WADD: THE LIFE & TIMES OF JOHN C. HOLMES 1/2
Fascinating if depressing documentary about America’s most (in)famous male porno star. Running time: 110 minutes. Not rated (full- frontal but flaccid male nudity, sex talk, drug use) At the Screening Room, Varick and Canal streets.
IT’S clear from “Wadd” that P.T. Anderson’s hit feature “Boogie Nights” really was very closely based on the life of John C. Holmes (known as “Johnny Wadd” after a character he played in a series of porno-detective flicks).
It’s also clear that the real life of the legendarily well-endowed porno star – who died of AIDS in 1988 – was even sleazier and more pathetic than the fictional version would have you believe.
Not only was the real-life version of Dirk Diggler a skinny, uncharismatic, rather plain fellow, he was a compulsive liar who informed on his porn filmmaker colleagues to the LAPD vice squad and pimped his 15-year-old mistress – and whose drug-fueled decline culminated in his involvement in a brutal multiple murder.
Director Cass Paley tells Holmes’ story using the recollections of people like his manager, Bill Amerson (inspiration for Burt Reynolds’ character in “Boogie Nights”), and Holmes’ first wife, Sharon (a straight nurse who detested his porno career), combined with the observations of people like filmmaker Anderson and L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan.
These are intermixed and illustrated with suitable scenes from his cinematic oeuvre, old interviews and videotape from his murder trial.
Fascinatingly, many of the interviewees disagree vehemently about Holmes’ personality: some of his co-stars and colleagues found him repellently abusive and selfish.
Others remember him as kind and gentle.
The filmmakers are careful not to take sides.
“Wadd” provides the viewer with a useful thumbnail history of pornographic film: Apparently the hard-core era began in 1969 with the release of the first films to show actual penetration, but was changed forever – and for the worse – by the advent of videotape.