Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam

1996 "Hollywood was the whore. She was just the madam."
6.6| 1h46m| R| en| More Info
Released: 09 February 1996 Released
Producted By: WDR
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.nickbroomfield.com/Heidi-Fleiss-Hollywood-Madam
Synopsis

A documentary crew from the BBC arrives in L.A. intent on interviewing Heidi Fleiss, a year after her arrest for running a brothel but before her trial. Several months elapse before the interview, so the crew searches for anyone who'll talk about the young woman. Two people have a lot to say to the camera: a retired madam named Alex for whom Fleiss once worked and Fleiss's one-time boyfriend, Ivan Nagy, who introduced her to Alex. Alex and Nagy don't like each other, so the crew shuttles between them with "she said" and "he said." When they finally interview Fleiss, they spend their time reciting what Alex and Nagy have had to say and asking her reaction.

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Reviews

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
fedor8 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.
tbyrne4 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.
kate I felt so trashy while watching Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madame, yet it was so engrossing I just couldn't help continuing on. It's an expose of a woman who ran a high class prostitution ring in LA in the early 90s. Nick Broomfield interviews his subjects (call girls, the director of Starsky & Hutch, an elderly madame who looks and acts exactly like the Egg Lady in Pink Flamginos, a gruff voice on the phone belonging to "Cookie" the bodyguard, and eventually Heidi herself) again and again, eventually trapping them all in a web of lies. It's impossible to figure out who is telling the truth, if the people involved are just having a chuckle at Broomfield's expense, or if they're all so wigged out on coke that they legitimately have no idea what is going on.In exchange for interviews, Broomfield actually hands his subjects huge wads of cash on camera, so at first he seems like the sucker (or, oddly, like he's applying the prostitute/john relationship to the structure of his documentary), but really he's buying a career move while they're just making themselves look silly. Overall I think Broomfield had the last laugh by exposing how absolutely ludicrous some of these Hollywood types are.Broomfield is a shameless sensationalist, but he certainly knows how to bring out the hilarity and surreal nature of otherwise serious subjects.
MovieCriticMarvelfan First of the person who said you will like the characters in the film is out of his mind. The characters in this BBC documentary from Fleiss to her 50 yr disgusting exboyfriend Ivan Nagy are truly revolting. Cap it we see how Fleiss was brought....rich...My god. How pitiful that so many rich white punks out here in California sink their life down the toilent when you have honest hardworking people working day by day for nothing.Anyhow, no surprise we learn that eventually the Fleiss household was one big dysfunctional family leading up to Fleiss turning tricks with the help of an old whore named Madame Alex.The film was funny to me because anytime you see so many dysfunctional characters on screen you cant stop from laughing (like in NBC's Days of Our Lives and Passion).I am surprised that by all Nick Broomfield encounters he doesnt fall on the floor laughing while filming this.I know I would.The best work Nick does here is really exposing Fleiss as the 20 cent whore she is and even when she was getting rich of her prostitute she still wanted more even gone as far as starting to squeeze out that old whore Madama Alex.Another funny part that has to be seen is when see an old washed up porn star, literally begging for me to support her drug habit.Um yeah, porn stars , theres another example of life's loosers. LOLHighly recommend but only to people who really want to laugh their asses off from beginning to end, but then again "Laughter is the best medicine"5 out of 10.