Movie Review - The People V Larry Flynt

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1996 Biopic – Spoiler alerts. Larry Flynt is one of the most notorious of all US pornographers. Think Hugh Heffner without subtlety or style. Flynt’s Hustler magazine empire started out in the early 1970’s as a local newsletter to promote his chain of strip clubs. He dispensed with the Playboy / Penthouse trend for getting arty, social commentary articles to pad out his magazines, sensing that few ever read the text anyway. Hustler carried text, often with libellous satires on various American politicians & movers & shakers, as well as a tendency to use candid snaps taken by paparazzi photographers. Sensational nude photos of Jackie Onassis taken without her knowledge were sold to Flynt, and Hustler sales went through the roof. Flynt survived an assassination attempt that left him paralyzed from the waist down. In Hustler’s seemingly endless court cases, Flynt fared badly as he often ignored his lawyers and ridiculed judges; often facing long sentences for contempt of court. At one hearing, Flynt went trouserless, using the US flag as a diaper. He threw orange peel at a judge and faced a period in enforced therapy. He eventually won an appeal against US televangelist Jerry Falwell which became a landmark case in freedom of expression and speech for many beyond the writers and readers of Hustler. The film captures Flynt’s struggles and eccentricities very well, with great performances by Woody Harrelson (Flynt), Edward Norton as his defence lawyer, and Richard Paul as Jerry Falwell. The really outstanding performance however is that of Courtney Love as the stripper / model Flynt loved and married until her death aged 33 when she drowned in the bath after weakening due to suffering from AIDS. In actuality, Flynt had five wives, though the film depicts him as only ever married to Love’s Althea Leasure, who was his fourth wife. This is a great film, about porn without actually being a porn-movie – a study of one of America’s most unlikely underdogs. Arthur Chappell