Volume 44, Number 2 · February 6, 1997
It's a Wonderful Life
By Louis Menand
The People vs. Larry Flynt
a film by Milos Forman
The People vs. Larry Flynt: The Shooting Script
by Scott Alexander, by Larry Karaszewski. with an afterword by Milos Forman
Newmarket Press, 192 pp., $15.95 (paper)
An Unseemly Man: My Life as Pornographer, Pundit, and Social Outcast
by Larry Flynt, with Kenneth Ross
Dove Books, 265 pp., $22.95
The People vs. Larry Flynt, which opened on Christmas Day, is the story of a free-spirited entrepreneur who dares to flout every canon of piety and taste. Though his irreverence is ratified by an enormous commercial success, he is persecuted incessantly by hypocritical bluenoses, convicted of absurd charges, imprisoned for contempt, and paralyzed by a would-be assassin's bullet. Confined to a wheelchair and in constant physical pain, he sinks into drugs, despair, and near-madness, but he never quits, and in the end his perseverance is rewarded by a unanimous Supreme Court victory in a suit brought against him by the most sanctimonious moralist of the day. Through it all, he is sustained by the great soul-love of his wife, a woman who has overcome poverty and abuse through indomitable spunk, but she dies tragically on the eve of his triumph, and his moment of vindication is made bittersweet by the memory of the more precious thing he has lost. Still, thanks to this man's determination to stand on his rights when all around him, even his attorney, were ready to give him up, we live in a freer country today.
Review, 6771 words
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