Hustling

This film is based upon Gail Sheehy's pseudo-sociological book dealing with streetwalking prostitution in midtown New York, and features Lee Remick as a middle class magazine journalist who selects one particular harlot named Wanda (Jill Clayburgh) with whom she somewhat bonds in the course of investigating unsavoury real estate dealings involving socially prominent figures who ostensibly benefit from prostitution income. Despite the use of open mikes and harshly grained lighting to bring about a sense of aural and visual realism, the work suffers from a romantic approach to its subject, presenting the prostitutes and local police who arrest them as one reluctantly interlaced family, with the pimps grotesque caricatures, and the direction by Joseph Sargent vying with Jerry Fielding's jazzy score for being the most unimaginative contribution, whereas those real problems associated with this type of vice activity: venereal disease, the deleterious effect upon local business establishments, etc., are barely touched upon, indeed being submerged beneath a flurry of bootless subplots.

This movie is basically The French Connection but instead of narcotics being the centrepiece of the movie , in Hustling ,it's prostitution. Jill Clayburgh gives an outstanding performance as Wanda the high priced hooker. At certain points she resembles Sandra Bullock. The movie is a no holds barred, save perhaps for language, portrait of life on the mean mean streets of NYC at perhaps it's most vile and dangerous time the mid- 70s. Lee Remick is her usual solid , dependable, and beautiful self as the reporter writing an expose on the lives of these desperate, and often abused women. Don't let the rating and other reviews (?) mislead . This is a lost gem of a movie. Gritty, powerful with excellent performances.

TV-made adaptation of Gail Sheehy's book about the prostitution-overflow in New York City was considered heady stuff in 1975, but time has turned the picture into trivial camp, complete with 'colorful' dialogue ("How can I bust prostitutes on a typewriter with a broken P?" ... "Try W."). Lee Remick plays that warhorse of clichés: the eager magazine writer hoping to get a juicy inside scoop. She befriends a low-class hooker for the sake of her in-depth piece, but the reporter's ultimate loss of innocence rings false within this too-clean scenario. Jill Clayburgh (in platform heels and talking with an artificial Flatbush twang) would have been far more convincing as an upscale Manhattan call-girl; here, pacing the seedy streets in her mini-skirt and fake-fur jacket, she resembles nothing more than the invasion of Hollywood, U.S.A. Some of the location shooting is well-captured, but the movie is a far cry from the gritty expose it clearly means to be; the phoniness of the characters and in the framework of the plot (de rigueur for television movies) sinks nearly all interest in the subject matter. Sheehy (who did not write the teleplay) did work as a consultant on the picture, which fails to explain Clayburgh's 'respectable' makeover at the finale and the interminable bus station farewell scene, which looks like something out of a Ginger Rogers movie.

The characters are gritty and earthy. Jill Clayburgh was desrcibd as having a new York accent so thick you could cut it with a steak knife, and for a debut role she didn't do too badly at all.

So why criticism of her Flatbush dialect I'm not sure, but I know she was from a better part of NYNY. But hey opinions make the world go round.

The scenes are very 1975 so totally amazing to see, nice canvasses of Street life and soem beautiful touches of real people peering back at the camera as it trawls the streets. Oppressive police offices manned by jerks. Aesthetically I felt drawn completely into a compelling seedy and familiar underworld, even if the plot and script was a little watery at times. That's th problem they give Lee Remick I think.

The performance of JC was a taste of things to come, Remick was a little by her best, and all the seedy cops and fleabag hotel managers an pimps play fine roles and from the totally delicious across the decades Beverly Hope Atkinson brings some laughter to the scenes and she really put he stamp on those-when she was given lines to deliver-then in her 30s, still looking about 18. Total romp and immersion, ino a time lost, a very good movie.

"Hustling" was made for TV in 1975, back when "Movies of the Week" were more of an "Event" and were taken more seriously than they are today. I'd be willing to bet that whatever network first aired this film, probably preceded it with ads saying that it was "Ripped from the headlines" or "The Shocking True Story..." It obviously worked, as I understand the film won several Emmy Awards. 35 years after the fact, "Hustling" is still a decent, although a bit dry, melodrama.

Considering that I found this film on a budget-priced DVD collection called "GREAT BAD GIRL MOVIES," I was hoping for something a little more sleazy/exploitative than what I got. No such luck. "Hustling" turned out to be a pretty straightforward drama, with the basic message being "Hey, prostitutes are people too, man." Lee Remick (pre-"The Omen") stars as a reporter for a major New York magazine who wants to write an expose on the prostitution problem in the Times Square area, which at the time was reaching critical mass. She befriends a reluctant veteran hooker named Wanda (Jill Clayburgh, whose Noo Yawk accent is so thick you can cut it with a steak knife) and uses her as her 'source' for the article, which causes problems for Wanda not only with the other "girls" but with her pimp, who doesn't want her discussing "the business" with an outsider. Of course, since this is a made for TV film the language and action are mostly squeaky clean. The most suggestive dialogue you'll hear is a "prostie" suggesting to a john that he take "two girls" instead of just one, and the only violence is implied or happens offscreen. The upbeat ending is unrealistic and feels as if it were tacked on at the last minute. If this movie were made today, it would probably air on the Lifetime Channel and it would star Alyssa Milano as the reporter and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Wanda. (Y'know what? Now that I think about it, I'd watch that. Haha.)

So while "Hustling" was not exactly what I expected, it was still worth a look,, mainly for the way-cool shot-on-location scenes in the mean streets of New York City circa 1975. The city was a lot dirtier and scarier than it is nowadays. It's also fun to play "spot the character actor" with the supporting cast; you'll see such dependables as Alex Rocco, Burt Young, and even Howard Hesseman ("WKRP") in small roles. Trivia geeks alert, director Joseph Sargent directed multitudes of other TV movies and mini series throughout the '70s and '80s as well as the occasional theatrical film, including 1987's legendary disaster "Jaws: The Revenge!" If nothing else, "Hustling" is far superior to that famed turkey. Retro movie fans should get a few kicks from this dusty offering.