Review:  ‘Supermensch’ a Hollywood toast to the legendary Shep Gordon

What do Alice Cooper, Anne Murray, Groucho Marx and Emeril Lagasse have in common? Bespectacled, good-natured talent manager Shep Gordon, whose ruthlessly inventive star-building acumen and easygoing, nurturing personality inspired comedian Mike Myers to direct the documentary “Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.”

Myers, also an on-camera interviewee, first encountered Gordon’s deal-making know-how on “Wayne’s World,” and later, his healing friendship during an unspecified low point in Myers’ life. Light, frenetic and anecdote-rich, it’s the kind of back-patting Hollywood toast to the guy behind the guy that’s breezy good fun if you don’t examine it too hard. Never mind that Myers’ breathless editing of photographs, footage, reenactments, testimonials and explain-the-joke graphics more likely betrays his own attention-deficit comedic style than Gordon’s Maui-residing JewBu (Jewish Buddhist) vibe.

The stories are what give “Supermensch” its peek-behind-the-curtain pizazz: the carefully orchestrated rock shock that catapulted Cooper, the proximity-to-cool photograph ploy to give Canadian country singer Murray instant cachet, and the hero-worship hole Gordon filled with the birth of the celebrity chef.

Less engaging is the attempt to make us feel sorry for a former skirt chaser’s late-in-life loneliness, which smacks of manufactured third-act wistfulness, when at heart, Myers wants “Supermensch” to be the most admiring showbiz retirement-video ever.

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“Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon”

MPAA rating: R for language, sexual references, nudity and drug use.

Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

Playing: At the Landmark, West L.A.