Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1996)

Fantastic!

Best movie of this year hands down!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

As Bob Dylan once said, money doesn't talk, it swears - and never as coursely as in Tinseltown's movie and sex trades; the Heidi Fleiss scandal erupted, as if at the apex of a thrashing Venn diagram, where the two industries traded blows.And money is the prime mouthpiece here: everyone - including former LA police chief Daryl Gates - wants cash up front. In making this documentary, Nick Broomfield becomes just another john, with an ever-ready wad of cash for answers.In 1993, the director set off to interview Heidi. How did an apparently well-adjusted, middle-class teenager, the daughter of a Beverly Hills doctor, get sucked into such a life? However, during pre-production, Fleiss was convicted of pandering and sentenced to three years in prison, during which time she was also charged with money laundering and tax evasion. Broomfield was thus obliged to seek out anyone with connections to her, and Hollywood Madam chronicles his efforts between Fleiss's June 1993 arrest and her trial in May 1995.Broomfield had visited this territory before with Chicken Ranch, in which he documented the daily lives of sex workers in a Texan whorehouse. But that film, candid as it is, looks positively prurient beside Hollywood Madam, which unspools like a sordid film noir, with its taut score, and roll call of pimps, porn stars, informants and corrupt cops. After viewing this you'll want to scrub yourself down with a wire brush and Dettol.Initially, Broomfield lightly skirts the edge of his subject - looking up various individuals on the scandal's periphery. "I was wondering if you could put us in touch with Heidi Fleiss?" he asks a bemused prostitute. "What are you on about?" comes the retort. After this fruitless foreplay, he begins to penetrate the inner sanctum - uncovering an unholy trio of grotesques; TV director Ivan Nagy, Heidi's former boyfriend (and the man who possibly grassed her up); the foetid, bed-dwelling Madame Alex - once Heidi's mentor and the foremost brothel keeper in Hollywood until Fleiss spirited away her clientele; and Victoria Sellers, daughter of Peter and Britt Ekland, and Fleiss's former best friend, unfresh out of rehab.Admittedly, there's much here that you could have easily gleaned from endless tabloid column inches and trashy talk shows. But Broomfield gives us more - the stuff TV could never show: such as Ivan Nagy's home video of Heidi, reluctantly stripping for him as he goads her on - "banter, fun and games", he smirks - and eliciting one of the film's more lurid exchanges, concerning the colour green.Here too are graphic stories from the trade. Sellers recalls a client attempting to place a coat hanger inside himself(family planning advisers will be relieved to know the hanger was wearing a condom). Gaby, another Fleiss callgirl relates how many clients - those well-heeled Arabs and Hollywood A-Listers, the anonymous names in Heidi's infamous 'Black Book' - simply wanted them to watch while they did drugs. "It's much better to have a meal with someone and an intellectual conversation", she adds hilariously. Most agree that their gentlemen preferred blondes, and specifically "typical, Californian surfer girl-next-door types. You could be an acne-faced dog - as long as you were blonde".Nobody has a good word to say about anybody. Madam Alex, says Nagy, is "pure evil - devastatingly evil". Heidi, says Sellers, is "a mean, ice-cold bitch". Meanwhile Nagy denies pimping Heidi to Madam Alex for $500. "Look around this room" he gestures at his original art collection. "Do I look like I need $500 dollars?" No... but what's with the bullet holes in his ceiling? And who is the mysterious Israeli known only as "Cookie"? Everybody's telling different stories. Is anybody telling the truth? Or has truth become another commodity to be bought, sold and traded along with everyone else? Nagy's so slippery he could be melted down for lubricants and Madam Alex isn't saying zip - she died shortly after the film was completed. Answers suggest themselves, yet remain tantalisingly out of reach: was it the fault of her hippie liberal parents? Ivan Nagy's influence? Yes, everybody's hiding something, including Broomfield, with his well-honed faux-naif persona - not to mention subjective editing of the documentary itself. Only Fleiss, after finally granting Broomfield an interview, seems halfway on the level, coming across as surprisingly down-to-earth, sharp, attractive and witty - if not entirely trustworthy. It's the one moment of grace. But for the most part, this film is akin to being stalked by evil, chuckling pimps while trapped in an ever replicating maze of funhouse mirrors.

