THE HAPPY HOOKER (1975)

 The 70's rating system was a strange creature.  Films full of bloody murders(BLOOD AND LACE) would oftentimes get a PG-rating and then movies like this one would come along and get rated R strictly for the sexy subject matter.  Surprisingly there's little actual nudity in a film that's all about a woman's journey through the world of prostitution and finally ending up becoming a world famous madam.  It's all based on a best-selling book at the time so maybe due to the infamy of it all they had to keep the kiddies away.
 The film itself, to me, plays almost like a TV-movie drama and not so much an exploitation flick which you might expect.  It is probably the only movie where you can see Lynn Redgrave dancing around in her underwear before going on to becoming a more respectable actress so that's something.  It's interesting that the 2 big high-profile madams after Xaviera Hollander(the Mayflower Madam and Heidi Fleiss) only got TV-movies made about their exploits and that kind of makes sense since it is all really a big TV-tabloid kind of a story anyway. I did like the all-black gang of bad-ass street hookers that we meet in a holding cell, it's too bad the movie wasn't about those chicks.  The other thing that kind of lets you down while viewing is that the plot never really goes anywhere and if you know the basic story of The Happy Hooker you know just about everything that you'll see here.  Check it out only if you're a big fan of high-priced escorts.