As Bob Dylan once said, money doesn't talk, it swears - and never as coursely as in Tinseltown's movie and sex trades; the Heidi Fleiss scandal erupted, as if at the apex of a thrashing Venn diagram, where the two industries traded blows.And money is the prime mouthpiece here: everyone - including former LA police chief Daryl Gates - wants cash up front. In making this documentary, Nick Broomfield becomes just another john, with an ever-ready wad of cash for answers.In 1993, the director set off to interview Heidi. How did an apparently well-adjusted, middle-class teenager, the daughter of a Beverly Hills doctor, get sucked into such a life? However, during pre-production, Fleiss was convicted of pandering and sentenced to three years in prison, during which time she was also charged with money laundering and tax evasion. Broomfield was thus obliged to seek out anyone with connections to her, and Hollywood Madam chronicles his efforts between Fleiss's June 1993 arrest and her trial in May 1995.Broomfield had visited this territory before with Chicken Ranch, in which he documented the daily lives of sex workers in a Texan whorehouse. But that film, candid as it is, looks positively prurient beside Hollywood Madam, which unspools like a sordid film noir, with its taut score, and roll call of pimps, porn stars, informants and corrupt cops. After viewing this you'll want to scrub yourself down with a wire brush and Dettol.Initially, Broomfield lightly skirts the edge of his subject - looking up various individuals on the scandal's periphery. "I was wondering if you could put us in touch with Heidi Fleiss?" he asks a bemused prostitute. "What are you on about?" comes the retort. After this fruitless foreplay, he begins to penetrate the inner sanctum - uncovering an unholy trio of grotesques; TV director Ivan Nagy, Heidi's former boyfriend (and the man who possibly grassed her up); the foetid, bed-dwelling Madame Alex - once Heidi's mentor and the foremost brothel keeper in Hollywood until Fleiss spirited away her clientele; and Victoria Sellers, daughter of Peter and Britt Ekland, and Fleiss's former best friend, unfresh out of rehab.Admittedly, there's much here that you could have easily gleaned from endless tabloid column inches and trashy talk shows. But Broomfield gives us more - the stuff TV could never show: such as Ivan Nagy's home video of Heidi, reluctantly stripping for him as he goads her on - "banter, fun and games", he smirks - and eliciting one of the film's more lurid exchanges, concerning the colour green.Here too are graphic stories from the trade. Sellers recalls a client attempting to place a coat hanger inside himself(family planning advisers will be relieved to know the hanger was wearing a condom). Gaby, another Fleiss callgirl relates how many clients - those well-heeled Arabs and Hollywood A-Listers, the anonymous names in Heidi's infamous 'Black Book' - simply wanted them to watch while they did drugs. "It's much better to have a meal with someone and an intellectual conversation", she adds hilariously. Most agree that their gentlemen preferred blondes, and specifically "typical, Californian surfer girl-next-door types. You could be an acne-faced dog - as long as you were blonde".Nobody has a good word to say about anybody. Madam Alex, says Nagy, is "pure evil - devastatingly evil". Heidi, says Sellers, is "a mean, ice-cold bitch". Meanwhile Nagy denies pimping Heidi to Madam Alex for $500. "Look around this room" he gestures at his original art collection. "Do I look like I need $500 dollars?" No... but what's with the bullet holes in his ceiling? And who is the mysterious Israeli known only as "Cookie"? Everybody's telling different stories. Is anybody telling the truth? Or has truth become another commodity to be bought, sold and traded along with everyone else? Nagy's so slippery he could be melted down for lubricants and Madam Alex isn't saying zip - she died shortly after the film was completed. Answers suggest themselves, yet remain tantalisingly out of reach: was it the fault of her hippie liberal parents? Ivan Nagy's influence? Yes, everybody's hiding something, including Broomfield, with his well-honed faux-naif persona - not to mention subjective editing of the documentary itself. Only Fleiss, after finally granting Broomfield an interview, seems halfway on the level, coming across as surprisingly down-to-earth, sharp, attractive and witty - if not entirely trustworthy. It's the one moment of grace. But for the most part, this film is akin to being stalked by evil, chuckling pimps while trapped in an ever replicating maze of funhouse mirrors.

