Having arrived in this country a year to late to be of any commemorative significance, Todd Hughes and P. David Ebersole's Mansfield 66/67 is a scattershot profile of Jayne Mansfield, who lost her life at the age of 34 in a car crash in New Orleans on 29 June 1967. Seeking to reclaim a maligned reputation in much the same way as Alexandra Dean's overrated Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, this falls way short of the standards that Ebersole set with Hit So Hard (2011), a study of Hole drummer Patty Schemel that was co-scripted by Hughes, with whom Ebersole also served as executive producer on Room 237 (2012), Rodney Ascher's excellent examination of Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's horror classic, The Shining. 

Ever since she adorned the cover of Kenneth Anger's gleefully scurrilous tome, Hollywood Babylon (1959), Mansfield has been more of a curiosity than a celebrity. But, this `true story based on rumor and hearsay' strives to show that Mansfield was much more than a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. However, some of the more bizarre directorial decisions seriously undermine this bid to present the Golden Globe-winning actress as an intelligent and self-aware woman who should not only be hailed as a feminist icon, but also for providing the template for reality stardom. 

The tone is set in the execrable opening segment, as a Greek chorus in long blonde wigs (including one bearded male) explains how Vera Jayne Palmer refused the beauty pageant title of Miss Roquefort Cheese en route to becoming a Hollywood star. But any hope that the information can be trusted is undone when a caption insists that Jayne Mansfield made her screen debut in Lewis Allen's Illegal when she had already probably taken a bit part in Gregg C. Tallas's Prehistoric Women (1950) and most certainly taken played Candy Price in Bruno VeSota's Female Jungle (1955), which was the only film noir produced by American International Pictures. And to think that John Waters appears at precisely this moment to recommend that we don't trust biographies penned by a gossiping hairdresser!

A gaggle of off-screen voices accompanies a montage of press clippings, as people speculate on Mansfield's life and death before historian Barbara Hahn laments that so much information about the actress has been derived from newspaper puff pieces rather than hard fact. Following a title sequence dance routine to Donna Loren's `The Devil Made Her Do It (I Can't Help It)', Part One opens with a clip from Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956) before film-maker Cheryl Dunye declares Mansfield to have been a sex symbol and actress Dolly Read claims she was the kind of icon aspirants wanted to be. 

Critic Eileen Jones mentions her famous Pink Palace, while columnist AJ Benza and academic Eve Oishi note that Mansfield quickly demonstrated in the likes of Tashlin's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) that she was worth more to 20th Century-Fox than a threat to hold over the head of the increasingly unpredictable Marilyn Monroe. Co-star Mamie Van Doren and erstwhile British pop star Marilyn commend her talent for going to excess, as we see her teaming with Cary Grant in Stanley Donen's Kiss Them for Me (1957). But `cult queen' Mary Woronov shrewdly avers that Mansfield had the wit to realise that the best way to cope with the fact that she had been signed to keep Marilyn on her toes was to camp up her act. 

Over comparable clips from Joshua Logan's Bus Stop (1956) and Victor Vicas's The Wayward Bus (1957), Jones muses on Mansfield's breathless delivery and the trademark squeak before `cinemashrink' Jane Alexander Stewart claims that it's possible to acknowledge her as a sensation without seeing any of her movies. The chorus sings a list of film titles to the tune of `O Jesus Christ Remember', while the screen divides into little boxes illustrating each one. We also see her guest appearance on the panel show What's My Line? in August 1957, as Hahn draws a comparison between the pointiness of bustlines in the 1950s to the missiles of the Military Industrial Complex. 

Being a `blonde bombshell` might have seemed a shrewd career move, but Van Doren complains over a clip from Albert Zugsmith's Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) that such typecasting ignored the pressures placed on an actress who was rarely allowed to prove they had brains to match their looks. She felt like the poor relation in the `Three Ms' category that Quentin Tarantino mentions in the diner sequence in Pulp Fiction (1994). Underground drag artist Peaches Christ feels that Mansfield also had a raw deal in this regard and photographer Bruno Bernard's daughter, Susan, recalls him saying how sharp she was during their numerous shoots. In fact, she studied at a number of universities, spoke five languages and played the violin to a high standard. Moreover, she was astute enough not to take herself too seriously and Waters jokes that his regular collaborator, Divine, was a hybrid of Jayne Mansfield and Godzilla.

One thing Mansfield did crave, however, was attention and such was her readiness to pose or preen that she was a natural for the cover of Kenneth Anger's exposé of Hollywood scandal and excess. Yet, as she revealed in one interview, Mansfield felt it was only fair that a star shared their life with the public as they would be nobody without them. Actress Yolanda Ross dubs her `the first reality star' and notes her marriages to school sweetheart Paul Mansfield, bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay and director Matt Cimber. The Fox front office was so against her liaison with Hargitay that Mansfield lost Richard Quine's Bell, Book and Candle (1958) to Kim Novak. This punishment had a ruinous effect on Mansfield's career, as her contract wasn't renewed and she started courting TV companies to pay the bills. Yet she turned down the role of Ginger Grant in Gilligan's Island (1964-67).

Having five children impacted on her figure. But the pneumatic blonde look went out with the 1950s and Mansfield found herself the wrong shape and the wrong image at the start of the Swinging Sixties. Los Angeles historian Alison Martino notes how new stars like Sharon Tate and Faye Dunaway edged her out of the spotlight, while Oishi and Stewart suggest that her association with Playboy and her nude scene in King Donovan's Promises! Promises! (1963) meant that she fell the wrong side of the empowerment-exploitation debate being raised by the Feminist Movement. Yet Susan Bernard felt inspired to let her hair down in Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), while she became the first Jewish centrefold and Dolly Read became the first English Playboy model in 1966. 

