Gabbie Bam Bam from Sex Worker Saturday reviews the memoir, The Happy Hooker as well as the film adaptation by the same name directed by Nick Sgarro.
"WE DON’T DRESS LIKE A HOOKER IN A WHOREHOUSE”
Welcome to the wide world of SEX, DRAMA, SEX, HEARTBREAK,SEX, SCANDAL AND MORE SEX!! These are just some of the titillating themes that encapsulate the life of Xaviera Hollander; aka The Happy Hooker. Published in 1972, Xaviera Hollander takes you through the rabbit hole of sexual exploration that is her life. I was hooked on this hooker from the very first chapter!!! Born Xaviera “Vera” DeVries Hollander grew up experiencing hardship throughout her formative years when she and her family were captured and thrown in a Japanese internment camp (the Hollander family were persecuted for being jewish and punished for being Dutch in the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies).
She describes her perspectives on the various roles of women from observing her quite repressed and prude mother who believes that a well behaved and virginal woman is the best thing you can strive to be. Conversely, Xaviera put her father; a charming physician on the highest pedestal and studied his business acumen from a young age.
Xaviera lived and loved during the height of the sexual revolution in the 1960s where women were trading in their aprons and pot roasts for orgies and sexual liberation.
Xaviera takes the reader through her apprenticeship of life as a “Working Girl.'' She spares no detail when she describes these encounters, as she is starting to not only learn about her body, but learn about the business related to the desires of the flesh.
She arrives in America after agreeing to a proposal of marriage to American economist Carl Gordon. Being constantly disappointed by Gordon’s empty promises and her growing loneliness, she decides to focus on gaining steady employment while also exploring her more carnal desires.
She soon figured out the power she can have over a man by using her body and studied the art of love making and seduction through her various encounters; eventually working as a “high class call girl” for two well known Manhattan Madams. She fucked her way to the top of the ladder high enough to open and run her own cathouse, that serviced various socialites. The book ends with a double crossing bugging operation that essentially destroys the successful business Hollander took years to perfect. Even she could not pay off or out fuck the United States government and its crackdown on prostitution.
As I highly recommend this book I do cringe at the film adaptation. Directed by Nicholas Sgarro (directing mostly TV series including ‘Dallas’, CHiPs, Kojak), the film starts with the same opening scene described in the book where Xaviera and her ‘girls’ are cuffed and thrown in jail. What upsets me about this film is that he had every opportunity to pay tribute to Hollander’s memoir but blatantly chose to flush her story down the toilet. I find it surprising because the entire cast is brimming with amazing comedic actors including Lynn Redgrave as Xaviera, but the film itself falls short of a well adapted comedy. Naturally, I am left feeling unsatisfied and thought the film would have seamless transitions. I expected more from Sgarro who was script supervisor to such amazing works of art like Friedman’s French Connection and The Exorcist. The film is treated more like a late night boring variety show about being a full service provider instead of tackling how monumental Xaviera Hollander’s influence on sex culture in America and eventually pop culture (there were two sequels made after this).
I give The Happy Hooker book 3.75 out of 5 dildos. I give the film The Happy Hooker 1.75 out of five dildos.
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