Queen of the Deuce

Queen of the Deuce
Directed byValerie Kontakos
Written byValerie Kontakos; Despina Pavlaki; Christos Asteriou
Produced byExile Films; Storyline Entertainment; ERT; Radio Télévision Suisse
CinematographyPatrick McGowan; Martina Radwan
Edited byRob Ruzic
Music byKen Myhr
Release dates
  • November 2022 (2022-11) (DOC NYC)[1]
  • 2024 (2024)
Running time
78 mins
CountriesCanada; United States; Greece

Queen of the Deuce is a documentary film on the life of Chelly Wilson, porn cinema entrepreneur.

Background

Greek-American film director Valerie Kontakos was 11 years old when, in 1975, Chelly Wilson came to visit in Athens, Greece her parents who were in the film distribution business. Kontakos was impressed by Wilson, whose "booming voice" and "flair for storytelling" made her "the center of attention."[2] Upon returning to the States, Kontakos worked for a time as a cashier at the Tivoli, one of Wilson's 42nd Street cinemas.

Story

After getting into the film production industry as a sound editor for the Maysles brothers, Kontakos moved on to produce and direct a number of film projects,[3][4] before embarking on a documentary on the life story of the subject that had fascinated her as a child.[2] Her film, Queen of the Deuce, is all about the "unbelievable" life story of Wilson, "deuce" being slang for the "once crime-ridden" Times Square / 42nd street area.[5]: 63 

Rachel Serrero was born on 25 December 1908 in Salonica, Greece, to a Ladino-speaking, Greek-Jewish family.[6] In 1939, foreseeing the Nazi threat, she secured a safe foster home for her two children and emigrated to the United States. After the war's end, in 1945, she arranged for her children to come to America, as well.[7] While her appearance was, to all who'd meet her, that of "a demure, bourgeois woman",[8] Serrero, changing her name to Chelly Wilson, was to become a successful investor in real estate, restaurants, and movie theaters.[2] From the 1960s onward, she owned and operated a string of cinemas in New York city, mainly on Manhattan's 42nd Street, showing hardcore porn films, among which were also, in a move ahead of her times,[7] gay porn titles.

Kontakos filmed interviews with people who had met or worked with her film's subject, and related the lesbian relationships Wilson openly maintained throughout her time in the States. Wilson, after two marriages to men, refused to hide the sexual identity she had discovered late in life and created an "alternative family unit," pushing the boundaries of queerness by living for a long period of time with two women, her second husband, and children from both her marriages, all at once.[2]

Like some "eccentric force of nature," Wilson is seen "barking" orders to associates and employees, chomping interminably on cigars, and "holding court like a mafia queen" in the comfortable apartment on the first floor of the gay-porn movie house Eros in which she and her family lived. Wilson regularly organized high-stakes poker games, with players drawn from an indiscriminate list of patrons, including porn stars and organized-crime figures.[9]

Reception

The documentary, released theatrically on 24 May 2024,[10] was met with mostly positive reviews. IndieWire's Samantha Bergeson wrote that, while the HBO series The Deuce has attracted viewers to the history of porn's vintage cinema, it is "the outrageous true story of Times Square staple Chelly Wilson" that's "getting the spotlight," in a documentary that brings forth the life of one of the "feminist icons in the 20th century sex industry space."[11] The Tablet reviewer was "absolutely captivated".[7] Variety opined that the life story of a "larger-than-life Greek émigré" had a history even more dramatic than her associates knew, all "briskly chronicled" in this "entertaining cultural footnote."[9] The Screen Daily wrote of a "fascinating, colourful portrait" mapping out "a quirky story of love – both of family and of the pornographic kind" that has the "feel of a family album."[12] The New York Post reviewer wrote of a documentary that "celebrates the wild life of...a colorful and fiery character," who, when near death at the age of 86, even wrote up specific instructions to her daughters on the food they should serve at her memorial.[13]

The New York Times critic found the story's recounting "curiously flat" and with a "stilted" style, yet "tastefully directed." The viewer will sense "the milieu" but the "matriarch remains stubbornly indistinct."[14]

The aggregate-watching website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 86% approval rating.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Queen of the Deuce". DOC NYC. Retrieved April 2, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Kontakos, Valerie (March 13, 2024). "New York's queen of porn was a Greek grandmother who escaped the Holocaust". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  3. ↑ Zygoumi, Sophia (March 30, 2013). "Valerie Kontakos: Η Νεοϋορκέζα σκηνοθέτης που ζει στην Ελλάδα ακολουθώντας με το φακό της τους αληθινούς ήρωες" [Valerie Kontakos: The New York-born film-director who lives in Greece following the real heroes with her lens]. Lifo (in Greek). Retrieved March 26, 2026.
  4. ↑ Valerie Kontakos on IMDB
  5. ↑ Allen, Irving Lewis (1995). The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195092653.
  6. ↑ Kakadelis, Tina (2024). "Queen of the Deuce: Fact is Stranger than Fiction". Film Obsessive. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  7. 1 2 3 Rokhl, Kafrissen (June 28, 2024). "A Forgotten Ladino 'Queen'". The Tablet. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  8. ↑ Grunberg, Arnon Yasha Yves (May 15, 2023). "Industry 42nd". Arnon Grunberg blog. Amsterdam. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  9. 1 2 Harvey, Dennis (May 23, 2024). "'Queen of the Deuce' Review: A Fun Footnote About a Behind-The-Scenes Mogul of the Sexual Revolution". Variety. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  10. 1 2 "Queen of the Deuce". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  11. ↑ Bergeson, Samantha (April 18, 2024). "Chelly Wilson's Porn Empire Inspired the HBO Series of the Same Name". IndieWire. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  12. ↑ Wilkinson, Amber (March 10, 2023). "'Queen of the Deuce' : Thessaloniki Review". Screen Daily. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  13. ↑ Stewart, Sara (November 10, 2022). "The secret life of Times Square's notorious porn queen". The New York Post. Retrieved October 17, 2013.
  14. ↑ Catsoulis, Jeannette (May 23, 2024). "'Queen of the Deuce' Review: A Mother of Invention". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2026.

Further reading

  • Turner, Grady T. (2002). NYC Sex: How New York Transformed Sex in America. Scala Publishers. ISBN 978-1857592771.
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