Teatime for British TV viewers of a certain age meant settling down in front of the goggle-box to watch the exploits of Hogan's Heroes.

The unlikely combination of cocksure prisoners of war and "funny Nazis" in a WWII prison camp was a 1960s hit both sides of the Atlantic.

Hogan was played by former DJ and all-round cheeky chappie Bob Crane (Kinnear), a teetototal, loving husband and churchgoer.

Male British children's telly heroes normally sow their wild oats and then toddle off into pantoland - but Crane sowed his oats and then bought the farm.

A chance meeting on the film lot introduced him to his partner-in-grime John Carpenter (Dafoe), the self-styled "James Bond of video nuts".

A pioneer of the emerging technology, he got Crane to snare the starlets with his celebrity status and then filmed them as their defences (and knickers) came down.

What seemed a bit of harmless fun - their macho mantra was "a day without sex is a day wasted" - rapidly became a compulsion for Crane.

His seemingly perfect first 15-year-old marriage to Anne (Wilson) crumbled following dozens of failed attempts to curb his libido - and the second went the same way.

Kinnear has precisely nailed Crane's utterly unapologetic attitude which, at first, is refreshing but gradually becomes sordidly jaded.

Plaudits must also go to Dafoe, who seedily captures the neediness of Carpenter's relationship with Crane and also suggests he killed him.

Because that's what happened. Crane, who announced to "Carp" he was making a career comeback, was found with his head bust open with a camera stand.

"I may be horny but I ain't stupid," he once told his agent Lenny (Ron Leibman). He was horny, alright.

Tim Evans