The Happy Hooker (1975)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Purportedly this is supposed to be a film version of Xavier Hollander's X rated book. What you get is a PG version of it! Seriously--what were they thinking? A good strong R rated version of her book could have been made but this one wimps out completely. There's no sex and no nudity (unless you count a shot of a guys butt as nudity). It's sanitized to the point where you could have gotten Julie Andrews to do it! There's talk about sex but it's hardly explicit and certainly not enough to warrant an R rating. Even worse it's pretty dull. Hard to believe that a movie about a woman who was a prostitute could be dull--but it is! Lynn Redgrave gives a very good performance (that's why i give this a 3) but that's not enough to recommend this. The sequels were much more explicit (and more fun). Not worth anyone's time.

The Happy Hooker (1975) was loosely based upon the best seller about of the era's most popular and successful madam's. Lynn Redgrave stars as the happy one. But the film is just bad in all aspects. It fails at being an "adult" comedy and it fails at being a biography. I wouldn't even catagorize it in the "trying too hard" section because it didn't even do that. Boring stuff that deserves to be buried. May it never see the light of day. By the way, this movie ruined my tastes for sundaes and banana splits. Don't watch this one. The sequels are a lot better than this one. That's not saying much either because they're both bad.Followed by "Happy Hooker Goes to Washington" and "Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood". Too tame and way too lame.Not recommended.F

Lynn Redgrave and the 70's. This film is quite the cliché. If anyone wants to look back at the early 70's for research, this is a film to see.Xaviera Hollander was the beginning of the exposure of modern day Madame in a so-called clean American world. This movie tells of how she got there, what she did once she was there and why. Whether one agrees with that lifestyle or not, this is quite interesting to say the least. I would guess that "The Mayflower Madame" Sydney Biddle Barrows and Hedi Fleiss got their ques from Miss Hollander.But what get me about THIS film is that -- it's a pretty much a Hollywood mainstream telling of the tale. Of course, it would have been obviously for this film to go the X rated 70's route....but it did not. It tells the tale deftly, but it tells the tale. This is not a titillating romp as the title suggests and I think a lot of guys renting this film will be very disappointed."The Happy Hooker" plays like a 70's soap opera. Over dramatized, lotsa 70's funky fashion, make up and hair, stiff acting but acting just enough to maybe keep you interested in the tale. It is about the "tale" more than anything else in this version.(Some spoilers) Miss Hollander is a woman who falls in love and is invited to America to marry but upon coming here, she learns that he's a momma's boy. She is then thrust in a country she knows little about, gets into many hateful situations and falls into being a call girl in a house with an understanding, but tired, Madame. How does she get happy? well, Xaviera buys out this Madame when an opportunity presents itself and off she goes.While this has all the elements of being a tawdry sex romp with lots of "t" and "a" and sex, it's NOT played that way. What you do see is the "difference" in the types of Hookers of the 70's..at least, the difference as Miss Hollander sees it: the street hookers versus the house hookers. You can tell that Miss Hollander felt that house hookers were more elite than street hookers..that was until they met face to face and found out they were all doing the same thing.It is a film of the 70's, and this spawned a few "Happy Hooker" sequels that aren't as good (and that's not saying much) as this one. But the wonderful Lynn Redgrave does a nice job of playing one of America's best known Madame for a mainstream audience. If you're a Lynn Redgrave fan, you might enjoy this one. If you're a fan of the early 70's fashions/attitudes and when New York was crummy, you might like this film. If you're a pornography fan looking for titillation...this is DEFINATELY not the film for you.

Well, there's not much smut to be had here. Not much humor, really, either. So what does this film have to recommend it? Well, Lynn Redgrave wears a series of smashing early-70s outfits--floppy hats, go-go boots, backless evening gowns, big-sleeved minidresses... and the other hookers have some fresh attire as well (some charming negligees, lavender disco dresses, etc.). And some of the scenes of her tricks are mildly amusing (although many inadvertently so), particularly the one where she does a reverse striptease while reciting a business report. Still, it starts off excruciatingly slow and you can see what plot twists there are coming a mile away with bludgeoning sticks in hand. And the party scenes in the brothel aren't nearly as much fun as you'd expect, considering as the 70s was a golden era for movie party scenes and this is supposedly a whorehouse. Not worth watching, really, although it is worth flipping back and forth to if there's not much else on.