In the same year, Woronov teamed with Andy Warhol in Chelsea Girls. But, as Dunye posits, there was no room for Mansfield in this new landscape and she found herself making unworthy comedies like Arthur C. Pierce's The Las Vegas Hillbillys, with Van Doren. Yet, when The Beatles came to America, Paul McCartney announced that Mansfield was the star he most wanted to meet and her encounter with the band at the Whisky a Go Go made front pages around the world. However, rather than reviving her fortunes, this brush with super-celebrity tipped her over the slope to decline and death. Her marriage to Cimber proved a huge contributory factor, as not only did he beat her, but he also challenged her suitability to be a mother to his child and this sparked her equally tempestuous relationship with lawyer Sam Brody. 

Having been content to skate through the events of Mansfield's first 33 years,  Part Two sees a change in emphasis, as we learn more about the lawyer she first hired in July 1966. Some interpretive dance is supposed to help us achieve a better understanding of Brody, who had been part of Jack Ruby's defence team following the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. But, rather than being a pillar of the community, he turned out to be a bad influence who dragged Mansfield into drink and drug dependency. 

In October 1966, Brody accompanied Mansfield to the San Francisco Film Festival and archivist Miguel Pendas recalls her rapidly outstaying her welcome by trying to gatecrash screenings and parties. However, as occult scholar Matt Momchilov continues, she also made the acquaintance of Anton LaVey, a former police photographer, musician and lion tamer who had installed himself as the high priest of the First Church of Satan in his fabled Black House. 

Waters launches Part Three by dismissing LaVey and his baleful influence on Mansfield as a load of hooey. Christ, Anger and Marilyn offer their thoughts on LaVey, who has ritualistically shaved his head on Walpurgis Night in April 1966. He declares this to be Year One - which Sidney Blackmer toasts in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968) - and Momchilov reveals that he took inspiration for his cult from films like Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934) and Mark Robson's The Seventh Victim (1943) and TV shows like The Munsters and The Addams Family (both 1964-66). Jones wonders how someone who drew so flagrantly on the iconography of Georges Méliès and Hollywood horror could be taken so seriously. But the media lapped up events like the first satanic wedding, while Anger attended his first satanic funeral. 

Momchilov claims LaVey's closer to Count Chocula than Charles Manson on the scale of human evil. But he emerged at a time when shows like Bewitched (1964-72) were popular and sparked a line of supernatural and occult movies like Abby (1974), William Girdler's blaxploitation flip on William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) that is a particular favourite of the ever-mischievous John Waters. Eileen Jones revisits the rumour that LaVey played Satan in Rosemary's Baby and we see him featuring in Kenneth Anger's Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), while a trailer advertises his special contribution to Robert Fuerst's The Devil's Rain (1975). 

Dunye and others opine that San Francisco was a centre for subversion in the 1960s and we see footage of LaVey granting a disciple's wish for a male bank teller to fall in lust with him. But, while Hughes and Ebersole cast their net far and wide in trying to catch the zeitgeist, they rather lose sight of Mansfield, who re-enters the picture at the start of Part Four, as Ross and Stewart claim over images from Benjamin Christensen's Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922) that she would have been drawn to LaVey because she was an advocate of the free expression of female sexuality. However, LaVey had also captured the imagination of Sammy Davis, Jr,, Laurence Harvey, Keenan Wynn, Tuesday Weld and Liberace and Mansfield had clearly set her sights on joining this in-crowd when she visited the Black House in October 1966. 

Waters is sceptical about Mansfield slaughtering goats, while Anger doubts that she ever posed naked on LaVey's altar. But, as we see a clip from Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la bête (1948), Jones insists that Mansfield and LaVey were a perfect fit, as they were both `publicity whores'. Anger believes they had an affair and we are shown a dance choreographed to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake to show how their light and dark sides melded. Dunye agrees that the pictures of the pair were posed, but she suspects that LaVey gave Mansfield comfort and advice at a time when she felt she had no one else to trust and this didn't sit well with some in her entourage. 

At the onset of Part Five, Peaches Christ ponders the rumour that LaVey put a curse on Brody. Anger has no doubt this is baloney, but Marilyn informs us that Mansfield was warned to distance herself from Brody because he was going to die within the year. We hear Richmond Arquette voicing a threat that LaVey supposedly issued against Brody, as we see a trailer for Elliot Silverstein's The Car (1977), on which LaVey served as a technical adviser. Stewart now pops up to assert that it was apt that Mansfield starred in Andrew Marton's It Happened in Athens (1962), as she was a tragic Aphrodite woman, who was doomed both to search for the next man to adore her and to die before her beauty faded. 

LaVey was famous for keeping a lion cub named Togare, who grew up to co-star with Tippi Hedren in Noel Marshall's Roar (1981). She adopted the beast and, in a neat twist of fate, named one of his cubs Billy after her friend, William Peter Blatty, who had written The Exorcist. Having met Togare, Mansfield tells her children about him and they ask to see a lion for themselves. However, when they visit the Jungleland theme park in Thousand Oaks, her six year-old son is mauled by a lion and, we are treated to a shoddy piece of animation showing what happened when the buxom star took her eye off Zoltan to pose for some press snaps with a monkey. 

As the boy battled his injuries and meningitis in hospital, Mansfield called LaVey for solace. By all accounts, he climbed Mount Tamalpais in December 1966 and uttered an incantation that Mansfield was convinced helped her son turn a corner. Despite Mansfield crediting her Catholic faith for the miracle in a magazine interview, Peaches Christ announces that the incident prompted her to become a witch. But a newspaper cutting shows LaVey claiming her as a convert to his church. Jones considers this symptomatic of the chaos in which Mansfield lived and highlights her exhaustion in a 1966 Christmas photograph to suggest that she needed to be in a constant state of confusion in order to function. 

