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So apparently there was a steady line of randy Hollywoodsters taking advantage of a hedonistic drive-thru emporium at the local gas station. Wow. An effervescent and constantly smiling nonagenarian hustler Scotty Bowers says so. And the facts do too.

The sheer number of A-list stars and starlets named, and their varied sexual preferences sounds shocking even by today's unshockable standards. But when presented so matter-of-factly, and with such fondness by the charismatic Scotty Bowers, it all seems perfectly alright.

Seems there was more to the post war than just a baby boom. Waiting to protect their secrets, Scotty finally published his racy memoirs after his customers had passed, and now much of it is documented in this film. When asked if outing someone posthumously is kosher, Scotty asks, "what's wrong with being gay, baby?" Indeed.

Besides an endless stream of tabloid fodder tales, this documentary focuses on a very complex character. Someone whose free formed attitude towards sex is at both times bewildering and very refreshing, has a crackerjack memory and lust for life as he approaches the century mark, but also shows hints of hidden sadness. Scotty is a complicated man, who has lived a wild life, made many people very happy, but seems to be missing something. Baby.

What a nostalgic and historical view of the post world war 2 era of Hollywood in the mid 1940's through the next few decades provided by ninety (90) year old "the arranger" Scotty Bower. He remains quite the personable and charming character even as a nonagenarian house hoarder with charisma running through his old veins.

Am I a believer in Scotty Bowers claims? Absolutely. He hob nobbed with many Hollywood gay stars of the 1940's - 1970's, and kept their trysts on the QT until some decades later after all had passed in to the heaven's gates. Most of us had heard the many rumors about some of the biggest stars such as Rock Hudson, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Randolph Scott, and Cary Grant preferring same sex partners but Scotty explaining his intimate interactions with these A lister Hollywood stars came across as if he was talking to his closest friends and not as if he was BS'ing us all.

What I really found quite interesting about Scotty's secret history of the Hollywood stars, royalty and Hollywood executives was how forthcoming some of these stars became as they grew older and how good it must have felt to finally be able to come out of the proverbial closet, even if it was Scotty who had to convince us his stories were all true.

Scotty is definitely a house hoarder and his was a pimp and prostitute lifestyle that he emphatically declares he chose to live and quite enjoyed every minute of living. This is a documentary that I will most likely watch again as Scotty's unabashed proclamations are now considered historical God rest his weary soul. RIP Scotty.

As a heterosexual male I give this documentary an 8 out of 10 IMDB rating.

I love celebrity autobiographies but I don't like gossip. So I thought I wouldn't care much for this documentary but watched it anyway, and came away surprised at how interesting I thought it was. It's not that juicy, and it's not that revelatory, but it surely proves that Scotty is no liar. (Almost) every word that comes out of his mouth rings true and sincere, and he has old friends and lots of photos to back up his claims. The film is part comedy, part tragedy, and partly a grim look at what hoarding can do to a person. Much like the interesting documentary "The Projectionist", it's a big raunchy, but it doesn't make the subject out to be any sort of hero or any sort of demon. He just was, he existed. Scotty had a very interesting life, whether you approve of it or not, and I'm glad that he told his story.

Since I enjoyed the juicy, can't-put-it down book, I was disappointed in the film. Instead of focusing more on Bowers' rollicking sexual adventures in the '40s and '50s, the filmmaker spends much of the time focusing on the now 95 year old Bowers, and his wife, puttering around his multiple hoarder-cluttered homes.

The real story is about Bowers' star-studded sexual past, not his relatively downbeat present. The film should have been racy, fun and juicy, but it ends up being primarily glum.

Scotty Bauers' book about his business as a Hollywood procurer in his book, Full Service, is a prelude to this not-quite-salacious documentary about his life servicing the sexual needs of mid-century Hollywood elite, especially the gay ones. Although Scotty's personal life is disorganized and cluttered, his procuring activity as Hollywood's "pimp to the stars" was universally acclaimed by those who used his services.

