My Pleasure Is My Business

This is not a porn film, nor is it a biography on the life of Xaviera Hollander, whose book based on her experiences in the world's oldest profession was big stuff at the time. (for that story, check out The Happy Hooker with Lynn Redgrave-1975). This movie is a low budget, Canadian made sex farce in which Xaviera is deported from the USA and has to find a new place to set up camp. Many countries will not allow her to stay as she is "too sexy". She finally lands in a fictional European country where she soon reverts back to her old madame-ish ways. There is a fair amount of exposed flesh but nothing too explicit. The film is more silly than anything else. The comedy is outrageously bad. It has an air of "what-were-they-thinking-at-the-time?" including a slapstick bicycle chase which I guess was meant to be like the silent movies but can't even measure up to those. The odd part is that it features several veteran Candian performers: Henry Ramer as the nasty official who opposes Xaviera, Jayne Eastwood as his libidinal wife, Marvin Goldhar playing various detectives, Colin Fox and Jackie Burroughs are also thrown in for good measure. The movie was directed by the late Al Waxman and is a good indication of why he didn't direct many features afterwards. In his biography, he talks about this movie with pride as it was a money maker in it's day. Today, it has a campy, cult-ish quality but not much else.

After hearing the first two lines of dialogue in this film viewers are left in no doubt that they are watching a farce, similar in style to the films created by the "Carry On" team. It does not feature the extreme rolling in the aisles and contorted facial expressions of Kenneth Williams (which for me made it rather more watchable), but there is plenty of eye rolling and sidelong glances delivered in an exaggerated manner that is almost pure camp. The film features a little nudity, and there considerable sexual innuendo in the dialogue, but it is in most respects classic situation comedy which never justified its R rating. This was probably given largely on the basis of the reputation of its star, Xavier Hollander, who is better known for her other roles (she is author of the semi-autobiographical novel "The Happy Hooker" which was filmed and also released in 1975, but without her active participation and with Lynn Redgrave playing the title role); and she does not appear to have acted in any other films - I was quite surprised to find myself regretting this. Her role is that of a sophisticated woman of the world who is forced to relocate to an imaginary banana republic where the intention is to put her on trial on a sensational public immorality charge that will draw media attention away from some of the excesses perpetrated by the government. In this role she was not only attractive, but also very successfully played the part of a calm, confident and capable ingénue who stays cool whilst the world falls apart around her. I could have watched more of this. This film was directed by Al Waxman and made no pretensions to high artistic quality or important social content so it could never have earned him any awards, but it probably succeeded in delivering almost exactly what both he and the promoters had intended. Since it was also a financial success I find it had to understand why the only other viewer to have commented on this film here felt that it could have had an adverse effect on his professional career.

Unfortunately I quickly tire of watching farce and before the first half hour was over I began to fidget. My rating for this film would be 2/10, although I am sure farce lovers would rate it higher. Had it been produced as a 45 min shortie with a punch in every line, I would have enjoyed it much more and would probably have rated it at 6 or even 7/10.