Benza explains how the new year brought more turmoil, as Mansfield is uncertain whether to be grateful to LaVey for the prediction or Brody for his expertise when she secures custody of baby Tony from Cimber. But Hahn and Martino (and a number of metal toys) refocus us on the curse by revealing that Brody had seven different car accidents in 1967, which made Mansfield feel sorry for him (and supposedly made her nervous that LaVey's curse had some potency). 

Entering `section six', Mansfield expresses her concern that Brody was now controlling her career, as well as her private life. In January 1967, he books her into a nightclub tour of Japan and she causes something of a stir when she visits Vietnam and states that she would be happy to entertain Vietcong troops, as they are still humans carrying out the orders of their superiors (Hanoi Jayne, perhaps?). Unfortunately, the audience at her USO show got out of control and it had to be cut short and Mansfield made more headlines when she returned Stateside to call for peace and lament the fact that wounded soldiers were being deluded into thinking they had performed heroic acts. 

Feeling things are spiralling out of control, Jayne seems to be so convinced about the curse that she invites LaVey to the Pink Palace in March 1967 a bid to have it cancelled. Another dance sequence toys with Hahn's contention that they are still exploiting each other for publicity purposes and she sees nothing in their interaction to suggest that Mansfield was a priestess in the cult. But a dinner at La Scala fails to persuade LaVey to spare Brody and he had another car crash soon afterwards. 

In spite of the threat, Mansfield needed to keep working and we see her on a trip to Ireland in April 1967 publicising her cameo in Gene Kelly's A Guide for the Married Man and her starring role in Cimber's Single Room Furnished. The following month, she hit Sweden and we see a clip of Mansfield and Van Doren in Las Vegas Hillbillies [sic]. As Benza notes, the latter was content to subsist on the B circuit. But Mansfield hoped that each new project would catapult her back into the big time and she even took dinner theatre gigs in places like Biloxi, Mississippi in June 1967 to keep her options open. 

We cut to a clip of Loni Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger (spelt Schwartzenegger) playing Jayne and Mickey in Dick Lowry's teleplay, The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980). Clearly Hughes and Ebersole feel it would be in bad taste to depict the fatal car crash in another piece of pastiche animation, so they simply borrowed it from someone else's movie. Newspaper pages spin into view as radio bulletins report the tragedy, which quickly became the subject of speculation, as it was rumoured that Mansfield had been decapitated in the collision with a lorry on a road outside New Orleans. Hahn and Benza describe how LaVey had been cutting out pictures from a German newspaper of himself laying flowers at Marilyn Monroe's grave when he realised he had sliced through Mansfield's neck on the next page. Seconds later, he got the call that his friend had died. 

A split screen next shows undertaker Jim Roberts surmising how the decapitation story started and a young actor repeating his words in a lousy southern accident, while two female companions stack toy cars on the lid of a wicker basket. It's an inauspicious start to Part Seven, which opens with a pink caption echoing the words on her white marble tombstone: `We Live to Love You More Each Day'. Waters jokes that Mansfield probably spent the first night in the ground in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania clawing at the coffin lid to get back to Hollywood, where she felt she belonged. But her mother insisted on burying her close to home, while Hargitay paid his own peculiar tribute through Charles W. Broun, Jr. and Joel Holt's documentary, The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968).

We learn that Englebert Humperdinck lived in the Pink Palace from 1976-2002 before he sold the plot to developers, who demolished it. Tech marketer Sandy Balzer now lives in the building that replaced the Church of Satan and she shows us how she puts a mane on her dog, Chuck, in tribute to Togare. Momchilov points out that LaVey died on 29 October, but had his death certificate faked to show his date of death as Halloween 1997. Woronov suggests that the fact their houses have now gone makes the myth of Mansfield and LaVey more powerful, while Stewart compares her demise to that of Diana, Princess of Wales. While the world mourned the loss of the People's Princess, everyone shrugged at Mansfield's passing because she sort of had it coming. 

Nevertheless, Oishi, Stewart and Peaches Christ claim Mansfield as a feminist pioneer, while Waters refuses to accept that any part of her life was tragic, as even her death was so her. He also admits to being a fan of her films and concurs with Hahn that sometimes it's best to print the legend. One would hope, however, that any publishers would employ better proofreaders than Hughes and Ebersole, whose film is riddled with errors. It's also replete with misjudgements like the smart alec chorus contributions, the superfluous dance routines and the ghastly Elroy Simmons animations. Furthermore, too many of the talking heads lack the wit and insight of John Waters and Mary Woronov, as they seek to use their spotlights to spout their own theories or blow their own trumpets (or both). 

All of which chips away at the credibility of a project that has clearly been carefully thought out and assembled with a good deal of panache. Any film that unearths the headline `Did Witchcraft Kill Jayne (44-23-37) Mansfield?' has to be given the benefit of any doubt, especially as the movie extracts have been cannily selected and are often juxtaposed to droll and/or ironic effect. But the co-directors struggle to strike a balance between the tawdriness of the gossip and the pomposity of the Cultural and Gender Studies analysis. Moreover, the failure to coax anything pertinent from eyewitnesses like Mamie Van Doren and Kenneth Anger is inexcusable, while the decision not to compare Mansfield with latterday attention seekers like Paris Hilton and the Kardashians confirms that this entertaining, but patchy and inconclusive study represents a whoppingly missed opportunity.

In Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, James Crump charts the tragically short life and times of the Puerto Rico-born artist who transformed the art of fashion illustration from the late 1960s. As in Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe (2007), Crump goes beyond traditional documentary methods to uncover the creative secrets of Antonio Lopez and his trusted sidekick and lover, Juan Ramos. Yet, for all the visual panache achieved by effects artist André Purwo and editor Nick Tamburri, this rarely connects with those not already au fait with Lopez and his milieu. 

