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Canadian director examines how Playboy founder used TV as a social platform
The first time Brigitte Berman visited the Playboy Mansion, she met primates before she met any Playmates.
It was the mid-1990s, and the Toronto based filmmaker was at the legendary Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, mansion to meet the Playboy magazine founder, Hugh Hefner.
Hefner wanted to meet Berman, the film director, because he loved her and late husband Victor Solnicki’s movie Bix: ‘Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet,’ about the American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer Leon Bismark (Bix) Beiderbecke.
Berman was met at the mansion by Hefner’s long time assistant, Mary O’Connor. O’Connor took the visitor first to the monkey house.
“I loved adventures. This was another adventure, going into these hallowed halls, and I didn’t know what was going to happen,” said the celebrated documentarian with a laugh.
“I had these peanuts in my hand. The monkeys took them out of my hand, then played with my hair. I’m thinking ‘oh this is a great place.’ Then I find out he has a zoo licence. They would take in injured animals,” added Berman. “I think ‘wow, this is amazing. There is so much more here. More to him.’ ”
After the animals, Berman met with the king of the Playboy jungle, Hefner — yes he was in his pyjamas — and they had a long and pleasant conversation about Beiderbecke, Hefner’s favourite jazz musician.
That meeting would become the start of a long relationship with Hefner, a relationship that allowed Berman and producer-writer Solnicki to make two excellent documentaries about the American. The first of the films was 2009’s Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, and now Berman is busy talking about her new documentary, Hugh Hefner’s After Dark: Speaking Out in America. The film is getting its Canadian premiere at this year’s Whistler Film Festival, Nov. 28-Dec. 2.
“Quite frankly, I was surprised myself that I liked him,” said Berman who went on to spend hours at the mansion researching and just hanging out and watching old movies with Hefner, his friends (all in their 70s, says Berman) and the occasional Playmate.
While the first film was more a study of the man, the second focuses on the two TV shows he produced and hosted. The first was the Playboy Penthouse series that ran from 1959 to 1961. The second show was Playboy After Dark which ran 1969 to 70.
The idea to look closer at the effect of the Hefner TV shows came about when the first documentary was making the festival rounds. According to Berman many “young people,” came out of the film wanting to know more about the TV shows.
“Victor talked to me about that, so we decided this would make a very interesting film,” said Berman.
It is also very entertaining, thanks greatly to excellent sound design from Daniel Pellerin, who has breathed new life into the almost 40-year-old performances.
Defined as variety shows, Hefner’s TV outings were open, inclusive and challenging to the white establishment.
Black artists welcomed. Bi-racial acts and politically outspoken comedians, filmmakers and musicians (the list is staggering) filed in on a regular basis to a studio that looked and felt like a stylish living room. The vibe of the show and the camera angles made it feel like you the viewer were a guest at a really cool party with talented, interesting people who were all friends.
“Everyone was welcome,” Whoopi Goldberg, a fan of the shows, says in the documentary. “You never knew who was going to be on.”
“He was very, very proud of them,” said Berman. “He was so upset with the Un-American Activities Committee and what was going on with civil rights. That was all totally crazy to him. He could do it. Do a show. He had the money,” she said of Hefner, who financed a big part of the production.
“I felt we had become the very people we had defeated,” Hefner said about the Un-American Activities Committee’s fascist tendencies, during an interview Berman did for the first movie.
Most people remember Hefner (who died in 2017) as the founder of Playboy Magazine in 1953 who gave men everywhere their fantasy females on a monthly basis.
You can debate Hefner’s legacy. The magazine was pornographic and objectified women and at the same time it gave voice to great writers, many with anti-establishment and socially progressive ideas. Yes, it’s true, people bought it for the articles.
Hef’s PJ-covered mansion life and multiple relationships, sometimes with multiple women at the same time, are creepy no matter what era’s lens you look through. But as Hugh Hefner’s After Dark: Speaking Out in America clearly points out, you can’t judge a man by his magazine’s cover.
“We were pretty, pretty pleased that there were so many people still around,” said Berman about interviewees who were eager to talk about the shows. One of those is singer/songwriter and activist Joan Baez. Hefner had given the young vocal antiwar activist 12 minutes to speak her mind. On today’s TV talk shows, the only way you are going to get 12 minutes to talk about a social issue is if you take the host hostage.
“When I interviewed her about this, she couldn’t believe that somebody actually allowed her to speak at such great lengths about important issue of that time. She was just amazed and grateful,” said Berman.
An antiwar, hippie feminist praising a purveyor of porn, now that is what you could call strange bedfellows — and that’s what attracted Berman and Solnicki to this story.
“He is this individual known for Playboy, but there is this other vast side to him. Both are real and both are strong,” Berman said. “As a woman, I don’t approve of everything he does. I don’t approve of everything that is in Playboy, but you know nothing is just black and white. You have to see the world in shades of grey. In fact, it is more interesting, I find.”
Berman’s film is one of 85 on the schedule for this year’s 18th annual Whistler Film Festival. Some 69 per cent of the festival’s films will be Canadian films, one reason the festival has earned a reputation of being a cool alternative to giants like TIFF.
WFF is also a solid supporter of female filmmakers. This year, 46 per cent (up from 30 last year) of its 85 films are made by women.
The festival is on at various sites in Whistler. WFF, which selected from over 1,000 submissions from 12 countries, will feature 11 world premieres and 13 Canadian premieres.