American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story

If you are old enough to remember the Playboy magazine's Golden Era, they used to run ad's in the magazine with that question, designed to show potential advertisers how cool, hip and sophisticated the readers were. Typically a very successful guy, maybe in his 30's, who drives a luxury sports car, has the best stereo equipment, drinks top shelf booze, dresses stylishly, takes vacations to exotic locations and is of course always surrounded by a beautiful woman. So in a National Lampoon parody of the early 70's they ran the "What Sort of Man Reads Playboy" ad that had a picture of a bathroom stall, with the magazine on the bathroom floor opened to the centerfold spread, in front of a pair of legs with their jeans and underwear pulled down by their ankles above their Converse tennis shoes, obviously belonging to an adolescent boy and you can obviously guess what he's doing.

Which at the heart of it was what Playboy in its day was really about. For every reader who was the hip, good looking guy with plenty of disposable income who attracted gorgeous women, there were at least a dozen other readers who didn't fit into that peg. Teenage (and pre) boys who lived with their parents and kept their issues hidden from mom. College boys who had the centerfolds decorating the walls of their dorm or fraternity residence. GI's, sailors, prisoners. While Playboy did have some interesting articles, the superbly photographed pictorials of the semi-nude, drop dead beautiful women is what kept men buying the magazine at a time when any type of soft core erotica wasn't readily available.

"American Playboy" does a decent job of recapturing the history of the magazine and what was, at one time, truly a business empire and a delightfully hedonistic lifestyle Hugh Hefner indulged. It is done in a documentary style, with plenty of photos, rare film clips and cinematic reanactments. Matt Whelan does a good job of portraying Hef; he sounds exactly like him although their physical resemblance is slight as Whelan is a fairly big guy and Hef was a skinny runt. The story focuses heavily on the era of the 50's and 60's, the "Mad Men" period of Playboy and for the most part wraps up about 1980 after Playboy had its 25th anniversary. The final episode encompasses the past nearly 40 years as Hef handed over the reins of Playboy to his daughter, decided to get married and have kids (the marriage lasted 9 years) and then, in his 70's, deciding once again to self- indulge in the party lifestyle of his prime. Which brought us to the absolute silliness of the "Girls Next Door" reality TV series that lasted a few years in the 2000's decade.

If you read Playboy during their golden era you will enjoy this. Snowflakes be warned, plenty of T&A and I'm sure you will offended by what you would consider to be sexism and exploitation of females. As a historical piece, not sure of the accuracy of everything because it is produced by Playboy and as a result if presented from their POV.

After I started watching this documentary I realized that I've had the completely wrong perception of Playboy my whole life, i.e. if I'm to believe everything depicted in this documentary. I've only browsed through Playboy magazine a few times in my life, and I never read any of the articles in it ;-) Though I've always been fascinated by the life of Hugh Hefner, though from a purely sexual perspective. After watching the first 4 episodes of this series though, I'm even more fascinated and impressed by this man as I had no idea he was such a visionary and innovative entrepreneur and that he had such a nag for surrounding himself with talented people. Further, the documentary gives the distinct impression that he was anti-establishment, an equal opportunity employer, had an open door policy, was a great boss, was surprisingly respectful of women (even though at the same time he was obviously exploiting them too), was color blind and, even though indirectly and possibly unintended, he supported for the civil rights of blacks by ignoring the fact that the southern states didn't want to air his Playboy Penthouse TV show because he had a lot of black entertainers on this show. It's almost too good to be true. And as mentioned I have only seen 4 episodes so far, but I kind of doubt the tone is going to sway again Hefner. Lastly, I liked the acting and the occasional switching back to real Hefner footage.

Playboy is that iconic brand that has always remained in my mind synonymous with porn. I have never read the magazine nor was it ever available at my home, I only had exposure to the brand through the internet and that too very rarely. So, I was surprised to find such an inspiring story of the life of Huge Hefner. I have to say that this series/documentary was an eye opener and well made, not revolutionary but still intriguing. Worth a watch just to understand the cultural impact playboy has had on society.

I had an annual subscription to Playboy while I was in Grad School. That is saying something as I could barely afford food but loved this publication as a sweet indulgence. This series was intriguing, beguiling and fascinating.

Hef experienced extreme heart break when he found out his first love was cheating on him and then proceeded to insure his future relationships would never encounter such betrayal, what a supreme hypocrite!!

The history of the magazine and subsequent enterprises were detailed with interest and the many challenges and frustrations with first amendment rights are commendable.

The women were stunning, kind, and most of all very supportive of the Playboy brand. So even if Gloria Steinem revealed the seedy side of being a Bunny it was parlayed as an exploitation journalist which I feel was extremely unfair.

No doubt this is a controversial subject to both men and women but I found when I accepted this foray into pornography it actually helped my marriage, so I cannot complain.

High recommend for fans of First Amendment rights, gorgeous naked women, and of course those in-depth interviews. No comparison to what is available online these dayz!

I highly recommend this. Very intriguing story. I don't think Hugh was a drug trafficker or user but I would have loved to been a fly on the wall at all of his parties. I want to watch it again.