- published: 27 Oct 2011
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Auto Focus is a 2002 American biographical film directed by Paul Schrader that stars Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by Michael Gerbosi is based on the book The Murder of Bob Crane by Robert Graysmith.
It tells the story of actor Bob Crane, an affable radio show host and amateur drummer who found success on Hogan's Heroes, a popular television sitcom about a prisoner of war camp during World War II, and his dramatic descent into the underbelly of Hollywood after the series was cancelled.
Disc jockey turned actor Bob Crane develops a secret personal life, focusing on his relationship with John Henry Carpenter, an electronics expert involved with the nascent home video market.
Encouraged by Carpenter and enabled by his expertise, Crane — portrayed as a church-going, clean-cut family man (though he really never was) — becomes a sex addict obsessed with sleeping with as many women as possible and recording those encounters with video and photographic equipment, usually with Carpenter participating. Auto Focus depicts Crane's life from his sitcom success through his post-Hogan's Heroes efforts to sustain a viable career — mostly in dinner theatre — until his murder.