LET'S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE ... 'AUTO FOCUS' EXPLORES BOB CRANE'S OBSESSION WITH FILMING KINKY SEX.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Bob Crane has been dead for almost a quarter of a century now, but in death he remains far larger than he was in life, and not just because ``Hogan's Heroes'' remains a perennial fixture in reruns.

Partly, it's the way Crane died - the actor, two weeks shy of his 50th birthday, was found bludgeoned to death, a telephone cord wrapped around his neck, in his Scottsdale, Ariz., condominium in 1978. Partly it's because the murder remains unsolved, although there's no shortage of suspects and conspiracy theories. And partly it's the revelations that came after his death, that Crane, an actor with a boyish, all-American family-man image, was in fact a serial womanizer who obsessively and enthusiastically documented his sexual activities with video equipment, a then-fledgling technology.

``Frankly, I've always been amazed that no one has made a movie about my father's life,'' says Robert David Crane, Crane's oldest son who lives in Van Nuys, not far from his childhood home in Tarzana. ``It has all the elements that fascinate and titillate people.''

Crane is finally getting that movie, although - like just about everything in his life - it's brimming with controversy. Filmmaker Paul Schrader, who has made a career out of exploring male sexuality and the wages of secret sin in movies like ``American Gigolo'' and ``Hardcore,'' has directed ``Auto Focus,'' a film that isn't so much about Crane as it is the corrosive effect of fame on both the celebrity and those around him.

``I love this character,'' Schrader says, regarding Crane as less a real person than a variation of a type he has worked with his entire career. ``Bob Crane was a minor celebrity, this clueless man who thought he was one thing but was in fact another and was acting in a manner that was counterproductive to his own desires. And I had this fascinating subplot straight out of (Joe Orton's play) 'Prick Up Your Ears.' '' He pauses. ``Well, a heterosexual midlife American TV star version of it, anyway.''

That subplot became the main focus of Schrader's movie. At the beginning of the film, we see Crane (ably played by Greg Kinnear) working as a popular morning DJ on KNX-AM in Los Angeles. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and lives comfortably in the Valley with a son and two daughters. His ambitions for further celebrity are realized when he becomes a star via ``Hogan's Heroes,'' a TV sitcom improbably set in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.

Then on the set of ``Hogan's,'' Crane meets John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a high-tech gadgets guy who sells Crane home video equipment and changes his life forever. Carpenter (not the director of ``Halloween'' and other films) and Crane groove on the new technology and obsessively embark on a never-ending pursuit of women, which, as portrayed in the movie, becomes more about joyless exhibitionism than sexual satisfaction.

Family strife

Not surprisingly, ``Auto Focus'' has deeply divided what remains of Crane's fractured family. Robert David Crane, the oldest child from Crane's first marriage, served as a consultant on the film. He read the script, suggested some changes and even appears in a cameo, taking home $20,000 for his troubles.

Crane, 52, says he wished the movie had given a little more balance to his dad's career and family life, but understands that it's a ``movie, not an A&E 'Biography.' '' Crane, who shared a Westwood apartment with his father for the six months prior to his death, believes the movie ``captures the essence of the man,'' and says his dad would have been proud to be profiled by ``an accomplished filmmaker like Paul Schrader.''

Crane's youngest son, Robert Scott Crane (he goes by Scotty), thinks otherwise, as does his mother, Crane's second wife, Patricia. Scotty has gripes about the movie's details (he says his dad didn't tape women without their knowledge, have S&M sex or a penile implant), but mostly he hates the spirit of the whole enterprise.

``It is so clear that Paul Schrader wants to destroy the image of Bob Crane,'' Scotty, 31, says in a phone interview from Seattle, where he runs a recording studio. ``His hatred is undeniable.''

Adds Lee Blackman, the Encino-based attorney representing Scotty and Patricia: ``Bob was never spiraling into this dark situation that gets darker and darker like it is in the movie. He was a happy guy. He loved doing this stuff. This was his hobby. He loved making these movies, and what he made were comedies. He'd take the sex stuff and splice in bits of Jack Benny or Johnny Carson and then put these lavish musical scores in them, all for his own entertainment.''

Between the lines 

Blackman says that while his clients can't sue over what they claim are untruths about Crane, they are contemplating suing the movie's distributor, Sony, over what he calls the film's defamatory lies about Patricia. Blackman says Patricia never hit Crane, as the movie states, or spiraled into alcoholism, as the movie implies. The truth, Scotty says, can be found on his Web site, which features legal documents, police and coroner's reports and a bevy of pornographic photos of his father (which can be viewed for a $3.95 membership fee).

Schrader admits that much of ``Auto Focus'' is fiction. Carpenter was actually a minor figure in Crane's life, and even then, only in the actor's final months. Crane was never the devout Catholic that he is seen to be in the early part of the film and never had a crisis of faith or conscience. And Crane was well into photographing naked women before he got the ``Hogan's Heroes'' gig. The new video technology just made him all the more obsessive about his ``hobby.''

That said, Schrader dismisses the protests of Crane's second family.

``I was told to stay away from them, that they're litigious, they want to control this movie, and if you meet with them, they'll say, ``You took their script,'' Schrader says, referring to an unmade script about Crane that Scotty co-wrote several years ago. ``I know for a fact from people who have seen Scotty's script that it's quite nasty about his father, too. So I've got to believe that the true issue is about power and not portrayal.''

Schrader and Scotty did meet while the movie was shooting in early January, during which time, Scotty says, Schrader offered him $20,000 and a part in the movie if Scotty would sign off on the script. Scotty refused to do so unless changes were made to the movie.

``I'll give you one example,'' Scotty says. ``That S&M scene. That never happened. Schrader said something to the effect of 'I know that Scotty. That's my life. That happened to me. When I was doing 'Hardcore' with George C. Scott, I went to a dominatrix, and she did those things to me. I've always wanted to put it in a script. It's a great scene!' To which I responded, 'Paul, it is a great scene, but it's your life, not my father's. Put it in your biopic. Put it on a fictional character. But don't put it on Bob Crane.' ''

Son vs. son

The story about Schrader and a dominatrix is also described in Peter Biskind's book, ``Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.'' But when it comes to what's true about Bob Crane's life and death, there seems to be little consensus. Says Kinnear: ``I made a policy of removing myself as far from the Jerry Springer side of this story as possible. Passions are running high.''

So when Robert David Crane calls his stepmother a cross between ``Sante Kimes, Bonnie Lee Bakley and Adolf Hitler,'' and says he believes she killed his father, it doesn't rate as much of a surprise. Neither son can let a conversation go by without questioning the other's paternity, and both Robert David and Robert Scott believe the other is selling out their father for money.

Kinnear says that when he was alive, Crane was ``oblivious to the damage he was doing to himself and his family.'' Twenty-four years later, it seems that those wounds are still open and nowhere close to being healed. One thing is certain: Anyone who sees ``Auto Focus'' will never look at ``Hogan's Heroes'' the same way again.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) DARK SIDE OF HOGAN

Greg Kinnear explores obsessions of Bob Crane in `Auto Focus'

Greg Kinnear and Maria Bello in ``Auto Focus''

(2) no caption (Bob Crane)

(3) Rita Wilson, as Bob Crane's first wife, and Greg Kinnear as the ``Hogan's Heroes'' star in ``Auto Focus.''