Interestingly enough I remember Hollywood Blvd. During this time, having moved there the year this was made. While I never saw Rory Calhoun hanging out in a cowboy outfit, I saw plenty of working girls, homeless teens and oddball characters walking on both sides of the street between the Pantages (where "Sugar Babies" ran what seemed forever) and the Chinese Graumans, then just one theater. ("Flashdance" was my intro to movie going there.)
Side streets with mom and pop Mexican restaurants, used book stores, smoke shops, all mixed in with mainstays like Musso Franks and the Egyptian Theater, all seen as Donna Wilkes walks up and down the streets with her assortment of protector friends. They include glamorous drag queen Dick Shawn and lesbian artist Susan Tyrell in addition to Calhoun, surrogate parents to the very alone Wilkes who still goes to Hollywood High and gets A's as her mom is "away".
I don't think Wilkes even tricks. She's seen talking with one potential john whose offer of $20 is insulting and later grabs a ride with an undercover cop, figuring him out pretty quickly. Cop Cliff Gorman ("Boys in the Band"/"All That Jazz") is searching for a serial killer preying on prostitutes. You see one getting killed out in the open, unfortunately the other street walkers being heard by the killer, but them not hearing her screams. So yeah, it's trash, but as sleazy as it is, the nostalgia factor is quite prevalent, and there's a bit of a sadness in knowing that this was a part of "the life" that has at least in the sense of underage workers has been cleaned up.
Side streets with mom and pop Mexican restaurants, used book stores, smoke shops, all mixed in with mainstays like Musso Franks and the Egyptian Theater, all seen as Donna Wilkes walks up and down the streets with her assortment of protector friends. They include glamorous drag queen Dick Shawn and lesbian artist Susan Tyrell in addition to Calhoun, surrogate parents to the very alone Wilkes who still goes to Hollywood High and gets A's as her mom is "away".
I don't think Wilkes even tricks. She's seen talking with one potential john whose offer of $20 is insulting and later grabs a ride with an undercover cop, figuring him out pretty quickly. Cop Cliff Gorman ("Boys in the Band"/"All That Jazz") is searching for a serial killer preying on prostitutes. You see one getting killed out in the open, unfortunately the other street walkers being heard by the killer, but them not hearing her screams. So yeah, it's trash, but as sleazy as it is, the nostalgia factor is quite prevalent, and there's a bit of a sadness in knowing that this was a part of "the life" that has at least in the sense of underage workers has been cleaned up.