Over opening remarks by photographer Bill Cunningham, models Dorothy Jordan and Pat Cleveland, Vogue insiders Grace Coddington and Joan Juliet Buck, restaurateur Michael Chow and actress Jessica Lange, we are treated to a montage of monochrome stills of Antonio Lopez at work and some of his dazzling colour drawings. Interview magazine's Bob Colacello sets the scene by suggesting that the underground became the mainstream in the 1970s, while the acceptance of homosexuality allowed the likes of Lopez to come to the fore. Cunningham remembers find him an apartment in Carnegie Hall, while make-up artist Corey Tippin almost swoons in recalling how he first met Lopez when he was an art student and was invited on to the stage to pose with Cathee Dahmen. 

Having hooked up with the teenage Jordan and her friend Jane Forth, Lopez and Tippin virtually turned them into an art project, as they found new ways to dress and make them up. They used to hang out at Max's Kansas City in the late 1960s and Cunningham enthuses about the fun they used to have. Artist Paul Caranicas agrees that Lopez and Ramos created a magic circle that Lange and fellow actress Patti D'Arbanville found irresistible. Handsome, charming and witty, Lopez was also a tireless dancer and the little coterie spent their days getting ready to strut their stuff at night. 

Often working into the small hours, Lopez would fill the studio with the latest music and create scenarios with Ramos acting as his art director. Caranicas and Cunningham agree that there were a fountain of ideas and the novelty of their concepts and the boldness of Lopez's drawings led to commissions from Women's Wear Daily and Condé Nast, even at a time when fashion designers preferred to rely on photography to show off their latest collections. However, Lopez had such a distinctive eye and such a rapport with his models that he was able to bring an immediacy to images that reflected the vitality and confidence of the new decade. 

Lange and D'Arbanville reflect on the way Lopez's breathing changed while he worked and Cunningham suggest that it felt like he was sucking the energy out of his models and channelling it through his hands into his charcoal, pencil, pens or brushes. They remember him teaming with cult designer Charles James, who recognised immediately that Lopez could bring his clothes alive, even if he sometimes sought out male hustlers to find the right torso to suit a particular dress. As a bisexual, Lopez could beguile men and women alike and his affairs were often complicated. Also, as the son of a psychic mannequin maker and a dress designer, he had a complex mind and sometimes needed to dance himself into trance or be hypnotised in order to focus his talent. 

As Lopez became known around town, he attracted the interest of Andy Warhol. Jordan and Forth gravitated towards The Factory, but remained part of the Lopez set and D'Arbanville explains that Warhol liked to let things happen around him, while Lopez was the orchestrator in chief. He also had an eye for a model and discovered Jerry Hall and Grace Jones and helped change the way in which models were perceived by the fashion world and the public alike. They became known as `Antonio's Girls' and we see stills of those interviewed for the film, along with Eija, Amina Warsuma, Carole La Brie, Alva Chinn, Renate Zatsch, Coraly Bettancourt and Tina Chow, who aren't. 

Cleveland, Lange and D'Arbanville admit to crushes on Lopez, who liked to give to the person he was with without fear of being tied down. But Caranicas believes that Lopez was addicted to sex and recalls him leaving meetings earlier to meet his latest paramour. However, a clash with Vogue over its reluctance to use models of colour prompted Lopez and Ramos to decamp to Paris, where they forged a friendship with Karl Lagerfeld, who recognised that Antonio's Girls had what it took to shake up the stuffy Parisian fashion scene. In truth, Lagerfield formed a closer bond with Ramos, who shared his intellectual preoccupations. But the instinctive Lopez fired his imagination and they put a new vim into the atelier at Chloe.

Being a dedicated follower of fun, Lopez refused to be exclusive and also befriended Yves St Laurent. Colacello sums up the differences between the two cliques, while Cunningham suggests that no social scene was complete without Lopez, as he was the real deal. Whether dining at Café de Flore or dancing the night away at Club Sept, Lopez drew a crowd and Lange, Cleveland, D'Arbanville and Jordan admit they had a wild time. For a while, however, they had to play second fiddle to Jerry Hall, who became so close that there were rumours they were engaged. Coddington remembers the passion between them, but Hall was swept off her feet by Bryan Ferry and Lopez lost the last of his great creations. 

The fun didn't stop, however, as Lagerfeld took the cabal to St Tropez, which Jordan, Cleveland and Tippin recall with great fondness. By this time, Ramos and Caranicas had become lovers and tensions has started to simmer with Lopez. But he continued to live as though he was a performance artist, as he flitted between beaches, restaurants and clubs with the sole intention of looking fabulous. But the spell was shattered when Lagerfeld introduced Jacques de Bascher to the group and he drove a wedge between them. Buck and others imply that he was a talentless troublemaker, who used his skills at S&M sex to entice both Lagerfeld and St Laurent into doing his bidding. 

During this period, Warhol and co-director Paul Morrissey arrived in Paris to make L'Amour (1973), with Lagerfeld, Jordan, Forth and D'Arbanville in the cast. However, Lopez and Ramos missed their chance to co-star, as they were in Japan working with Tina Chow during the shoot (which Buck and Colacello claim as a forerunner to reality television). Lopez introduced her to Michael Chow (who had been married to Coddington), only they drifted apart before she was diagnosed with AIDS. Lopez discovered he had the disease in 1982 and devoted himself to finding a cure at a time when there wasn't one. Needing money, he asked Lagerfeld if he could work on a campaign for him, but he refused in case Lopez died before the commission was complete. Cunningham sobs as he recalls this act of betrayal and thanks Oscar de la Renta for hiring Lopez and using what he managed to finish before he died at the age of 44 in Los Angeles in March 1987.