Broomfield takes a look at Hollywood decadence, not just the world of porn here. This documentary should be viewed by anyone who still has naive notions about Tinseltown i.e. what really goes on behind the scenes.Heidi Fleiss is interesting, I suppose, with her boundless naivety (while fancying herself a sly vixen) and greed, but it's really her Hungarian pimp/porn-master/sex-partner and other lesser-known seedy individuals (like the fat old madam who hates both the Hungarian and Fleiss) who catch one's full attention here. These people make Ron Jeremy look utterly dull by comparison (yes, he's in this, too - no surprise there). Even a forgotten Peter Sellers daughter makes one or two appearances, letting us see what happens to some of the offspring that aren't as lucky as David Arquette or Anjelina Jolie. The mad relationships between various inidviduals here almost make for a sort of soap-opera: there is treason, bickering, back-stabbing and all that other stuff. Wonderful.It's just a pity that the movie was made before Fleiss hooked up with Tom Sizemore. Having him scream into the camera would have been fun.Not a minute of this film is dull.

Intrepid documentarian Nick Broomfield looks to uncover the real story behind the notorious Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss in this fascinating, repellent film.Broomfield is, as usual, totally fearless, and uses his oh-so upright British bearing ("I'm doing a piece for the BBC")to mask the fact that he's a complete gutter-crawling slimebag, able to hold court with the sleaziest characters imaginable. At first, Fleiss won't grant Broomfield an interview (she is arrested for violating her probation shortly after he arrives in Los Angeles) so he pursues her friends and associates with tunnel-vision tenaciousness.All the neon slime is on display here: pimps, hookers, adult film stars, drug dealers, crooked cops, shady figures of all shapes and sizes. Broomfield goes after them all without fear.The two people he spends the most time with are Madam Alex, a creepy old-world crone from Hungary who controlled the Hollywood flesh trade before Heidi stole it from her, and Ivan Nagy, a smiling, brutish pimp-drug-dealer-movie-director (also Hungarian) and Heidi's ex-boyfriend who also (supposedly) was the one who narc'd on her to the police. The two spend their time on camera telling wild, half-baked stories and making accusations against each other that criss-cross and contradict so often that eventually it becomes clear that they ARE ALL lying to some degree.Fleiss does finally give Broomfield an interview and she comes off quite well. Intelligent, lively, and a keen observer of human nature, she clearly is no dunce, although its tough to believe she could actually go toe-to-toe with either Nagy or Alex.In the end, because he's on screen so much and is such a persistent presence, "Hollywood Madam" is more about Broomfield and his relentless desire to get at the truth than anything. At times, one can only marvel at the audacity of this guy: whether badgering known drug-dealers and pimps until they all but plead with him to GO AWAY, or making what amounts to crank calls to an underworld enforcer (and possible ex-Moussad hit man) Broomfield walks through it all with a zeal it is hard not to admire.

Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1995) was another great film from Nick Broomfield. This time he tries to get a one-on-one interview with Heidi Fleiss and documents the life and times of Hollywood's most famous high price madam (pimp). Broomfield interview those who were close to Ms. Fleiss and people who knew her off hand or in passing. But as Mr. Broomfield logs in the miles and rolls of film, Heidi Fleiss is very elusive and hard to reach. One of the most funniest parts of the documentary is the confrontation Nick Broomfield has with a local news reporter. Does he get the interview? Will anyone co-operate with him? Is it worth watching? You'll have to find out for yourself!!I enjoyed this film very much. It was a real hoot seeing Nick Broomfield trying to get answers out of people who wanted to get paid or those who didn't trust him. A lot of home movies and nude peeks at Heidi Fleiss as well. If you watch this movie you'll a different opinion about the woman either way. No matter if it's the common street walker or a high priced hooker the business is all the same. Seedy, sleazy and shady.Highly recommended.