Casting Jill Clayburgh as a NY prostitute sounds somewhat absurd in theory, and isn't much better in practice. But back then she wasn't well-known. Normally actresses have a field day playing hookers (I wonder why...), and do it with ease, very well - even the bad actresses. It's as if they were born to play them.
Far from being a bad actress, the beautiful Jill is simply wrong for the role, yet another example that casting is an "art form" that requires brains, something a bunch of film-makers lack. She might have been convincing as a Cincinnati hooker, or a Nevadan prostitute, but that Nu Yoyk accent makes her appear to be going for laughs. Sure, there are smaller elements of humour here too, but it is predominantly a social drama. If you manage to get past Jill doing that silly accent then you can believe her. I couldn't, at least not always.
How realistic is this film? For a TV drama it's realistic, but if you'd compare it to "Serpico", for example, or "Working Girls" (not to be confused with that dumb Griffiths film), then perhaps it isn't particularly.
What I like about it is that the writers made an effort to get acquainted with the NY street scene, rather than just make up an obviously artificial world of prostitution as happens so often on the small and big screens, which would completely defeat the purpose. The ins-and-outs of 70s NY Hookerlandia are pretty well covered.
Another plus is that the outdoor scenes were shot in the 70s, on location, a year before "Taxi Driver" came out. True, TD is much grittier, not to mention stylistically brilliant, but both movies give you the "old NYC" in similar ways: the one that punks, pimps, muggers, hipsters, lunatics and liberals still long for, still weep over, because they claim "it was better that way".
Yeah, it was better: but only for "hip" observers, tourists-with-bodyguards, millionaires hidden away in limos, and others wealthy enough to waltz through those areas safe and protected from the reality of such surroundings. They didn't have to live there. When I listen to the likes of Scorsese wax poetic about the "good old days" of muggings and pimps and hookers, I don't know whether to laugh or start a petition to get him locked up in a psychiatric ward. Ditto hipster punks, they too glamourize this era, as if hookers and muggings should be a mainstay of Manhattan life! Laughable. I understand the "romantic" appeal, it's not that I don't, but some people are also enamored with Nazi Germany, but without actually HOPING for a return to that era, without becoming Nazis. They are simply fascinated by that bizarre evil world without actually craving that ideology. Why can't Scorsese and the hipsters do the same?
Another positive is that the plot isn't over-dramatized. There aren't any ridiculous bombastic plot-twists to "create conflict", but things are kept low-key i.e. Mostly realistic, or as much as a TV movie can allow for.
What I didn't like is the stereotypical portrayal of the "idealistic" journalist, doing a story for all the right reasons. Lee Remick's character is pure fiction. American journalists (and journalists in general) are anything but idealist romantics: they are cynical, greedy, over-ambitious careerists who ruin lives at the drop of a hat. Their kind is only one rung above that of defense lawyers and politicians... (It's no coincidence that so many politicians stem from these two dark professions.)
Far from being a bad actress, the beautiful Jill is simply wrong for the role, yet another example that casting is an "art form" that requires brains, something a bunch of film-makers lack. She might have been convincing as a Cincinnati hooker, or a Nevadan prostitute, but that Nu Yoyk accent makes her appear to be going for laughs. Sure, there are smaller elements of humour here too, but it is predominantly a social drama. If you manage to get past Jill doing that silly accent then you can believe her. I couldn't, at least not always.
How realistic is this film? For a TV drama it's realistic, but if you'd compare it to "Serpico", for example, or "Working Girls" (not to be confused with that dumb Griffiths film), then perhaps it isn't particularly.
What I like about it is that the writers made an effort to get acquainted with the NY street scene, rather than just make up an obviously artificial world of prostitution as happens so often on the small and big screens, which would completely defeat the purpose. The ins-and-outs of 70s NY Hookerlandia are pretty well covered.
Another plus is that the outdoor scenes were shot in the 70s, on location, a year before "Taxi Driver" came out. True, TD is much grittier, not to mention stylistically brilliant, but both movies give you the "old NYC" in similar ways: the one that punks, pimps, muggers, hipsters, lunatics and liberals still long for, still weep over, because they claim "it was better that way".
Yeah, it was better: but only for "hip" observers, tourists-with-bodyguards, millionaires hidden away in limos, and others wealthy enough to waltz through those areas safe and protected from the reality of such surroundings. They didn't have to live there. When I listen to the likes of Scorsese wax poetic about the "good old days" of muggings and pimps and hookers, I don't know whether to laugh or start a petition to get him locked up in a psychiatric ward. Ditto hipster punks, they too glamourize this era, as if hookers and muggings should be a mainstay of Manhattan life! Laughable. I understand the "romantic" appeal, it's not that I don't, but some people are also enamored with Nazi Germany, but without actually HOPING for a return to that era, without becoming Nazis. They are simply fascinated by that bizarre evil world without actually craving that ideology. Why can't Scorsese and the hipsters do the same?
Another positive is that the plot isn't over-dramatized. There aren't any ridiculous bombastic plot-twists to "create conflict", but things are kept low-key i.e. Mostly realistic, or as much as a TV movie can allow for.
What I didn't like is the stereotypical portrayal of the "idealistic" journalist, doing a story for all the right reasons. Lee Remick's character is pure fiction. American journalists (and journalists in general) are anything but idealist romantics: they are cynical, greedy, over-ambitious careerists who ruin lives at the drop of a hat. Their kind is only one rung above that of defense lawyers and politicians... (It's no coincidence that so many politicians stem from these two dark professions.)