Pulling back the curtain on the demimonde that formed around the designers who instigated the ready-to-wear boom, this lively, but limited documentary says much more about Antonio Lopez's times than his life. Cutting between Super 8, 8mm, 16mm and Sony Portapak video, Crump gatecrashes the parties to capture the hedonism of the period. But the dearth of moving pictures of Lopez himself necessitates a reliance on stills and anecdotes that makes it more difficult to convey his personality and fabled charm. It's evident that he was adored by everyone Crump managed to interview. But the absence of Grace Jones, Jerry Hall and Karl Lagerfeld is damaging, as is a considered assessment of Lopez's artistic inspirations, his draughtmanship and his legacy. 

The odd academic voice placing his achievement in the context of fashion photography and/or illustration might have stemmed the flow of gushing tributes. Similarly, it would have been nice to know more about his working relationship with Ramos. What role did he fulfil as Lopez's production designer and to what extent did the artist merely recreate his concepts? Crump might also have explored how Lopez's drawings were used in magazines and advertising campaigns and how they supposedly shook up the staid fashion scene, as haute couture was replaced by prêt-à-porter. In this regard, more might also have been said about the racial conservatism of the New York designers and publishers who resisted Lopez's use of black, Hispanic and Asian models. 

Instead, we get lots of stories that say as much about the tellers as they do about their subjects. These are presented with plenty of pizzazz, as Crump uses Lopez's distinctive graphics to complement the colourful characters. But there's much more glamour than grit, while the sad truths about Lopez's illness are rather glossed over. Thus, while this reinforces the myth, it offers too few insights into the man.

It's never a good sign when the subject of a documentary disowns it. Dame Vivienne Westwood afforded debuting ex-model Lorna Tucker unique access to make Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. But, while the 76 year-old fashionista was reluctant to pay yet another visit to her punk past, Tucker clearly considered it more viewer-friendly than her commitment to saving the planet. Consequently, Westwood has criticised the film for paying insufficient attention to her activism. Yet, with the fawning Tucker hanging on Westood's every word and seemingly unable to use the classic punk era clips seen in the likes of Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury and Phil Strongman's Anarchy! The McLaren Westwood Gang (2013), this often feels like a corporate video.

The opening shots rather give the game away, as Westwood tells Tucker that she is bored to tears with the punk phase of her life and suggests that she allows her to tell her own story in her own way. She urges her to avoid banal questions, as she glowers at the camera in a funk of self-important misery. Yet, once she is allowed to talk about herself, Westwood warms to her theme and declares that she had such excellent spatial awareness at the age of five that she was able to make a pair of shoes. Now, she is doing what she wants and see no need to retire. However, she would like a little spare time to learn Chinese. 

Swooping into her atelier, Westwood assesses a new line of clothing with her staff and models. She is forthright in her views and quick to blame underlings for not following orders. Second husband Andreas Kronthaler watches attentively, as Westwood complains about thin hems and dismal designs. She wonders whether she would be better off selling the company before taking a nap at an awkward angle on an uncomfortable looking sofa. 

Returning to her childhood in Glossop, she explains how she started making her own clothes at the age of 11 and never forgave her parents for failing to mention that the Baby Jesus wound up on a cross. Over images of Joan of Arc, Westwood compares herself to a knight who protects people from evil before averring that her designs have always had a dynamism that suggest the wearer is ready for action. 

Having quit Harrow Art School after a term because she was worried how she would earn her living, the 17 year-old Westwood enrolled on an art course at a teacher training college so that she could fall back on the classroom if her artistic ambitions failed to pan out. Around this time, she met and married Derek Westwood, whose best feature seemed to be his ability to dance. But, even though they had a son, they were never love's young dream and Ben Westwood recalls how Malcolm McLaren became more of a fixture in their lives around the time of his fifth birthday. He recalls him being hot-headed and resentful of Ben's presence while they were living in a flat in Thurleigh Court, near the Oval cricket ground. 

Despite contemplating an abortion, Westwood had a second son with McLaren - Joe Coffé - as she felt he was the only person who could help her understand the world. He sold old rock records to trendy types under the banner `Let It Rock' at Mr Freedom and Westwood enthuses about the premises at 430 Kings Road, as she remembers how she started making clothes to sell and the shop changed its name from Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die to Sex. Among their best-selling lines were rubber wear items for the office, which Westwood claims reflected McLaren's fondness for 1950s models in torn castaway clothing and their conviction that Britain was the home of the flasher. 

However, Westwood is keener to talk about her own torn black dress than The Sex Pistols. Consequently, we see V&A Senior Curator Claire Wilcox describe how the muslin Destroy t-shirt used a swastika and inverted the crucifix to confront society. Westwood declares that she and McLaren invented punk after he returned from managing The New York Dolls in America. They formed a band around their Saturday boy, Glenn Matlock, who was joined by two customers and singer Johnny Rotten. Westwood laments that the latter has yet to grow out of the image he cultivated in the 1970s. But Tucker offers few insights into the ethos and aesthetics of punk in a segment devoid of Pistols music and replete with familiar images of the posturing Rotten. 

She moves swiftly on to the Worlds End shop, as Westwood proclaims that her clothes always have a story and are timeless because they tap into the past and allow people to experience a positive kind of nostalgia. Period footage shows Westwood positing that the tartan suit she has designed resembles something that might have been worn at Culloden. She revels in her anti-establishment persona. Yet, as we see Dame Vivienne being feted by guests and the media at a swish function, Tucker misses the opportunity to question Westwood about her status as a national treasure.  

Instead, she films Andreas reclining louchely in a chair and simpering about loving the designer, the campaigner and the person in equal measure. He doesn't know why he loves Westwood - he just does. Tucker shows the couple cavorting at a photo shoot in eccentric designs and almost parodic poses, as a dreamy piano plays slow notes on the soundtrack. It's unclear, however, whether she wants us to think `aww, aren't they adorable' or `oh, aren't they daringly cutting edge'.

