I knew very little about the history making “Happy Hooker” before attending the 2008 Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. “Xaviera Hollander” wasn’t a household name in my family’s home, but to me its lush syllables suggest the kind of exoticism meaning “sex goddess” in any language. Xaviera Hollander: ‘The Happy Hooker’: Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary made its world premier in the City of Brotherly Love, in a tiny makeshift theater filled with mismatched upholstered sofas and cheerfully colored chairs. As I sat, stuffed on a small loveseat, preparing for the film’s debut, I though it very possible I would not care for the documentary’s subject matter at all. However, aside from a few small snafus and some sketchy production quality, I was absolutely smitten by The Happy Hooker.
Xaviera Hollander made waves in the 1970’s with her bestselling book The Happy Hooker: My Own Story – a memoir that recounts the author’s work as a prostitute and a high class New York Madame as well as her experiences with S&M, lesbianism, and the law. Over the last several decades, Hollander has gone on to write eighteen other books with topics ranging from the kinky (The Happy Hooker’s Guide to Sex: 69 Orgasmic Ways to Pleasure a Woman) to the sincere (Child No More, a memoir of her mother’s passing.) Though her books are marketed as tell-alls, Hollander decided a documentary film might better complete her legendary life and demystify her iconic status. Hollander wrote Xaviera Hollander, ‘The Happy Hooker’: Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary Robert Dunlap directed.
The film begins with a psychedelic montage of Xaviera Hollander waving to fans and embracing her celebrity status; in just seconds the movie’s tone turns much more serious as Hollander narrates, in a style reminiscent of poetry, her family’s history in the Japanese concentration camps of World War II. Hollander was released from the perils of torture and starvation at the age of three; after explaining this, the film documents her very early childhood before jumping rather abruptly to the story of “Teenage Lovers and Lesbians”, an account of Hollander’s bi-curious adolescence. Though I wish Hollander had spent a little more time talking about her transition from a beautiful blonde little girl to a sexual siren, I was never-the-less fascinated by what insightful, articulate, introspective narrative she did offer up about her budding sexuality. Most interesting were Hollander’s notes on the old cliché that “women marry men like their fathers.” According to Hollander, she experienced he first orgasm on her father’s lap while he spanked her for her teenaged indiscretion. Since then, she explained, she has always fallen in love with men who fulfilled that paternal image.
From there, the picture goes on to discuss Hollander’s introduction to prostitution. According to her, a friend suggested that she was sitting “on a gold mine” sleeping with many men a week for free when her irresistible charm could make her hobby a business. From there, “the rest was history” and the film whips back into the whirlwind of Hollander’s past and present lives: her position as a pioneer for the concept of “whore-pride”, her literary career, her call girls’ encounters with clients such as Alfred Hitchcock, her struggles with motherhood, and the discovery of her eventual, everlasting love. Evenly interspersed throughout the film are media clips of notable television interviews between Hollander and Larry King, as well as testaments to Hollander by some of the country’s most renowned sexologists. With respect to its variety of media, Happy Hooker is an excellent composition.
Though the Happy Hooker boasts a brilliantly told story, its production quality left much to be desired. Its sound was hollow and its color was not balanced; both missteps are so unfortunate because Hollander is such a colorful character in possession of such a beautiful voice and sultry style of speech. If only more care and money had been invested into this film’s final, finished work, I am sure The Happy Hooker would have enjoyed a fabulous theatrical release.
Fortunately, I had the supreme privilege of meeting Ms. Hollander herself after the first screening of her film. She appeared for a Q&A draped loosely in tie-died blue and purple fabric, sporting turquoise earrings perfectly complemented to her shocking blue eye shadow and ruby red lips. Hollander didn’t waste any time waiting for questions; instead, she engaged her audience in a discussion about sexual fantasies and collected quite an eclectic bunch of answers. I almost died when she singled me out from the group to ask about my own forbidden desires. Sadly, I chickened out on what could have been the most interesting moment of my life.
“Well, uh, I guess I’m just pretty boring Ms. Hollander.”
