‘Queen of the Deuce’ Review: A Mother of Invention

“Queen of the Deuce,” a curiously flat recounting of the life and titillating times of the adult-theater entrepreneur Chelly Wilson, offers a sadly conventional profile of one of the most vividly eccentric characters in the history of New York City.

A Greek Jew who snagged one of the last boats to New York in 1939, a whisker ahead of the Nazi occupation, Wilson wasted no time transforming her hot-dog stand into a thriving pornography empire. From the late 1960s to the ‘80s, she played a pivotal role as the owner of multiple theaters, an importer of pornographic films and, eventually, a founder of her own production company.

Ensconced in her apartment above the all-male Adonis Theater, Wilson, who died in 1994, held court among entertainers, Mafia dons, a roster of possible female lovers and shopping bags stuffed with cash. (Her Mob connections are as politely glossed over as her intriguing private life.) Cozy interviews with her children and grandchildren reveal a woman who rarely spoke of her past, including an arranged marriage to a man who repulsed her. Home movies, photographs and a smattering of surviving friends project a severe yet gregarious woman who rarely smiled and who loved to gamble. Her Friday poker nights were the hottest ticket in town.

Tastefully directed by Valerie Kontakos, “Queen of the Deuce” is the story of a shape-shifter: a twice-married gay woman, a Sephardic Jew who celebrated Christmas (albeit with surveillance monitors parked behind the tree). The style is stilted, the look rudimentary, with Abhilasha Dewan’s cheeky animation supplying an occasional visual lift. Yet as Wilson’s former errand boy guides us around her onetime fiefdom — conjuring an area fizzing with smut until doused by Giuliani — we may sense the milieu, but its matriarch remains stubbornly indistinct.

Queen of the Deuce
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms.