This exhaustive documentary on the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner feels more like an errant PBS special than full-fledged cinematic documentary: despite its larger-than-life subject, it’s a small screen effort. Produced, oddly enough by the team of David Lynch and Mark Frost, Heath’s take on the man who made “bunny” a household word and introduced several generations of young American males to “the girl next door,” is full of tantalizing tidbits, from Hef’s early Dexedrine abuse to comedian/activist Dick Gregory’s wry observation on the Playboy Mansion’s nightly buffet: “I didn’t realize that I was black and poor until I saw that buffet.” At its peak in the early to mid-Sixties, Playboy was publishing not only pictures of some of the most beautiful women in the world, but also the written work of Alex Haley, Malcolm X, and ground-breaking fiction by such authors as Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce. It also produced a film version of Macbeth, which was directed by Roman Polanski, and launched a publishing line at the same time. Unfortunately, the documentary gives only token time to Hef’s detractors, among them Jerry Falwell and a couple of feminists who seem thrown in for good measure. The 1980 murder of Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten and Hef’s recent marriage are there, but as a whole, director Heath has created something more akin to one of those Playboy After Hours specials than to a solid piece of documentary reporting on one of the most important social figures of the 20th century.
This article appears in February 19 • 1993 (Cover).