The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980)

Cannon Films, while they existed (which was for a surprisingly long time), were always reminiscent of Universal or Columbia Pictures as they existed in thirties and forties.  Almost, but-not-quite, major studios adept at turning out mid-budgeted pictures or grinding out series spun off from such a successful film, with ever decreasing budgets and ambitions, yet all the time still striving to be taken seriously by turning out the odd, higher budgeted, 'prestige' picture.  While both Universal and Columbia eventually succeeded in elevating themselves to the status of 'major' studios, (a status they still hold today), Cannon never really achieved the legitimacy they so obviously craved, instead being remembered for their seemingly endless series of mid-budgeted action films starring the likes of Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris, various dodgy low budget science fiction and fantasy films, (not to mention big budget science fiction disasters like Life Force) and would be sex comedies.  Which brings us to The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980), aka Hollywood Blue, the second of two cheap and quick sequels to one of their most popular films, The Happy Hooker (1975).  The first film was loosely based on the autobiography of Xaviera Hollander, a Dutch sex worker and madam, who found success in New York, and starred Lynn Redgrave in the lead role.  Naturally, Cannon wanted to spin it off into a series, but as cheaply as possible.  Which meant that Redgrave was replaced with less expensive and recognisable actresses for the two sequels: Joey Southerton in The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977) and Martine Beswick for The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.

Now, Martine Beswick might well have been less recognisable to general audiences than Lynn Redgrave, she is still a talented and hugely attractive actress (and later enjoyed success as a novelist).  Indeed, I can't deny that she was a major teenage fantasy for me, fuelled, not so much by her appearances in two Bond movies, but rather her genre appearances in a number of Hammer films.  She often seemed to play sultry cave women in various states of undress and, most notably, was the female half of Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971).  The latter film was a late night TV favourite for young men of my generation, as you could tell parents and other adults that you were watching it for educational purposes, as it was a feminist take on a literary classic.  In reality, of course, we were watching it for Beswick, who not only gave us some flashes of side boob, but also bared her shapely bottom in one scene.  In retrospect, bearing in mind the effect that her behind alone had on our libidos back then, it is probably just as well that The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood didn't appear a few years earlier than it did, as her appearance in it leaves nothing to the imagination.  Seeing the fully naked Martine Beswick would probably have induced fatal seizures of ecstasy in those of us of a certain age.  All joking aside, these scenes are actually a large part of what is wrong with The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.  Not that I have any objection to Martine Beswick getting naked.  The problem is the context.  Despite its subject matter, The Happy Hooker didn't actually give the audience much in the way of explicit sex and nudity, focusing instead upon the comedic aspects of the story, a trend that continued with the first sequel.  But third time around, Cannon had clearly decided that what they needed to protect the box office was an injection of full on sex and nudity, which ultimately shades the whole movie over into softcore pornography, rather than sex comedy, territory. 

Beswick has a number of lengthy sex scenes with, of all people, Adam West, (allegedly, one actress had turned down the lead role on the grounds that she had watched West as Batman on TV as a child and simulating sex with him on camera would be just too freaky for her and Beswick herself was somewhat taken aback by the number of sex scenes she was required to film).  These feel increasingly jarring in the context of the rest of the film which plays out as a very broad satire of Hollywood, featuring the likes of Phil Silvers and Richard Deacon, giving the whole film a disjointed feel, as if scenes from a completely different movie were being inserted into an otherwise harmless comedy.  The plot, such as it is, concerns Silvers' struggling studio optioning Hollander's book, with studio executive West seducing her so as to get the rights over the line, then use just the title to create a fictional story.  Objecting to West's plans, Hollander instead strikes a deal with West's rival executive's son to produce the film independently with a script she approves.  The rest of the movie concerns their attempts to finance it, the studio's attempts to sabotage it and climaxes with the only print being stolen before the premiere and a car chase to retrieve it.  To be honest, as jarring as they might be, without those sex scenes, The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood really wouldn't have had any sort of unique selling point.  A thin script and lacklustre direction from Alan Roberts ensures that the film largely wastes its cast and never really manages to make anything out of its set-pieces.  If you are a completist Martine Beswick fan then, yes, it is probably worth a look but otherwise is hardly a must-see.