Tony Palmer's 1973 Film About Hugh Hefner, The Founder And Editor Of Playboy, To Be Released On October 21, 2014

Pottstown, PA. (Top40 Charts/ MVD Entertainment) This 1973 documentary by the award-winning director Tony Palmer shone a light on the multi-millionaire Hugh Hefner and his Playboy empire. It gave Hefner the opportunity to tell his story and, of course, it offended the usual suspects - Mary Whitehouse, the Daily Express and many more. The film charts Hefner's rise from a small-time publisher to Playboy becoming one of the world's best known brands.

As Hefner says: "We had no money at all, and I mean literally no money. I doubt that any major magazine in our time has ever been started with as little initial investment. My own investment in Playboy was $600, all of it borrowed. The entire enterprise is now valued, in 1973, at something around $200 million."

He continues: "The real essence of Playboy was trying to put not just sex, but the whole notion of play and pleasure, back into the American concept of living. And that proved to be a little more revolutionary than I realized when I started."



The 53-minute film will be available on DVD on October 21st via MVD Entertainment Group.

"A brilliant, thoroughly good humoured and subtle dissection of an extraordinary man by a master film maker." - The Times

"As distasteful as one might have expected."- The Daily Express

"It blatantly flouted TV's legal obligation not to offend against good taste and decency"
- Mary Whitehouse