Throwback Thursday: Let’s Revisit One Of The Best Movies About Porn

Dirk Is Still Diggling After All These Years!

Hey Fleshbot fans! We’re getting in the Porno Wayback Machine on this Throwback Thursday and going back to recall one mainstream film that’s all about porn! In 1997, director Paul Thomas Anderson took his mockumentary short film The Dirk Diggler Story and, uhm, fleshed it out so to speak, adding a star-studded cast and bringing us the Oscar-nominated and critically acclaimed Boogie Nights--- cue the bow-chicka-wow-wow music and let’s check it out!

The film opens on a young dishwasher called Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) who dropped out of school and toils away in the nightclub kitchen while he still lives with his abusive mother. Life is pretty grim for Eddie until he meets Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) at work. Jack is a porn director, and his way of auditioning Eddie is to invite him over to fuck starlet Roller Girl (Heather Graham) while Jack has a front row seat. She gets her name from the fact that she never removes her roller skates for sex. Eddie’s sexual prowess and his oversized schlong evidently meet with Jack’s approval. Soon after another blow-up at home with his mother, he moves out and moves in with Jack. Late one night in a hot tub conversation, Eddie Adams disappears, and Dirk Diggler is born.

Life starts moving fast for Dirk with hot starlets like Roller Girl and Amber Waves (Julianne Moore, whose character inspired a Tori Amos song) to fuck on camera, and the rigors of fame demanding his time and energy. Suddenly, he has tons of friends, and all of his needs and most of his wants are met. He goes from rags to riches, buying a house, a wardrobe, and a fancy sports car, but like many stories of fast fame, it all comes at a hefty price tag. Dirk’s life becomes a bunch of parties strung together in a coke haze as time marches on from the disco vibes of the 1970s into the fast-paced and more cruel 1980s, and the Golden Age of Porn continues apace.

Eventually, crazier shit begins happening, and drug-induced party hijinks turn into, oh, a double murder and a suicide happening at a New Year’s party, for instance. I will not spoil the ending, but our characters do take a winding path to redemption and learn some pretty harsh lessons along with all of the glamour and excess in this engaging story.

You can spot so many stars in this movie, some of which have sadly passed on since it was made--- look out for Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Nicole Parker and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Also, porn legend Nina Hartley makes several appearances in the film. The soundtrack is also an excellent time capsule of tunes from the era so check it out on your favorite music app next time you feel exceptionally groovy.

Boogie Nights is available for streaming (at press time) on Paramount+