Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

8/3/2018

“Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood” wears a lot of hats, none of which quite fits. A salacious tell-all about the hidden sex lives of postwar movie stars; a peek at the underbelly of the repressive moral dictates of the studio system; a breezy biography of a self-described Hollywood prostitute and procurer; and a psychosexual study of a possibly damaged victim of extreme childhood abuse. Only the last offers a clue to interpreting the movie’s more astonishing revelations and unprobed corners. Until then, Matt Tyrnauer’s gossipy portrait of Scotty Bowers, an impish nonagenarian and former Marine, listens without judgment as he describes decades of servicing the closeted hungers of stars like Rock Hudson and Katharine Hepburn, helped by an eager network of World War II buddies. B