Getting dates, or providing " an introduction service" as Scotty calls it, for the likes of Walter Pidgeon and George Cukor was all in a day's work for the Hollywood Blvd. Richfield Gas Station attendant he was while he arranged liaisons there and around town. This brief explanation of the documentary might make it seem juicy, but I assure you it is not quite that. Despite the cast of characters in need of same sex dates like Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, most of Scotty's revelations are not new and hardly in depth.

Randolph Scott, Tyrone Power, Cole Porter, and Charles Laughton are among the others who used Scotty's services, including his own. His three-way adventure with sex goddesses Lana Turner and Ava Gardner is one of the more alluring bits of gossip, but again only a fleeting mention. Those limited details are what make this a superficial if not charming doc.

Most of the doc centers on Scotty, now 94, an impish gossip whose obvious aging seems the opposite of the well-kept elderly like Cary Grant, who appears several times as a young gay star guarding his orientation better than Rock Hudson. As Scotty shows us the dumpy houses where he stores his personal junk, this inveterate collector is just not that interesting; you'd think he must have some stars' memorabilia-not.

Although director Matt Trynauer jazzes it up with male frontal nudity and vintage Hollywood footage, Scotty's shuffling senescence lends the dusty mood of an old album full of his photos and too few of Hollywood stars. Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood guards those secrets too well for my adolescent-like curiosity.

"Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood" (2017 release; 98 min,) is a documentary about Scotty Bowers. As the movie opens, there is a celebration of Scotty's 90th birthday at the Chateau Marmont. We learn that Scotty just recently has written a memoir called "Full Service" (which is the basis for this film), in which he retells of the days right after WWII when he by happenstance became the "pimp" of gay and lesbian Hollywood, the "center of an alternative world", in which famous movie stars like Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn lived lives that were very different from their public personae, and calling on the services provided by Scotty. "Everything cost $20", Scotty laughs. Along the way we alo learn how today's Scotty has become a compulsive obsessive hoarder... At this point we're not even 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from up-and-coming documentarian Matt Tymauer, whose previous film was the excellent "Citizen Jane: Battle For the City". Here he picks up on a long unknown fact, namely how one guy became the Hollywood king-pimp starting in the late 40s. Tymauer tries to take that fait divers to build a documentary about "gays and lesbians in Hollywood" over the years. Yes, there are glimpses here and there (in particular as we get to the AIDS era), but overall it feels like this film is a missed opportunity to do an in-depth look at that topic. Instead, we get a close look on someone who seems like a nice enough guy, but it is as if he stands in the way of a far more important documentary. The fact that we get sidetracked by the compulsive hoarding behavior only reinforces that feeling...

"Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood" premiered at last year;s Toronto International Film Festival (yes, almost a year ago) to positive acclaim. The movie finally made it to my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati this weekend. The Sunday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended so-so (about 10 people). If you are in the mood for a documentary that is brought mostly with a light touch about how gays and lesbians got by in the Hollywood era of the 40 and 50s, I'd suggest you check this out, be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray and draw your own conclusion.

Gossips about the film people in Los Angeles and their erotic delusions have always occupied the headlines. The sexual activities of people from all social levels at the end reveal: one, that bizarre appetites are everywhere; two, that we are victims of our own puritanism and debauchery; and three, that such news only arouses curiosity and little contributes to our lives. If not, consider what have you learned from the ignoble aspects of the lives of Marilyn, O.J. or Polanski.

The story of Scotty Bowers is film and literature material, without a doubt, and «Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood» proves it. It has become a documentary inspired by his biography «Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Life of the Stars.» All the surviving interviewees who personally knew Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, the Dukes of Windsor or Rock Hudson, confirm the revelations and affirm that Scotty does not lie. No salacious gossip in the style of Kenneth Anger in «Hollywood Babylon», which for a long time was the best-selling gossip book about film people.

