Cranky Lesbian

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Tag: Prostitution Whore

Lies Before Kisses: Jaclyn Smith’s Tawdry Neo-Noir

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On January 12, 2024

In TV Movies

Jaclyn Smith schemes and seduces in Lies Before Kisses.

When we think of femme fatales, we don’t usually imagine scheming seductresses in mom jeans and cutesy vests. But Jaclyn Smith (In the Arms of a Killer, The Night They Saved Christmas) remains true to her early ’90s Kmart aesthetic in Lies Before Kisses (1991), even as she rushes from one clandestine meeting to the next, leaving a trail of besotted men — and planted evidence — in her wake.

The duality of her Elaine ‘Lainey’ Sanders, wife of publishing magnate Grant (Ben Gazzara), is exposed at their daughter’s birthday party. After a catering snafu leaves them cakeless, she graciously insists “Don’t worry. If we have to, we’ll put some candles on the pâté.” Her mood darkens moments later, once she overhears Grant on the phone with a mystery woman. Rather than confront her husband, she calls the catering company to unleash hell. Lainey is used to getting her way.

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Teen Runaways Fall Prey to a Pimp in Little Ladies of the Night

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On July 6, 2023

In TV Movies

Linda Purl in Little Ladies of the Night.

Paul Schrader, the Taxi Driver scribe who later wrote and directed Hardcore, wasn’t the only 1970s auteur preoccupied with sexually exploited minors. “Jiggle TV” mega-producer Aaron Spelling threw his feathered fedora into the ring with Little Ladies of the Night in 1977, scoring a ratings blockbuster for ABC with a tonally confused production that regards teenage prostitution—and all the physical and sexual violence it entails—as a gig worse than the average fast food shift but better than Yves Montand’s trucking assignment in The Wages of Fear.

Its opening narration is our first clue that Little Ladies, scripted by Hal Sitowitz and directed by Marvin J. Chomsky (The Deliberate Stranger), is an unserious film about a serious topic. Calling the teen runaway crisis “a major social issue,” it warns parents of the dangers that await children on the street. “You don’t want to find your kids here,” we’re told, and of course that’s true. But we also knew by 1977 that life with one’s parents wasn’t necessarily safer than harsh alternatives. That idea is paid some lip service here, until Sitowitz and Chomsky pull a potent punch that arguably undermines the rest of the story.

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Lace: Motherhood’s a B*tch

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On May 12, 2023

In TV Movies

“Is that any way to talk to your mothers?”

Let’s say it now, in unison, to get it out of the way: “Incidentally, which one of you b*tches is my mother?” That notorious question, from 1984’s Lace, is Phoebe Cates’s most enduring contribution to cinema that doesn’t involve a red bikini. And it cuts jaggedly to the neon-pink heart of this ABC miniseries, a soapy, sprawling maternity mystery that plays like the most scandalous Facts of Life episode never made.

Adapted by Elliott Baker from Shirley Conran’s saucy novel, Lace is first set in 1960 and tells the story of three friends and roommates at a Swiss boarding school: the pouty French Maxine Pascal (Arielle Dombasle); sardonic Brit Jennifer ‘Pagan’ Trelawney (Brooke Adams); and adventurous American Judy Hale (Bess Armstrong), who entertains her friends with passages from a bodice ripper she scribbles between classes that features a heroine called Lucinda Lace. It’s a name the pals use interchangeably when one of them finds herself pregnant on the eve of graduation, and the trio form an unusual pact of secrecy to protect her at any cost.

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Tricks of the Trade: Laverne & Squirrelly

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On September 7, 2022

In TV Movies

Markie Post and Cindy Williams stare nervously at criminals who aren't pictured.
Markie Post and Cindy Williams in Tricks of the Trade.

“They don’t teach Prostitution 101 at Vassar,” prim Beverly Hills housewife Cathy (Cindy Williams) huffs to streetwise hooker Marla (Markie Post) in Tricks of the Trade, a saucy 1988 telefilm. This very dated buddy comedy serves as her crash course. When stockbroker Donald (John Ritter), Cathy’s husband, is gunned down at Marla’s seedy apartment by a mystery assailant, the women are plunged into zany criminal intrigue — a milieu more comfortable to the lady of the evening than the staid suburban spouse.

They first spot each other at the police station, where there’s an obligatory scene of Marla snapping “Are you gonna charge me with something? Because if you’re not gonna charge me with something, I’m outta here.” But it’s not until Cathy’s therapist encourages her to get in touch with her anger that she finally knocks on the other woman’s door, interrupting a date with a kinky john to ask how long Donald was a client. “What is this, female bonding?” Marla asks, admitting it was a years-long arrangement.

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My Mother’s Secret Life … as an Escort

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On May 6, 2022

In TV Movies

Loni Anderson (un)dresses for success in My Mother’s Secret Life.

The big daughter-seeks-birth-mom TV event that everyone remembers from 1984 is, of course, the miniseries Lace. History has unfairly forgotten My Mother’s Secret Life, and I’ll be pleased if I can get even one person to revisit it. It’s an engaging (and unintentionally funny) telefilm that is perhaps best described as “Loni Anderson’s Charlene moment.” I encourage everyone to get in the mood right now by listening to the song of which I speak.

Now that we’ve taken the hand of a preacher man and made love in the sun, I think we can continue. My Mother’s Secret Life opens with Anderson’s Ellen Blake draped in about 30 lbs of designer clothes and furs. It’s all soon to be removed with artful precision in a demanding john’s penthouse suite. “I’m the buyer here,” he tells her aggressively. “I want to know what I’m buying. You do come at a premium rate.”

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Prostitution’s a Family Affair for Kristin Davis in The Ultimate Lie

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On January 26, 2022

In TV Movies

Kristin Davis and Michael Murphy weren’t expecting to run into each other like this in The Ultimate Lie.

Few premises are as perfect a fit for a TV movie as this one: a young woman working as an escort knocks on a john’s hotel room door — and it’s answered by her dad. That’s the setup for The Ultimate Lie, in which Kristin Davis plays Claire McGrath, a rebellious college dropout turned prostitute.

When Claire is sent for a date with “Harold,” her secret life intersects with that of her father, esteemed law school dean and whoremonger Malcolm (Michael Murphy). They stare at each other in horror for several seconds before a shaken Claire wordlessly leaves.

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