Escort Girl (1941)

The universe of the vice movies has its classics, people like Esper, Clifton, Shyer, W. Kent, Doris Wishman (who belongs to a very different age, though the vice movies went on in the '50s and '60s, without morphing in the new and piquant exploitation).Beyond the scandals, nowadays irrelevant, the movies witness to their crew's knowledge of the trade. The very distant ancestor, at least in some respects, is Baudelaire, one of the 1st to glamorize what he meant to criticize. The movies are complex because they take a moral stance, not simply pretend to show things neutrally and factually. They are kindred to social dramas, occasionally to horror, Expressionism, Gothic, when an over-the-top approach has been chosen …; the exploitation alludes to the unacknowledged luridness, sometimes to a certain wickedness, occasionally mere naughtiness, in the conveying of the world criticized, but these traits certainly depend on the director, etc.. The best achievements are lurid, appealing. Also, they sometimes discovered beauty, even truth and soundness. Sometimes, a player steps in, making a movie meaningful.The topics were made appealing because they were taboos. So, the lurid topic wasn't sexuality, but prostitution.The heyday has been in the decade betwixt mid-'30s and mid-'40s.Eddie Kaye's drama has two of the vice movies' best players, Betty Compson and Oakman as the heads of an escort traffic; her acting is A, and if it upstages the others it also matches the movie, his, B, while Vallin and Housman have supporting roles. The movie here actually has something to convey. The director wishes it as a drama, spiced with piquant satire.The drama is popular in tone, but effective, thorough and piercing. Both comedy and drama are well conveyed, the direction is smooth, and you can tell people by how a movie elicits the sensibility's answer, whether it does; this is such a lovable movie, I can understand why some deem it addictive. Here, the topic is a glamour girl ring, escort traffic, deceit and lie.I liked the escort woman who's solicited by her husband.

This is a thoroughly dreadful film and the fact that the print is so incredibly choppy doesn't help matters! In fact, it's one of the choppiest prints I have ever seen--and it must have lopped at least five minutes off the film! The movie is about an escort service--in other words, a prostitution ring. A lady is the madame of this agency and has managed to hide this from her daughter--who she has sent away to exclusive schools in order to hide the mother's dirty life. But, when the now grown daughter unexpectedly shows up with her boyfriend (who just happens to be the son of the District Attorney who is investigating this racket!!), things get interesting...or so it should have been had the film been written better. Instead, the film limps along--punctuated with a very risqué striptease scene that really has nothing to do with the film--it's just a chance to see a nearly nude woman. In fact, because of this, the film would not have been allowed to have been shown in many, if not most, municipalities. But, considering how dumb and boring the whole things is, this is no great loss. While it's bad all around, perhaps Margaret Marquis' acting (as the daughter) is the worst in the film---it was THAT bad! Dumb from start to finish.

I just stumbled into this grindhouse-type feature from the early '40s on the Internet Archive. This is a short melodramatic story of a female head of an escort service who has a big worry on her mind when her daughter-who's never known about her mother's profession since she's been to out-of-town schools growing up-visits her with her fiancée who's investigating to close down these adult places. It's just as well the print I saw had several splices and was just under an hour since the whole thing was mostly laughably cheesy especially whenever that daughter gets angry or sad and gets saddled with the worst lines to boot! There are some intentionally amusing moments though like when Arthur Housman does his usual drunk routine (I remember him from some Laurel & Hardy shorts) or when that receptionist talks and does some facial reactions. I think she's played by Gay Seabrook who's best known as Spanky's mother in a couple of Our Gang shorts. And, yes, there's a somewhat sexy striptease dance of one lady who shows her breasts though her nipples are covered by pasties. So on that note, Escort Girl is worth a look for what I just sighted and no more.

The only other reviewer at the time of my posting states that the quality of his VHS transfer was excellent, while my 'remastered' DVD print is about as second rate as they come. A lot of jump cuts and missed dialog however doesn't hurt the flow of the story all that much, but even so, what you're left with it are some of the most over the top melodramatic performances you'll find coming out of the era. All in service to the melodramatic nature of the story, as an undercover investigator attempts to expose the ring leaders of an escort bureau. Drake Hamilton's (Robert Kellard) mission becomes complicated when his fiancée is set up to make a call on him as a 'date' from the escort service, but the arrangement is so awkward you'll wonder why June (Margaret Marquis) just didn't explain the whole story when she got to his room.I'm always amazed at the way times have progressed when it comes to how expensive things are today. The fee for an escort back then - ten dollars plus expenses while on the date!!! That didn't include any business the gals did on the side, I guess that's where entrepreneurial ability came in.There are some genuinely laughable scenes here, not all of which were meant to be I'm sure. One which had a lush (Arthur Houseman) walking into a fern a couple of times, making this viewer wonder which of the two was more potted. And gee, I wonder how many drinks it would take to make a high roller like Snuggles (Isabel La Mal) look good. But the scene that will have you sit up and take notice is the dancing stripper, didn't she have a nice pair of ... legs?The grand finale really goes for the gusto, and I for one actually wondered how investigator Hamilton was going to explain the whole thing to the authorities. Now that would have made for a great sequel!