Westwood proclaims that the best compliment she can pay Kronthaler is that she is as happy living with him as she is living on her own. They met when she was teaching in Vienna and she hired him after he came to London and offered constructive criticism on her new collection. He reminisces in sing-song fashion about living in the studio with fleas and filth and finding it so romantic to wear the clothes he used to find in cardboard boxes. They look content posing on the red carpet, but Kronthaler was initially treated with suspicion. Coffé states that he looked gay when he first arrived and started bossing people around. But, despite the age difference, Kronthaler has remained besotted and Coffé jokes that this means he doesn't have to worry about his mother in her old age. 

Back in 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee proved a red rag for the punk assault on the establishment and Westwood claims that the swastika became a symbol of the young's need to confront the old and dismantle their order. But she realised that the marketing of punk diminished its subversive impact, as the authorities declared that only a truly democratic society would allow youth to rebel in such an anarchic manner. Looking back, Westwood is disappointed that all they succeeded in creating was distraction rather than destruction. 

Over at the V&A, Wilcox swoons over garments from the Pirate collection, as she explains how Westwood put her own imprint on historical styles. She discusses her use of colour and shape to produce clothes that enabled men and women to proclaim their enjoyment of life. At this time, however, Westwood didn't consider herself to be a designer, even though she knew she was `very talented' and wanted people to know that she was behind the designs they were seeing on the Paris catwalk. She admits to becoming frustrated by McLaren trying to take the credit when he had stopped growing intellectually. Yet, even though she believed she had outstripped him, Westwood felt a duty to be loyal to McLaren. However, Coffé insists he was petty and spiteful and left them in Clapham to pick up the pieces after he absconded to become a film producer in Hollywood. 

Assistant Peppe Lorefice admits to being surprised by how much of a team Westwood and Konthaler are, while marketing manager Christopher Di Pietro notes the classical nature of their insistence on designing on the body. They are very hands on backstage at a fashion show, as they fuss over the clothing, hair and make-up of their models. As they strut on to the runaway, Westwood declares herself to be her husband's guiding muse. 

In 1985, Westwood forged a link with future CEO Carlo D'Amario. Coffé recalls how he sold cars, carpets and watches, but also had connections with Italian designers like Elio Fiorucci. But McLaren resented her success and a £350,000 contract with Giorgio Armani fell through because he insisted he was still Westwood's legal business partner. Forced to live on benefits, Westwood joined forces with her widowed mother, Dora, to reopen Worlds End, which was lit by candles because the electricity had been cut off. Designer Bella Freud recalls the fun of taking a show to Paris during this period and Murray Blewett (who is now Senior Design Manager) gushes about the privilege of working for such a legend. 

Freud and Murray recall how much fun it was making clothes to arm people to face the world. But nobody provides any critique or explains why Westwood's work was so revolutionary. No one assesses her styles, fabrics or use of colour and cut. Moreover, nobody puts them into context by showing what other designers were doing at the same time and who exactly was feting her. Tucker includes the famous clip of Westwood appearing on Wogan, when the elderly audience laughed at her designs and she threatened not to bring on the next model, as guest presenter Sue Lawley tried to prevent proceedings descending into farce. Friend Sara Stockbridge claims that Westwood didn't care two hoots about her reception. But it's quite clear that she was taken aback and Tucker should have pressed her about the public perception of haut couture and what she derived from this unquestionably embarrassing incident. 

Coffé bullishly notes that his mother didn't remain a joke for long. But Westwood has no idea when she became a success and is now concerned that her company has become too big for her to keep an eye on all the key decisions. She particularly worries that substandard items will slip through the net and we see her berating Murray about a collection and letting the young woman responsible for selling it know that a buyer had called her clueless. Westwood's frankness is clearly an asset. But, once more, she fails to explain what she actually wants or what her standards are. Instead, she grumbles about having too little control. Murray mutters that Westwood can't unpick decisions that have been made for the good of the company and Di Pietro concurs they have to tweak the brand in order to keep it visible and relevant. But, as Westwood chunters in his office about staff not knowing what they are doing, one is forced to wonder how such a situation has arisen and who is responsible. 

As Tucker shows Westwood cycling home in high heels, Coffé bemoans the fact that nobody in the fashion mafia took his mother seriously. An unnamed critic is shown denouncing her lack of a philosophy of fashion on Newsnight after she had won the Designer of the Year award in 1990. She won it again the following year (to the obvious dismay of the industry bigwig host) and Westwood recalls how things continued to look up after she took a temporary shop on Conduit Street - while her Davies Street premises were being redecorated - and the increased visibility boosted both her sales and status.

It's at this point that Tucker turns to the issue of Westwood's eco-warrioring. She follows her on a Greenpeace expedition to the North Pole, as Westwood recalls how a James Lovelock article about the population boom had convinced her to put her celebrity to good use. Konthaler drones on about clothing with a political message being boring, while Di Pietro concedes that the company is not as green as it might be. As Westwood protests about fracking, her CEO suggests that her first duty is to her employees and mutters something non-committal about doing things in increments. Similarly, while she addresses a rally in Westminster, Konthaler loses his temper with a minion over some socks. He also becomes agitated when she tells branch staff that she would rather sell what she likes than make pots of cash. Westwood worries that her husband risks getting frazzled in holding the fort, while Di Pietro hints that it takes three times the work to ensure that a company like Westwood's retains its independence. 

Vogue maven André Leon Talley explains that Westwood opted not to attend the opening of her New York store as she couldn't eco-justify the flight. But, while she cancels plans for a Beijing franchise, she does go to the Paris launch, where she complains about the music and grumbles about only wanting to sell stuff she likes. Coffé reveals that he has left the company because he could not longer work with Di Pietro. However, he persuaded his mother to sign a deal with a Japanese licensing company that should bolster the empire's finances. 

