including featuring real entrrtainment personalities like Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, H.B. Warner, Buster Keaton, et cetera.
For all that is good and holy, please never mention those films again.
I recorded Bombshell (1933) with Jean Harlow on TCM recently. She plays a Hollywood actress who is barely on set, but spends a surprising amount time in makeup.
Jeez, Harlow knew what she was doing.
These kinds of films were staples back then. Good Depression-era distraction. You too can become a star in Hollywood!
I saw Judge Wapner on Larry King live and he mentioned he got paid for Rainman using his name. I don’t know if that is common practice since he was not shown in the movie.
If I’m correct, the OP is asking for a movie in which 1) a character or characters actions are determined or influenced by an existing movie and 2) it is even more on target if the characters watch or imagine scenes from that movie.
If that is right, then one movie not mentioned yet (or maybe I missed it in a long list) is Sleepless in Seattle, where both sides of the romance talk about (and one side watches) An Affair to Remember.
Billy Crystal’s character actually referes DeVito to watch Strangers On A Train, believing that DeVito is just interested in writing about murder, Instead, DeVito gets it in his head to kill Crystal’s estranged wife, expecting in exchange that Crystal will kill his overbearing mother. Other than that, the plot and resolution don’t have much to do with the inspiration.
On a related note, not looking at a real movie, but at a recreation of many adventure-comedies of the 20-30s: The Purple Rose of Cairo.
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The scene is a small town in the mid-1930s. Trapped in a dead-end job and an abusive marriage, Cecelia (Mia Farrow) regularly seeks refuge in the local movie house. She becomes so enraptured by the latest attraction, an RKO screwball comedy called The Purple Rose of Cairo, that she returns to the theatre day after day. During one of these visits, the film's main character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), pauses in his dialogue, turns towards the audience, and says to Cecelia, "My God, how you must love this picture." Then he climbs out of the movie, much to the consternation of the rest of the audience and the other characters on screen.
[/QUOTE]
1979’s A Little Romance features as one of its youthful protagonists, a French boy who has (among other qualities), an obsession with the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Gods and Monsters was about the making of Frankenstein.
Lovelace was about the making of Deep Thrpat.
I could name a bunch of movies about the making of actual/renamed TV shows, like Hollywoodland and My Favorite Year, but that wasn’t really the question.
