User Reviews

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!

"What is a gentleman? I'm afraid you wouldn't know." That's the theme of this exploitation drama about a Hollywood based escort service run by faded B leading lady Betty Compson ("Mad Youth"), now the proprietor and not a client like that 1939 turkey. Once again, she's a mother, but her daughter (Margaret Marquis) has no idea of what mummy dearest does. Not quite "Mrs. Warren's Profession", this could have been that classic George Bernard Shaw play as seen through the eyes of John Waters. Compson has enough on her plate with her daughter's pending visit when she learns that a headline seeking D.A. (Rick Vallin) is out to break up the escort services. Walter Kingsford is truly menacing and oily as Compson's evil partner.

Much more risque than "Mad Youth" (the prostitution angle is totally obvious), But it becomes instantly clear that Marquis is involved with the rising D.A. who goes undercover as a client to expose them, putting his career (and life) in jeopardy, especially when Compson's partner arranges for Marquis to show up at Vallin's door and make him think that Marquis is one of the escort girl. All this does is set the situation up to break the racket which the audience quickly figures out is destined to happen very quickly.

I believe it is Kathryn Keyes as the receptionist of the escort bureau, making nasty faces at the phone as she sets up dates for clients (mainly wealthy older women), and truly funny. It's easy to feel sorry for the sad older women desperate for companionship and more than willing to lavish their much younger lovers with a high living lifestyle. It's obvious what the sinister Kingsford Is up to as he "consoles" Marquis in a manipulation to get her into the racket. As this gets trashier, it gets more fun, and that's the one aspect of this forgotten drama that is worth remembering. While the conclusion has some ridiculous developments, the pay-off for one character is a moment worthy of applause, adding a star onto a movie that only has a few interesting moments throughout.

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.

How amazing, a few months ago I came across a Kay Francis Monogram called "Allotment Wives" (1945). In it she played the head of a marriage racket whose daughter comes home from a fancy finishing school and decides she wants to be part of the racket as well. But good old Betty Compson was in the original (with a few variations). Compson seemed to have more come backs than Dame Nellie Melba (to use a colloquial phrase) but in reality she never stopped working. This movie was from exploitation producer J.D. Kendis who used a bit more daring in his movies about the sordid side of life.

Compson is joined by Wheeler Oakman whose career went right back to Mabel Normand's "Mickey" where he was the male lead. By the early 1940s he was firmly ensconced in the exploitation grind. He may have been a nice guy but he had a sleazy look about him, ideally suited to this type of movie.

This one deviates slightly from "Allotment Wives" - in this one Betty Compson plays Ruth Ashley, head of a big escort agency who has finally won a place in high society. The fly in the ointment is her daughter June (Margaret Maruis) who is coming home for a visit from her posh finishing school and doesn't know her mother's real occupation!!! As if Ruth doesn't have enough to worry about, June is also bringing her fiancée, Drake, who is coming to the city on an undercover assignment to expose - you guessed it, the head of the escort racket!!!

The movie hovers between laughs and drama - the gals tell "hilarious" stories of their encounters with clients, there is even a pretty salacious striptease that doesn't leave much to the imagination. The main story is strictly dramatic and both Betty Compson and Wheeler Oakman with their professionalism make sure the movie is saved from being unintentionally funny. Drake, as part of his investigation, hires an escort and Stone (Oakman) to retaliate against June, who now wants to give up the agency and be really respectable, sends June along to be his date!!! There is the usual misunderstanding and June goes back to Stone's apartment to find out the truth. Stone obliges by telling her about her mother then June hits the bottle and cheesy lines fly thick and fast - "Hey, it looks like you're sobering up, have another drink" and the old standby "Sure I've been drinking - to try to forget my broken dreams" - I assure you it really is said!!!

The film was pretty choppy - supposedly 68 minutes, my print was only 58 minutes. Even with 10 minutes out the story was pretty easy to follow.

**SPOILERS**Shocking expose of the sleazy escort business back in the 1940's and how it destroyed those who were involved in it without even knowing it! Having nothing but the best in life young June Ashley, Margaret Marquis, didn't know that her mom Ruth, Betty Compson, was running a string of escort services, using both men as well as women, in and around L.A and its suburbs. It was when June together with her fiancée Drake Hamilton, Robert Kellard, paid her mom a surprise visit that the awful truth was to come out.

What Ruth and her partner in the escort business Greg Stone, Wheeler Oakman, were to soon find out is that Drake is working undercover for the the L.A district attorney, who just happens to be Drake's dad, to gets the goods on the escort racket and put it, together with sleaze-balls like Ruth & Greg, out of business! Getting the jump on Drake in him knowing what he's planing to do Greg sets up Ruth's unsuspecting daughter June in a sting that Drake, and the D.A's office, is setting for him. Posing as a male escort-A greasy gigolo-Drake is stunned to find out that his first woman costumer is non-other then his fiancée June Ashley herself! This all leads to June to walk out on Drake feeling that he's running around with other women and Drake, who didn't know that this whole scenario was set up by the sleazy and manipulative Greg Stone, feel that June, not himself who was undercover as a gigolo, was working for Greg as one of his escort girls!

The biggest fireworks in the movie are left for last with June now dead drunk, courtesy of Greg providing her all the free booze, confronting her unsuspecting, who showed unexpectedly, mom Ruth Ashley at Grege's penthouse! Thinking that Grege is cheating on her behind her back, until she realized that the "other woman" was her own daughter June, Ruth has it out with Greg as Drake, also unexpectedly, shows up! What happens next is is just too shocking and mind numbing to put down on paper! You'll have to, by getting a hold of the DVD "Escort Girl", see it, if you can keep yourself from cracking up from laughing, for yourself!