DOCUMENTARY SERIES PREMIERE: This new Amazon TV series, an extended biography of
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, is made with Hefner’s cooperation and input, as well as by dipping into his extensive archives of back issues, news clippings, TV interviews and other personal memorabilia. The “character” of Hefner narrates his own tale here, teeing it up in unabashedly subjective terms: “This is my story,” he says at the start. “Or at least how
I remember it.” There are pieces of
American Playboy where mostly unknown actors are shown recreating scenes from Hefner’s life: Matt Whelan as Hef, Shara Connolly as Barbi Benton, Elizabeth Dowden as Dorothy Stratten, and so on. These recreations are of the uninspired
America’s Most Wanted type, but they do tell an interesting tale, and are accompanied by well-chosen period music. The opener, which climaxes (so to speak) with Hefner’s purchase of a nude photo of Marilyn Monroe, doesn’t even try to hire an actress to impersonate Monroe, but just shows the centerfold photo, along with a very rare double exposure, which earns that description in more ways than one. I'm showing the cover story instead, in a rare show (or non-show) of restraint. For a full review, see David Hinckley's
All Along the Watchtower.