It’s like a depressing sequel to his memoir, rather than an adaptation of it.

| Jul 26, 2022

The film provides a fascinating glimpse into gay life in Hollywood in the pre-AIDS era and the challenges of actors maintaining a forced heterosexual image when in reality they weren't.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 14, 2022

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood pays homage to both the man and his contribution, even as it hints at darker, painful elements of Scottys past. That dimension only makes the man and his story all the more intriguing.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 20, 2022

He's a renegade, an iconoclast but not a particularly introspective one. A great storyteller, yes, but not an inward looking one.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 4, 2021

Beyond the great sex stories, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood is an often-moving time capsule of a period that valued both excess and secrets.

| May 28, 2020

Tyrnauer avoids making Bowers' narrative one of tabloid trash, but the subject's way of presenting his material is too problematic to endorse.

| May 28, 2020

If you've already pored over Bowers' book, there's a bit of redundancy and repetitiveness to the gentleman hustler's revelations. But honestly, who tires of hearing gossip about A-list gang bangs, fetishes, and hook-ups?

| Original Score: B+ | May 28, 2020

We get a lot of opaque Scottys, all semi-attached to an alternate "history" that feels maddeningly incomplete and barely surface-scratched.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 28, 2020

A living rebuke to the imagined America of Hollywood's golden age.

| Mar 4, 2020

[Director Matt Tyrnauer] seems to have surrendered all control to the chaos machine that is Scotty Bowers.

| Jan 16, 2020

A non-critical but provocative and salacious 'tell-all' biopic documentary on the now 95--year-old Scotty Bowers.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 3, 2019

(Written by James Kleinmann) A frank and revealing documentary which shines a light on the early years of Hollywood and has compelling themes which resonate in today's world.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 4, 2019

Watching Bowers cheerfully recounting his past will no doubt be amusing and eyebrow-raising for students of classic Hollywood in the same way that it can be fun to leaf through a copy of Kenneth Anger's equally salacious history ''Hollywood Babylon.''

| Feb 21, 2019

This wasn't meant to be a pretty story. Pretty stories are the ones movie studios tell us about their most powerful actors to coax us into theaters...

| Feb 20, 2019

There's not much here that will surprise anyone, but it remains a breezy watch.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 21, 2018

The doc is made with a high level of technical skill and-crucially-compassion. It's another outstanding feature in a rich year for documentary filmmaking.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 13, 2018

A better, sharper documentary would clearly set out the difference between the revelation of eminent people privately pursuing their natural drives and the degradation of human exploitation.

| Nov 6, 2018

Gossip hounds will best appreciate this affectionate documentary.

| Sep 29, 2018

What ultimately makes Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood such a treat is that Tyrnauer invites us to hang out with Bowers, walk a mile in his shoes.

| Aug 29, 2018

The litany becomes repetitive and, frankly, quite dull even if mostly truthful.

| Aug 27, 2018