Crane, like any good narcissist, had the ability to see his life with an ability to reconcile any behavior. From his viewpoint, he always sees himself as a good guy, a nice guy, a “normal” guy. As his behavior becomes more and more obsessive and unusual, his view of himself stays consistent. His psyche has a built in auto focus feature that keeps him cruising through life adjusting as he goes.

Auto Focus begins with Bob Crane as a happy family man, playing the drums and interviewing guests on his very popular radio show in Los Angeles. We see him delight in getting the Lone Ranger to offer a rousing “heigh ho, Silver, away!” and making corny jokes about getting him to take his mask off on the radio.

At home, things seem the picture of normal American living. He has a supportive wife (Rita Wilson) and a few kids. The family eats dinner together. They go to church. It’s a comfortable Ozzie-and-Harriet or Ward-and-June kind of world.

Crane is looking for a big break. He’s ambitious and wants to be an actor. He tells his agent Lenny (Rob Leibman) that he would be perfect in a Jack Lemmon kind of role. He’s not easily sold on the idea that playing the lead in a sitcom about prisoners of war in Germany during World War II is a step forward. He thinks it could be a “career ender.” (Crane’s judgment about many things was poor, but one sad thing is that in this he was right. He never escaped being Hogan.)

The pilot script for Hogan’s Heroes turns out to be much better than anything else he’s been sent. When his wife agrees that, despite the uninviting premise, Hogan’s Heroes is the best script they’ve seen, Crane agrees to do the sitcom.

Success, unsurprisingly, changes the opportunities available to Crane. He has always been an avid photographer. He’s always been stashing a few girlie magazines in his garage darkroom. But at this point, he is a very typical type. He is “normal,” as he claims. But things change and descend steadily, and Auto Focus changes as he changes. The cinematography, music, editing and production design just get darker and rougher. It becomes a Paul Schraeder film.

The early scenes of Auto Focus have a colorful, glossy brightness, a yummy visual representation of the kind of innocence and optimism of the time. Cars, clothes, swimming pools, movie stars — all very Southern California, all very American dream, all very pleasurable to watch.

The whole picture is alarmingly watchable. The Hogan’s Heroes recreations recall the improbable appeal of the show. They are a giddy, guilty pleasure, one step beyond the E! True Hollywood behind-the-scenes experience. Even as the parade of sexcapades escalates to the ridiculous and seedy and, even though the abundant sex is not sensual, Auto Focus exerts a magnetic effect. It makes you want to watch.

Greg Kinnear is a big part of what makes Auto Focus so compelling. Crane is obsessed with being likable. Kinnear is likable, and he makes Crane likable and sympathetic. Kinnear doesn’t imitate Bob Crane; he just gently inhabits the character and wins you over.

Crane’s fate takes the darkest turn when he meets and befriends John Carpenter. Carpenter starts out as a high-end stereo installer and junkie and, when the early home video equipment is introduced to consumers, Carpenter is salesman to the stars. Wllem Dafoe makes a perfect Carpenter; ingratiating, with a creepy undertone.

Their relationship outlasts Crane’s marriages. Crane’s second marriage — to the actress who played Klink’s busty secretary — ended too, even though she was well aware of Crane’s many other women. Maria Bello is excellent as Patricia.

Even before Hogan’s Heroes ends, Crane is playing the drums in strip clubs, for fun, he says. But he and Carpenter are soon picking up women, taking polaroids and filming sex. The equipment is so bulky the whole routine is drained of anything remotely hot. Crane maintains an archive of tapes and endless scrapbooks. It’s sick and pathetic, but he never stops or even questions himself, even as his life and career are clearly suffering because of his “hobby.”

Without professional motivations to see Auto Focus, I’m not sure I would have seen this film. I couldn’t imagine why this picture ever got made. I could’1t help thinking about what the late, great Billy Wilder might say about this project. Wilder who co-wrote and directed the picture Stalag 17 — “a very dry, dry picture,” in his words — that “inspired” Hogan’s Heroes would surely find the idea of a biopic of Bob Crane absurd and absurdly American.

But I am glad I saw Auto Focus and not just because it is unexpectedly funny at moments, well-acted and desperately fascinating. I didn’t learn anything new about Crane. Paul Schraeder doesn’t try to explain Crane’s psychology or explain his behavior.

Crane’s fate was so different than if he were living and working now. Sex addiction is now a disease. There is treatment, and public sex is not a career ender. Ask Rob Lowe or Tommy Lee or Pam Anderson or the producers of any number of sex shows on cable. We think of the 60s and 70s as an open and swinging time, but our “culture” gets weirder and more vulgar every year.

While I wouldn’t agree with Crane that he was normal, when Jackass is the No. 1 movie in the country, the times seem almost quaint and his faults seem fairly tame. Auto Focus is a rebuke to the absurdity of celebrity culture and our appetite for mindlessness.

As Izzy Diamond as Osgood Fielding says to Jack Lemmon, the actor Crane aspired to be, in Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot, after hearing the litany of Daphne’s shortcomings, “Nobody’s perfect!”