Those who take a look at this hoping for a wild romp thru a world of sex, drugs, big money, celebrities, and California sun-baked sleaze are in for a little surprise. Yes, there is some of that, but mostly this is a mind-boggling tale of screwy relationships and endless back-stabbing. Heidi Fleiss, the daughter of a liberal doctor and a prostitute turned madame, is at the center of this story. Her prosecution made headlines in the early 1990s, and this movie attempts to understand her and her labyrinthine relationships with sleazy charmers like elderly Madame Alex and second-rate producer-director Ivan Nagy. Broomfield and his crew do a good job of trying to come to grips with this odd, and very L.A., cast of characters, many of whom seem unable to not perform when a camera is turned on them. Interesting secondary characters pop up, like a shadowy underworld character named Cookie; L.A. police chief Darryl Gates, who accepts a nice cash sum before his interview; crooked top detective Mike B. (can't think of his name right now); and porn stars Ron Jeremy and Tisa. At the end, it is still not clear who has done what to whom and why, but you do have some insight into the dark side of the sunny Southland.

Intrepid documentarian Nick Broomfield looks to uncover the real story behind the notorious Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss in this fascinating, repellent film.Broomfield is, as usual, totally fearless, and uses his oh-so upright British bearing ("I'm doing a piece for the BBC")to mask the fact that he's a complete gutter-crawling slimebag, able to hold court with the sleaziest characters imaginable. At first, Fleiss won't grant Broomfield an interview (she is arrested for violating her probation shortly after he arrives in Los Angeles) so he pursues her friends and associates with tunnel-vision tenaciousness.All the neon slime is on display here: pimps, hookers, adult film stars, drug dealers, crooked cops, shady figures of all shapes and sizes. Broomfield goes after them all without fear.The two people he spends the most time with are Madam Alex, a creepy old-world crone from Hungary who controlled the Hollywood flesh trade before Heidi stole it from her, and Ivan Nagy, a smiling, brutish pimp-drug-dealer-movie-director (also Hungarian) and Heidi's ex-boyfriend who also (supposedly) was the one who narc'd on her to the police. The two spend their time on camera telling wild, half-baked stories and making accusations against each other that criss-cross and contradict so often that eventually it becomes clear that they ARE ALL lying to some degree.Fleiss does finally give Broomfield an interview and she comes off quite well. Intelligent, lively, and a keen observer of human nature, she clearly is no dunce, although its tough to believe she could actually go toe-to-toe with either Nagy or Alex.In the end, because he's on screen so much and is such a persistent presence, "Hollywood Madam" is more about Broomfield and his relentless desire to get at the truth than anything. At times, one can only marvel at the audacity of this guy: whether badgering known drug-dealers and pimps until they all but plead with him to GO AWAY, or making what amounts to crank calls to an underworld enforcer (and possible ex-Moussad hit man) Broomfield walks through it all with a zeal it is hard not to admire.

This movie was interesting in that it shows us a side of "Hollywood" many of us will never see otherwise. Its a netherworld of prostitutes and their Madames, pornographers and high powered Hollywood players. The lines blur and meld in this movie. The stories you will hear these people give are so contradictory to each other that it almost keeps you on edge like a mystery movie. Well 'almost' anyway...The obvious lying and doubletalk get tedious after awhile when you suddenly see that it's very possible that EVERYONE in this movie is lying. The movie does not resolve most of these lies either and leaves with a "we'll never know, will we?" attitude. You get the impression Heidi and the other interviewees probably got together after the filming to laugh at the film maker for making him go around in circles. The film maker was toyed with and played for a fool. You will feel like Heidi and her circle of shady characters will have also played you after you see this movie.