The Happy Hooker (1975)

Director: Nicholas Sgarro

Writers: Yvonne Dunleavy, Xaviera Hollander, Robin Moore, William Richert

Composer: Don Elliott

Starring: Lynn Redgrave, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Lovelady Powell, Tom POston, Nicholas Pryer, Elizabeth Wilson, Conrad Janis, Richard Lynch, John Getz, Vincent Schiavelli, George Dzundza

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You know about sex. Now learn about life.

Plot: Having emigrated to New York and immediately got the kiss-off from her mother-besotted fiance, a Dutch lass takes a well-paid office job and starts liberally sampling the local male talent. After a while she decides to make her pleasure her business too, and as her reputation grows she graduates to a high-class bordello. Soon she realizes she has the right talents to make a real success of a place of her own.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Would you believe that a mid-70s rated R movie called THE HAPPY HOOKER doesn't have the titular character get naked?  That's the pig in me that was bummed out.  I wouldn't blink much if the late, great Lynn Redgrave disrobed.  She couldn't have been all that happy, right?  There's very little in this picture you could call sleazy.  The filmmakers definitely weren't going for an exploitation flick.  It's just a mainstream movie about a subject that you didn't see much in mainstream films back then.  Right off the bat half the audience (or more) is going to be disappointed.  What worked for me is seeing a lot of familiar faces in the character actors.  That was neat.  It's not all that bad a film.  It should've been tighter and stayed focused on the narrative.  There were scenes in the brothel that lingered too long just to satisfy some of us who came to the picture to see something naughty. like when one client sprays a nude woman with whipped cream to resemble a wedding dress.  Hanging onto those moments wasn't bad on its own but it took away from any momentum the story had.  The ending wasn't much of anything and I'm not sure about where the Happy Hooker was going to go with her life except for now it would be business as usual.  They clearly wanted to take this subject seriously enough to avoid being too salacious so it seems that you'd want to have Ms. Hollander (Redgrave) to have more of an arc.  I'm not suggesting there should've been some big finale or anything typical but they surely could've gone in another direction.  But then, maybe that was their point.  Ah.  I shouldn't even care but I do want to see the two sequels where she (played by a different actress in each one) goes to Washington and the last where she goes to Hollywood.  I already checked a movie site for nudity on those and it looks like they didn't shy away from the sleaze.  Oh, goody!