At age 90, with most of his clientele already dead, Scotty published his account of sexual services offered to personalities of the L.A. movie industry (and other industries) and left the half-population of the city speechless. For being silly, if you ask me, for still believing in the Oscar, in Walt Disney and E.T. Before the camera, Scotty does not hide anything from his contemporary life, which he shared with singer Lois Bowers, who died in October 2018.

At the beginning of the movie, Scotty seemed an unpleasant person, simply because he calls a spade a spade. Then, I put aside my hypocritical self and let myself be guided by his humor, his strength to move on in 21st century L.A., for his love for Lois and his sincerity. Scotty does not hide anything about himself! From the abuse of his father in the country and the group of priests who used him as a child prostitute when he was growing up in Chicago, going through the interviews he gave to Dr. Alfred Kinsey about the sexual behavior of the average American male (and the orgies that he took him to see "the action" in the front row), until he got his job at a gas station in L.A. where he started connecting his friends with the stars, and he kept his first wife and daughter with his own body. The Hollywood anecdotes do not stop: all the girls he took to Hepburn, the nights spent with an undecided Spencer Tracy, George Cukor's gay parties, the threesomes with Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra, his anecdotes of J. Edgar Hoover, Laurence Olivier, Walter Pidgeon, the secrets of the Duchess of Windsor, who held the reins of sexual mischief in their marriage...

The documentary follows the traditional structure of interviews, archival material, music, without forcing the viewer into a judgment about Scotty Bowers. There is no moralism here or pharisee positions. It is a dramatic portrait, perhaps sordid for some, of a man who forgives abuse, but who does not grasp it in all its dimensions. In spite of the humor, the vintage music and the images of the famous, it is a very moving portrait: the memories of family, the evidence of all the pain that he still does not recognize; the exaggerated and unhealthy accumulation of his memorabilia in different houses, the deterioration of his home, Lois's reluctance to know her husband's past, her nights singing in nightclubs while he lovingly watches her...

This is a revealing film, a humane, compassionate and open portrait that, as expected, was ignored by the Oscars, Globes, associations of critics, film-clubs and independent filmmakers.

Scotty Bowers provided sexual partners for Hollywood's rich and famous he claims included Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Ava Gardner, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy for years. The Matt Tyrnauer-directed documentary, 'Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood,' is a fascinating and undeniably irresistible look into that world. Entertaining as it is, the movie leaves its its documentary subject's surface mostly unscratched - not fully written.

Scotty Bowers certainly seemed like a likeable guy and he served his country well in a wild, wild life, but never have I seen anyone so proud of pimping and providing oral sex to many, very many, according to him, primarily in the men's room of a gas station! Much of what is presented here was more acceptable in a closeted era for gay men, but all of this today might've landed him in jail. Different times, different standards, though I don't think most of this would ever be considered appropriate or even legal. Much of this seems true as I've read other things in the past that support a lot of this, but some of it is also a little questionable with barely a soul discussed still being alive to agree or disagree. There are some elderly observers who support some of this, but not many as most of them are deceased as well. I don't think it's a great documentary, but it's an entertaining and/or intriguing one if you are into movie stars from the past. This is probably distasteful to some, but not to me. Despite what it's about, it never comes across as really offensive I guess due to his bubbly, always positive way of viewing a life he was proud of.

Scotty Bowers is supposed to be presented as some kind of likable man who offered a sex services to bisexual or closeted men and some women in the 50's and 60's He had a stable of male hustlers who he employed and seemed so proud of his deeds. Here is a man who had severe sexual trauma from his youth and used it to become a predator that the Hollywood types honored. He just appeared to me to be a totally self absorbed predator who was really good at marketing himself and his perversions and the closeted actors fed on his slime. This film does nothing to help LGBT values but does everything to promote how gays sexualize everything.

And he married and hid his secrets from his wife. These old retired hustlers in the movie seemed proud of their antics . It appears like old Hollywood was just a community of sick, narcissistic sex addicts . Sickening, but I must say a very fascinating watch. The hoarding was presented and that could have been another film itself. The man really needed professional help but never got it. Instead he became a sex addict to the stars. I took a shower after watching this one.

