Resurrecting legacy of doomed punker Darby Crash

The fast, furious and enigmatic career of late-'70s punk rocker Darby Crash, who died of a heroin overdose Dec. 7, 1980, at the age of 22, remains a half-buried L.A. legend. His demise was overshadowed by another rock death the next day -- the shooting of John Lennon 3,000 miles east.

As explored by debuting director Rodger Grossman in "What We Do Is Secret" -- screening at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Mann Festival as an entrant in the Los Angeles Film Festival's Narrative Competition -- Crash's strutting and fretting hour on rock's stage, portrayed by actor Shane West of "E.R." fame, is given a renewed chance to claim its place in pop culture.

The film revolves around an empathetic performance from West, 29, who is self-deprecating almost to a fault when he says playing Crash is "a losing battle in general. I'm not ignorant enough to say that I could duplicate Darby's madness, intelligence and wit. But I became close with his family and friends, and that was the validation for me."

"Some of my reviews in the beginning were a little harsh," admits West, "because I felt I needed to put on a tough-guy front to deal with the crowd [he in fact had a bottle-throwing exchange with a Manhattan audience], but now, though I try to channel some of his energy, it's definitely Shane. Or as [drummer] Don Bolles christened me, 'Shane Wreck.' "

The Germs are booked to perform at 4:30 p.m. Saturday on the Festival Promenade on Broxton in Westwood.

"When I met Shane, he hadn't done 'E.R.' yet," Grossman recalls. "I'm embarrassed to admit, I didn't know who he was, hadn't seen [the teen romance opposite Mandy Moore] 'A Walk to Remember.' I still had my sights set on a lot of different names, but I looked at him and saw Darby. And he took me outside and just said, 'Look, you know, I'm your guy.' "

West would ultimately back up this claim by undergoing three separate rounds of installing and scraping off a dental prosthetic and by volunteering a cash grant to the filmmakers to finish off the film. How much? "Well, let's say -- a Ferrari [worth]. And uh, a small car." He now laughs that he did the film "for food and gas" and would be perfectly content -- when the film finds a distributor, as seems likely -- to break even.