October 4, 2002 | With all the cool detachment of a research scientist preparing a monograph for his peers, Paul Schrader takes a rigorously nonjudgmental view at the untidy life and violent death of sitcom star Bob Crane in Auto Focus. Chalk it up as another examination of obsession and temptation from the director of Affliction, Hard Core and American Gigolo. But don’t count it among Schrader’s very best works.
Most people remember Bob Crane as the blandly genial star of Hogan’s Heroes, an improbably successful 1965-71 sitcom about mischievous Allied troops in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. (Any resemblance to Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 was wholly intentional.) After the series was cancelled, Crane appeared in a few forgettable movies, attempted a comeback in a short-lived sitcom titled The Bob Crane Show — which Auto Focus, perhaps for reasons of brevity, chooses to ignore — and sustained his fading celebrity by extensively touring the dinner theater circuit in a fluffy three-act comedy. He was performing in Scottsdale, Ariz., when, on June 29, 1978, he was found bludgeoned to death in his hotel room.
(Years ago, I actually saw Crane in Beginner’s Luck, his custom-made star vehicle. And I must give Schrader full credit: He nails every garish detail of a typical ’70s dinner theater production. Come to think of it, he’s also on the mark when he gives us glimpses of the Hogan’s Heroes sitcom.)
In the aftermath of Crane’s murder, a darker, tawdrier side of Mr. Nice Guy gradually emerged. Reports revealed that Crane had been an insatiable sex addict who frequented strip clubs, organized orgies with groupies and prostitutes, and took unseemly delight in photographing – and, after the advent of consumer video technology, taping – his lascivious misadventures. Auto Focus goes a few steps further by suggesting – well, actually, by virtually screaming – that Crane likely enjoyed photographic records of his trysts more than the trysts themselves. In this pursuit of pleasure, he was greatly assisted by video technician John Carpenter, a would-be hipster and smooth-talking sycophant who eventually was accused – but cleared – of killing Crane.
Willem Dafoe plays Carpenter in Auto Focus with an effective mix of Mephistophelean sleaze and wounded desperation. He’s surprisingly poignant as a pathetic parasite who brings out the worst in a very willing host. (There’s also a none-too-subtle homoerotic undercurrent to the Carpenter’s fixation on Crane, which Dafoe wisely underplays.) In sharp contrast, however, Greg Kinnear never really gets beneath the affable surface of Bob Crane. His is a shallow performance of a shallow character, technically proficient but rarely compelling, largely because Schrader and screenwriter Michael Gerbosi (working from Robert Graysmith’s book The Murder of Bob Crane) provide Kinnear with precious few depths to plumb.
The first half of the movie, set mostly in the mid ’60s, is brightly lit and ring-a-ding frisky, as Schrader depicts Crane as a fatuous lightweight whose career trajectory — from drive-time disc jockey to sitcom superstar – appears to be the result of fluky good luck more than anything else. But as Crane begins to flounder, professionally and personally, much to the dismay of his loving wives (first Rita Wilson, then Maria Bello) and fatherly agent (Ron Leibman), the movie turns darker – quite literally, with bleached colors and steadily increasing shadows — and heavier. And much, much slower.
In the end, however, Auto Focus comes off as more of a clinical study than a cautionary tale or an affecting tragedy. It’s hard to shake the impression that, while Schrader may be fascinated by what Crane represents, he’s not terribly interested in who Crane was.
