So says streetwalker Jill Clayburgh in her star making role, a TV movie about Street walkers in Times Square in the mid-1970's, focusing on Clayburgh's agreeing to meet with a high-class magazine reporter played by Lee Remick. Lee wants to get the scoop on the financial benefits of prostitution, seeing who makes the profit between the girls, the pimps or the courts. It's not an easy life because they spend more time in the courts then at Rikers then they do "entertaining", and one thing that is very apparent that for most of these ladies, it is a business that is only interfere with when they get caught.
Remick certainly gets an earful, not only from Clayburgh, but from a few other working girls as well, and a few warnings in regards to how the pimps will react. This TV movie is humorous and not at all depressing because it doesn't present it for anything other than it is, not going for shock value or cheap giggles. When Clayburgh and her pal Melanie Mayron pick up a john at the same time, they keep gabbing as the client is undressing, as he is wondering when business will be taken care of. Burt Young adds a bit more realism as the hotel manager freely admitting that he rents by the hour.
It's very mechanical with all parties consenting, and Remick gets to question her own boyfriend, Monte Markham, about his feelings about relations can someone who loves or just a quick financial arrangement. There's even a cross-dressing man among the group when Remick shares her knowledge of Allah with them, and you get to see her character's liberalism as she begins to see a different side of life. Her reaction is certainly a far cry from the matinee ladies on the bus coming from a play who verbally assault Clayburgh as she saunters by.
Coming out the year before "Taxi Driver" and six years after "Midnight Cowboy", this is a long gone view of the crossroads of the world, and you get to see the violence and just respect and harassment, one scene extremely shocking as Clayburgh is assaulted by a gang, later revealed to be a group of women who have turned to a different style of crime, and according to police officer Alex Rocco, probably set up by her pimp. The musical "The Life" showed a different story, but at least Broadway audiences had to make a special trip to a theater to see it. Being a TV movie, this was much more daring, and very well done.
Remick certainly gets an earful, not only from Clayburgh, but from a few other working girls as well, and a few warnings in regards to how the pimps will react. This TV movie is humorous and not at all depressing because it doesn't present it for anything other than it is, not going for shock value or cheap giggles. When Clayburgh and her pal Melanie Mayron pick up a john at the same time, they keep gabbing as the client is undressing, as he is wondering when business will be taken care of. Burt Young adds a bit more realism as the hotel manager freely admitting that he rents by the hour.
It's very mechanical with all parties consenting, and Remick gets to question her own boyfriend, Monte Markham, about his feelings about relations can someone who loves or just a quick financial arrangement. There's even a cross-dressing man among the group when Remick shares her knowledge of Allah with them, and you get to see her character's liberalism as she begins to see a different side of life. Her reaction is certainly a far cry from the matinee ladies on the bus coming from a play who verbally assault Clayburgh as she saunters by.
Coming out the year before "Taxi Driver" and six years after "Midnight Cowboy", this is a long gone view of the crossroads of the world, and you get to see the violence and just respect and harassment, one scene extremely shocking as Clayburgh is assaulted by a gang, later revealed to be a group of women who have turned to a different style of crime, and according to police officer Alex Rocco, probably set up by her pimp. The musical "The Life" showed a different story, but at least Broadway audiences had to make a special trip to a theater to see it. Being a TV movie, this was much more daring, and very well done.