Amidst queer-eyed commentators overintellectualizing male-on-male skinflicks like Nights in Black Leather, it takes filmmaker John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray) to become a cut-the-crap artist and explain early in Peter Berlin: That Man that German-born Berlin — actually named Armin, scion of the aristocratic Hoyningen-Huene family — was to gay sensibilities what the pneumatic Jayne Mansfield was to dumbstruck heterosexual gawkers. With his genetically-gifted Nordic looks, a superbly muscled body, chest-baring vests and skin-tight pants (evidently stuffed with a dozen rags, says Waters), the blond Dutch Boy paint-can lookalike was a sight that would stop traffic in San Francisco.

More than one commentator compares Berlin to Greta Garbo (that accent and jaded Euro-tude). Bettie Page also comes to mind as an equivalent fetish-figure. Berlin's appearance, poses and films helped define gay male sexuality, we're told, almost as much as the beefcake art of Tom of Finland did. A skilled photographer, Berlin took many of his own most celebrated pictures, working alone — often double-exposing himself gaping at the wonder of … himself. Moreover, like Page, Berlin didn't seem to be in it just for the money, and he performed a career disappearing act rather than let his public see him age. He also spurned offers that might have mainstreamed him in modeling and fashion; too much trouble.

Berlin doesn't hide from cameras here, though. Visited in present-day San Francisco, the well-preserved 60-something (though he sadly claims he feels 90) looks so much like actor Owen Wilson (especially in the male-model satire Zoolander) you can't shake the feeling this is a cunning mockumentary setup. The Blair Butch Project, perhaps.

Certainly there's a sense Berlin might still be into self-mythologizing, wistfully saying that, even with a 20-year relationship with a drug addict named James, he never met a man who turned him on the way he did other guys. Therefore, this walking aphrodisiac, we're informed, has been sexually-inactive ever since the early '70s. Though, a la Bill Clinton, Berlin may have an idiosyncratic definition of what constitutes sex. Still, the XXX-rated idol never contracted AIDS while most all his friends have died.

Berlin's discretion spills over into storytelling, which, despite tales of Warhol and Mapplethorpe, despite the sad account of James' final hours, never really gives the narrative much steam or thrust (hey, if you think it's easy reviewing a gay porn-star documentary without using loaded words, you try it). It's great that Berlin has not come to a lurid end or become grotesque, but one wishes there were more of John Waters and his sass. The vintage '60s tune "Captain Groovy and His Bubblegum Army" is a nice touch of camp, though, and partisans in the film-vs.-video argument will have lots to debate in the surprisingly handsome clips from the pornography.

At least that's a good excuse they can give their girlfriends for attending. Homophobes skulking to Strosacker can claim they're researching the awful sodomites for upcoming church sermons, especially one interviewee's remark that he didn't know Peter Berlin — he just had sex with him.

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