Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes
Drawing on interviews, film clips, and never-before-aired crime scene footage and family photos, this documentary on adult film icon John C. Holmes examines his early life, his entry into porn and the creation of the Johnny Wadd film series. It discusses his romantic relationships, including ones with his first wife, registered nurse Sharon Holmes; his underage mistress, Dawn Schiller; and his second wife, porn actress Misty Dawn. Finally, it covers Holmes' involvement with drug lord and LA nightclub impresario Eddie Nash and the gruesome Wonderland murders, as well as Holmes’ death from complications related to AIDS. Narrated by journalist Mike Sager, whose Rolling Stone story "The Devil and John Holmes" inspired the movies Boogie Nights and Wonderland, Wadd features interviews with Ron Jeremy, Larry Flynt, Misty Dawn, Aunt Peg, Sharon Holmes, Dawn Schiller, and Paul Thomas Anderson, among others, in addition to footage from the actor’s career.
- "The ultimate searching - and shocking - exposé of the porn world."
- "Like Holmes, Wadd is seedy, twisted, a bit on the long side--and creepily fascinating."
- "Wadd leaves us to ponder the difference between Holmes' special 'gift' and, say, another star's beautiful singing voice. When you come right down to it, they're pretty much the same thing, but distributed to different parts of the body."
- "Holmes' story isn't pretty, but it's fascinating, in no small part because the people Paley interviews offer a glimpse into a brief time when making porn was an act of rebellion that attracted a diverse and eccentric group of filmmakers and performers."
- " The film... is an exceptionally thorough adventure in docu-journalism loaded with an obscene number of interviews with experts, co-stars, directors, producers and technicians -- among them actress Misty Dawn, film critic Kenneth Turan and "Boogie Nights" director Paul Thomas Anderson, who turned to Holmes' career and his Johnny Wadd alter ego when he was conjuring Dirk Diggler."
- "Picaresque, funny, cautionary and hugely enjoyable, "Wadd" focuses on the cultural impact of gawky country boy turned genre folk hero John C. Holmes and his natural endowment."
- "Wadd is a complex and striking portrait of a complicated individual and the ways in which talent and timing create popular culture as much as our own desires."
- "Guaranteed to provoke Lacanian scholars and porn connoisseurs (not always distinct categories), the documentary Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes is indisputable evidence of the power a really big dick exercises on the fantasies of those who behold it."
Gallery
Awards & Recognition
Best Documentary Feature
SXSW Film Festival