WRANGLER: ANATOMY OF AN ICON - DVD review

There are certainly bigger names in the world of pornography than Jack Wrangler. There's Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson and Colton Ford. Wrangler was on the scene before all of them, in a time when being gay wasn't en vogue. Back in the 1960's, gay men were resigned to bodybuilding and physique magazines to get their fill of near naked male bodies. Up until this time, queer men were portrayed as mincing, prancing caricatures with mental disorders who preyed on the innocent. When Wrangler debuted in 1970's "New York Construction Company," he brought with him a new kind of gay man and indeed the entire gay revolution.

"Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon" is a fast paced, 85-minut rundown of Jack Stillman's life. His father, Robert Stillman, was a producer on "Bonanza," among other programs. Director Jeffrey Schwarz doesn't spend much time on Wrangler's early life, nor on his personal life as a whole. Instead, the film mostly focuses on his professional life, in both gay and straight porn. It isn't until the last 20 minutes when the other side of Wrangler comes into focus, though even at that point, we get to see a very small part of his relationship with singer Margaret Whiting.

Schwarz is faced with a no win scenario of sorts. With many of the people Wrangler worked with through his 80-odd film career dead, the actor tells his own story through new interviews and talk show archive footage. The director does the best he can constructing a historical document from the available video; he does state in the commentary, though, he wasn't comfortable showcasing hard core porn and nudity in order to appeal to a more mainstream audience. That in itself is a problem, of course, considering the subject of the film made his name engaging in hard core porn and being naked.

It doesn't help matters, either, that both his parents are deceased and his sisters declined to be interviewed for the film. The storytelling burden, therefore, falls to surviving actors, critics and current porn personalities. The resulting film is congratulatory to a fault, with nary a dissenting voice. Belaboring events outside of Schwarz's control is rather pointless, especially when he is able to blend the bigger picture with Wrangler's personal journey.

And what is that bigger picture? The emergence of gay pride, a more realistic type of gay man in film and the first porn actor to actively brand themselves. No, Wrangler didn't treat himself as a piece of cattle, branding his ass with a hot iron. Rather, he used his celebrity to create products he could sell-personal lubricants, t-shirts, models of his penis. It's almost comical to see this man who gained fame by parading around naked on screen hawk all sorts of wares.

The most interesting-and perplexing-event of his life is his relationship with Whiting. Wrangler is a self-professed gay man who, according to the film, can't see himself living with another man. As a condition of moving in with Whiting, and subsequently getting married, the actor agreed to give up performing in porn films as well as having encounters with other men. He makes light of it, saying he has a healthy masturbatory life. However, for a generation of gay men who looked up to Wrangler-not to mention the era he ushered in-I have to think this is a slap in the face. Certainly there is not a list of requirements to be considered gay; what fits one person doesn't necessarily fit another. But a out gay man married to a woman and abstaining from sex with other men? Does that even qualify as being gay anymore?

Regardless, there is a certain hero worship at work between Schwarz and Wrangler. There is no probing of this particular idea; nobody gives a voice to what the audience must be thinking. It's how the entire film plays out. Parents are nearly non-existent (his father did tell him to "get over" trying to please him); no long-term male partner is ever mentioned. One gets the feeling Schwarz isn't telling the whole story-or these parts of Wrangler's life are completely off limits.

I don't mean to continually harp of the deficiencies of the information presented. However, when the name of the movie is "Anatomy of an Icon," an in depth look at all aspects of the man need to be taken into account, not just the ones which paint him as a hero.

VIDEO:
I wish I could pass on both the video and audio sections of the review. Why? "Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon" relies so heavily on stock footage (porn and news reel), any assessment of the look and sound of the production will be skewed. Wrangler's film clips show all the ravages of their age, from pops, scrapes, tears, softness, grain and anything else you can think of. New interviews are infinitely better, though Wrangler appears to have a slight pink tint to his pieces. I assume the unenhanced widescreen transfer is a symptom of the clips used.

AUDIO:
Again, I'm not sure exactly what we could expect from a documentary pieced together from a host of sources. The 2.0 English track is serviceable, some might even say commendable. Only the archival footage presents any sort of problem for the front speakers and even at that, interference is minimal. Otherwise, I won't bemoan the lack of a surround sound track; it's simply not needed. There are no subtitles included.

EXTRAS:
The bread and butter of the supplements section is a feature length commentary with Schwarz, editor Jaime Meyers Schlenck and composer Michael "The Millionaire" Cudahy. All three keep the track moving from beginning to end, imparting a wealth of information from how the film came about to obtaining interviews and filling in some historical gaps the film passes over.

Everything else is a let down from there, though not by much. A full 35 minutes of excised interview footage with Wrangler comes next. Fortunately, Wrangler is a charismatic speaker, fully engaging the audience for a bulk of that running time. A series of 20 stills, both archival and current, come next; the selections are manually advanced and have no music accompaniment. Three TLA Releasing trailers round out the section: "Bangkok Love Story" (3:16), "I Dreamt Under the Water" (6:34) and "The Houseboy" (2:36).

PATING THOUGHTS:
Jack Wrangler had one mission in his life: to be sexually desirable. He had the smarts, the theatrical talent…he just lacked the body. Nearly four decades after his body catapulted him to fame, he's content to find other outlets for his creativity. Broadway is a new passion of his, along with his relationship with Whiting. Whatever we may think of him, he's achieved more than the sissy from California ever dreamed he could.