Having exhausted the number of insiders with little to say, Tucker enlists the help of some famous faces. Kate Moss recalls going topless on the runway for Westwood, while Naomi Campbell smiles at the recollection of slipping over in some blue stack shoes. During a montage to Ravel's `Bolero' of Westwood taking bows at various unidentified shows, actress Christina Hendricks brands her a phenomenon, while fashion editor Carine Roitfeld expresses relief that she has not been tamed by age or become ridiculous, Pamela Anderson lauds Westwood's authenticity in stating that she is on this planet to stir things up. 

Coffé dubs his mother the only genuine punk rocker before she has the last word - a complaint that the film is too long and dull. Nothing like a ringing endorsement, eh? As the credits roll, Moss avers that Westwood once told her that she was the only girl she ever fancied, while Konthaler laments the shortage of outspoken people in the world. As a parting shot, Westwood is introduced to Tiny Tempah and confesses to not a clue who he is.

Stuffed with stock footage and talking-head platitudes, this lacks the coherence or unifying thesis to offer any worthwhile insights into Westwood and her exceptional achievement. One can sympathise with Westwood's disgruntlement, as the coverage of her activism is tokenist at best. But, with Tucker having so little punk era material to work with, this leaves her heavily dependent on conversations with employees, who are hardly going to dish any dirt or offer any negative impressions of Westwood as an artist or as a boss. Maybe that's why Tucker refrains from asking any awkward questions. But her lack of curiosity so outweighs her tact that she ends up pandering to Westwood like one of her servile acolytes. 

The real fascination here lies in Westwood's transition from a would-be smasher of the establishment to someone who craves accolades from her peers and gongs from the Palace. But Tucker prefers to peddle the trademarked image of the rebel with a cause, even though this lost its shock value a long time ago.

Coming so soon after Julien Temple's Suggs: My Life Story, the second Madness biodoc of the year might seem a little de trop. But saxophonist Lee Thompson turns out to be every bit as accomplished at the old raconteuring as his erstwhile bandmate. Consequently, Jeff Bayne's One Man's Madness not only manages to be equally entertaining, but it also proves markedly more inventive. 

Borrowing the lip-synching idea from Clio Barnard's The Arbor (2011) and imparting a comic spin by playing a range of characters himself, Thompson harks back to his childhood in NW5. His sister Tracy recalls how their mother Pat used to keep them fed and clothed while their father was in and out of prison, while pals Mike Barson and Chris `Chrissy Boy' Foreman remember not being allowed to play with him because he was always stealing stuff. Pat Thompson compares him to the Artful Dodger and admits he made it difficult to bring up his siblings as nice middle-class kids. 

Barson and Foreman describe how they used to nick albums from the local record shop, while Graham `Suggs' McPherson blames his dad for teaching him bad habits. Over a clip from the video for `Embarrassment', we hear about the early days of Thompson's shoplifting career in the lyrics of `Deceives the Eye' before wife Debbie Thompson recalls seeing him disappearing down the road in a black maria after he had failed to turn up for a date. He spent 14 months in Chafford Approved School and emerged with a penchant for graffiti. Known as `Kix' and `Mr B', Thompson and Barson used to tag across North London and Suggs claimed they were all rebels without a brain.

Edie McPherson was less admiring, but Cathal `Chas Smash' Smyth and accountant Colin Young join Suggs, Barson and Foreman in commending Thompson's teenage dress sense and his habit of dyeing his Doc Martens. Debbie also comments on the oddball charisma that won her heart. But Thompson was also a talented musician and Mark `Bedders' Bedford recalls him being influenced by Ian Dury's first band, Kilburn and the High Roads. Suggs chimes in with an anecdote about Thompson snagging his trousers while climbing in through the window of the Tally Ho in Kentish Town to hear them play and explains how he learnt to play the sax by playing along with the likes of Roxy Music. Debbie bought him his first instrument and joins Tracy in admitting that it took him a while to master it. But, as Pat says, he played with `great brioche' and his passion rubbed off on his mates. 

Author John Reed wonders whether there was something dodgy about this sax, as the serial number had been scratched off. But Thompson mastered his craft when not doing odd gardening jobs in an old GPO van that used to leave the bandmates reeking of petrol when they used it to lug their gear to gigs. Bedders describes Thompson driving like a maniac to test his mettle, while drummer Dan `Woody' Woodgate remembers him flitting in and out of rehearsals. However, Barson and Foreman were determined to keep him onboard, especially when they started to develop the reggae aspect of the `nutty sound'. 

With everyone trying their hand at writing songs like `Rockin' in A Flat' and `Razor Blade Alley', they began to feel they were heading in the right direction. Suggs acknowledges the lyrical influence of Ray Davies of The Kinks and Ian Dury, while musicologist Neil Brand explores how ska came to be a key component of the early Madness style. This led them to see The Specials play live and Jerry Dammers invited them to record `The Prince' for the 2 Tone label. Producer Clive Langer recalls how they could barely play their instruments, with Thompson having all sorts of difficulty staying in tune. 

But they went on the 2 Tone tour, although Suggs and first manager John Hasler remember trouble kicking off when they stopped at Watford Services, as Thompson was arrested along with Specials members Lynval Golding and Neville Staple after an altercation with some skinheads. Mrs McPherson and Mrs Thompson concede they had no great hopes for the band, but were pleased their sons were keeping out of trouble. Then, Dave Robinson signed them to Stiff Records after seeing them play at a wedding and he persuaded them to release the Prince Buster cover, `One Step Beyond', as their first single. 

