Porn is generally so sloppily made, often insultingly cheap looking, it is easy to be bowled over by production values. Alas, the shot-on-film 1985 movie WORKING GIRLS is extremely well-done technically, but scores zero in the inspiration department.
That's a shame, since careful lighting, makeup, styling, acting and direction are to be admired. Scripter Dean Rogers, normally delivering quality material, flunked out for once.
Structure is merely six porn vignettes, plus an idiotic "joke" segment near the end, all shot on claustrophobic interiors, with random street footage interspersed. A femme narrator talks of prostitution, but the first vignettes are about married women. The porn proselytizing claiming that marriage is merely legalized prostitution is the film's annoying and phony premise.
Ron Jeremy shtups his wife Ashley Welles/Lee Brown in the opener "New Kitchen", which is merely a case of her holding out on aiding him to ejaculate until he'll agree to her kitchen renovation project. It's a dumb scene, but well-done by the thesps -especially Ashley, who looks a lot like Marilyn Chambers here.
Second scene probably holds up the best, as the late Jamie Gillis is showcased as a "Male Hooker", not a gay hustler but rather a gigolo of old. He services near-lookalikes Ali Moore and Cecille DeVille, latter who never got a career going. There's no point or twist, they simply enjoy it and Gillis heads for the shower, a job well done.
This lack of H.E. Bates or O. Henry type zinger is the problem with the film -each sequence just lays there, unfolding in straightforward fashion, minus drama, suspense or surprise. That adds up to a forerunner of the recent-decades "all sex" videos, with pointless vignettes on the content level of old stag loops.
Part 3 is "Getting Husband a Raise" -that's all she wrote. Petite Luv (actually later anal star Patti Petite) humps hubby's boss Mike Horner, highlight of which is deep throat -no anal in this movie.
Shift to title "working girls" premise is in Vignette #4, "Learning the Biz". Rene Lovins humps john Paul Thomas for the money while her mentor Ali Moore observes. Ali fantasizes doing the humping herself, and the only switch is that Paul's money shot comes with Ali, rather than for real with Lovins.
"Masquerade" is promising, as buxom Stevie Taylor dresses as a man to please her john (failed porn wannabe Chris Thompson). The sex is strictly hetero, and Stevie never unveils her breasts during the sequence. Odd touch of Chris having a big bandage on his cheek is alluded to but remains cryptic.
Same director Dave DeCoteau, better known for his chintzy fantasy and horror films & videos later on, ends the movie with "Tied Up", a lame bondage teaser. Sheri St. Claire is scrumptious masturbating for john Robert Bullock, who she's tied up in bondage so he can only look but can't touch. "Eat your heart out Henry" is the message.
DeCoteau ends the movie with a thud, by completeling the previously teased minute long junker "Kinky Sex". It's a dumb, dirty joke that is merely insulting, and wastes the talents of former Playboy Playmate Susan Smith.
Most of the segments rely on the girls talking dirty, perhaps a nod to writer Rogers' hugely successful hit TALK DIRTY TO ME. But each vignette goes nowhere, making for a visually appealing but empty feature film.
