Washed-up Hollywood producer Charlie Berns has mailed in his updated obit and is about to suck his Mercedes tailpipe and fade to black when a miracle materializes: his nephew, a wannabe screenwriter from New Jersey, has scripted the life story of Queen Victoria's prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Charlie manages to turn the script into a hot property—reinstating him as a player. But as the deal heats up, conceptual changes morph the project into Lev Disraeli: Freedom Fighter, an action thriller with a black Jewish superstar, a Yugoslavian location, and a mad Polish director. Is Charlie being eaten alive by the system? Or is he giving Hollywood hotshots a run for their money?

Peter Lefcourt's hilarious satire proves the old adage that, in Hollywood, you're never quite as dead as people give you credit for.