Robinson jokes that Thompson had a short attention span and dresses up as Dr Noyes Maybe to describe the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. However, he doesn't linger on this and cuts away to Brand analysing the music-hall origins of `Land of Hope and Glory', which was one of the songs Thompson got to sing at gigs. However, he was always looking for ways to draw focus when Madness appeared on Top of the Tops and Robinson and Woody recall how he used to devise bits of business to spring during the show, only for the camera to be trained on someone else. When they came to record the video for `My Girl', however, his toy saxophone featured prominently, while he stole the promo for `Baggy Trousers' by being suspended from a crane on a trapeze harness that allowed him to spin in mid-air. 

Thompson did have his serious moments, however, as `Embarrassment' was written in response to the flak that Tracy endured when she married a black man. Brand compares the sax solo to something Nelson Riddle might have incorporated into a Frank Sinatra song, but Suggs points out that he managed to address a taboo topic without demonising or patronising anyone and Robinson applauds Madness for being political without ramming it down the audience's throats. 

Thompson drags up as opera singer Thommosina Leigh (really Fiona Jessica Wilson) to perform the song before we move on to the band's only No.1. Thompson got the idea for `House of Fun' from the scene in Robert Mulligan's Summer of `42 (1971) in which teenager Gary Grimes tries to buy condoms. Bedders compliments Thompson on the innuendo in the lyrics, while Brand and others highlight the sophistication of the use of piano and sax in mixing fairground barrel organs with ABBA-like pop. Robinson remarks on the innovation within the video, as the band members kept coming up with gimmicky bits that added to the audiovisual appeal of the song.

Success came at a price, however, and Barson left the band in 1984 as there was more to life than Madness. Despite continuing to make albums for Virgin, Suggs believes that they lost their way at this point and Thompson started taking a sequence of non-musical jobs that saw him sticking bills, emptying bins and working in a bicycle shop and a Chinese restaurant. In 1990, he reunited with Foreman to form Crunch and Brand dissects the 
`It's Ok I'm a Policeman' with a gravitas that Thompson mischievously debunks as he mimes along to the references to Elvis Presley, James Cagney and the homeless man who's a thorn in our side. Yet, as we hear `Magic Carpet' (which Brand compares to a Weimar cabaret number), Tracy opines that Thompson isn't singing with his natural voice on the Crunch tracks.

As they gigged, Chas Smash got the idea to reform Madness and Thompson pops up as tour manager Franksy and Chrissy Boy's (pearly king) dad, John Foreman, to recall the excitement of starting anew with a catalogue of fondly remembered hits. We see footage of `One Step Beyond' from Madstock and Franksy notes that the gig coincided with a mild earthquake in north London. Accountant Colin Young, lawyer Julian Turton (who muses on a chat about beer in the Southampton Arms) and managers Gary Blackburn and Hugh Gadsdon ponder whether Thompson has matured with age before Franksy compares him to a corked wine. 

Bedders waxes about Thompson's lyrics to `Lovestruck' and, in comparing the song to something by The Beatles, Brand claims he can find poetry in the least likely subjects. In order to reinforce and lampoon this statement, Thommasina Leigh sings a few bars, while Suggs admits to having no idea where the song came from, but suspects it came from one of his periodic visits to TommoLand. Barson recalls Thompson writing the lyrics for `Drip Fed Fred' while staying on his houseboat in Amsterdam and insisting that the lead vocals should be performed by Ian Dury. Bedders hails it one of the best of the comeback era songs before Brand assesses the sax solo in `Dust Devil' and the lyrics of `NW5' (cue Thommasina). 

Dressed as a typical Cockney crook (complete with mask), Gadsdon describes the Crown Jewels theft gag that Thompson devised while flying over Queen Elizabeth during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. DJ Norman Cook recalls him climbing up his set during a show, while Chas Smash marvels at a leap between two towers of a hotel in Australia. We learn about the House of Fun weekends held at Butlin's in Minehead and hear one of Thompson's recent songs, `Whistle in the Dark'. But his bandmates admit that he can be a pain and that some of his gags simply aren't funny. However, he rectifies this by yanking them off screen one by one and replacing them all to lip-sync to their now effusive praise. 

As the film itself begins to fragment a little, Dr Maybe returns to define Multiple Personality Disorder, while band PA James O'Gara suggests that if Thompson wasn't in Madness he would be locked up in a secure unit. In fact, he's in two bands, as he also fronts Lee Thompson's Ska Orchestra and lawyer Turton lets slip that he prefers them to Madness. Tracy worries that her brother will always go too far and he proves the point by blacking up as Lynval Golding stating that he should become an actor because he's a natural actor. 

Entering the final leg, Bayne lets family members and friends speak as themselves before dozens of tiny Thompsons fill the screen for a closing rendition of `Sit Down and Wonder'. It's a typically ebullient way to end a film that fizzes with fun, while also providing some choice insights into Thompson and his fellow Nutty Boys. Judicious use is made of Dave Robinson's 1982 documentary, Take It or Leave It, to illustrate some of the historical passages. But this is all about Thompson's impersonations, which have more than a touch of Dick Emery and Spike Milligan about them, as he dresses up in outrageous costumes, wigs and make-up to mime along to pre-recorded interviews. He particularly throws himself into parodying Neil Brand's distinctive style of musical appreciation, as he la-las along to the piano in making his points. 

Nick Edwards backdrops are equally key to the conceit, however, as they not only add a dimension to the talking-head sequences, but they also allow Thompson to fool around behind the speakers, as he cleans floors, stacks boxes in a van, takes tea in a café, lounges in bed, swims underwater, consults weighty tomes in a library and cycles through an Oxbridge quad. He also crops up as a cat burglar, a Japanese martial artist and a French onion seller. But don't let the sideshow distract you from the revelations about Thompson's creative contribution to Madness's success and his singular approach to life. He may be quite a character, but he's also deceptively serious about what he does.