Pumping gas by day and clients by night tinsel town pimp extroadanaire Scotty Bowers made quite a living in the 50s catering to the Hollywood set in search of utter discretion. Walter Pidgeon, Charles Laughton, George Cukor, Tracy and Hepburn even the Duke and Duchess of Wales were clients. At 90 he revisits his days of glory when he was both player and manager doing a threesome with Ava Gardner and Lana Turner among others. He even brought Al Kinsey to gang bangs for "research" purposes. It is pretty saucy stuff, a jolt to the film historian.

Ancient Scotty is in excellent shape reaching final count down to the century mark as he climbs ladders and displays an enthusiasm decades younger than he is. Unapologetic and proud he says he provided fun to an uptight society where morals clauses held famous careers in the balance. No doubt his unique service proved invaluable to his customers.

With the real story 50 years in the past, director Matt Tyraneur has to deal with Bowers a pack rat of immense proportions stumbling through mountains of trash in a couple of deeded properties, climbing ladders, stealing cat food, coveting a sidewalk toilet and tooling around LA while he dishes on Hudson, Grant and the good times. There is also testimony to his friendship and loyalty and dependability seeing through a scheduled trick the day he found out his daughter was dead. Yes, I know.

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood is a by product of the major success of his tell all tome Full Service. Purportedly it has even more salacious detail as Bowers re-buries legends. But why? He was extremely well off and took so much pride in keeping things on the down low for these folks while alive. There was also a degree of underground fame to go along with it. But even his wife thinks he's a sleaze for doing it, especially since he's in the final stretch of an exciting life (Chicago streets as a kid, action in the Pacific as a marine) to stumble and fall as he rats out the people that gave him an excellent living. It's a lousy last act, the gossip of an ingrate dishing titillating trash while living in the middle of it. You might want to shower after watching it for a number of reasons.

Rumors. It emanates especially with its delusion of grandeur of those in Hollywood. From the wicked book of Anger to the Tabloid coverage, there is something fun and oddly addicting with this story. In this film, another rumor-monger is on the fray BUT does he?

A known hustler during the late Hollywood Golden age, it follows Scotty as he tries to recount his life as a Hollywood's 'favorite gigolo', while preparing for the release of his book. From Scat queens, Closet lesbians and homosexual, Scotty bares it all in an explicit way. No one really would know. The film present proof on his part, very solid ones. But with those big names, only stories. Long stories. A very interesting swan song for a man of the trade, its really difficult to think if he is truly telling the truth, because I hate to speculate for the dead. The film is very blank canvas. You see what it wants to tell. Anyhow a very interesting film from the vantage point of a very great storyteller. Would rewatch. [4/5]

True story of Scotty Bowers. He was a young. Handsome guy who (in the 1950s and 60s) provided men and women to closeted actors and actresses. Most of the movie consists of Bowers (still alive and in his 90s) talking to the camera and recounting his life. It also has him visiting people he worked with who back up his story 100%. There's also talk about who was gay back then. Naturally all the stars they talk about are conveniently dead. There's also some hardcore gay sex footage. (It's not rated but would easily get an NC-17 if it were).

This isn't a bad movie but I was bored silly. I actually dozed off a few times! The film says the same things multiple times over and none of the revelations of who was gay are shocking. It just shows us again and again that Bowers is a compulsive hoarder--the state of his house is downright disgusting. So it was somewhat interesting but I was bored.

I'm a huge fan of classic Hollywood. Watch movies, consume documentaries, listen to podcasts, and read books on the subject. I was looking forward to this documentary, having heard so much about it. Not particularly well made nor revealing. Really, more a portrait of this one man than it is about Hollywood - and since I didn't find Scotty particularly interesting or likable, I turned it off.

Watch The Celluloid Closet instead.

Wish I could have been there during the golden time

Pandering to a tabloid worthy attention seeker, this, so called doc, wastes both the film maker's talent and whatever meager audience's time. Cary Grant once said something to the effect, after you die they can and will say anything they want about you. Pathetic but accurate.