The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood - 1980
By The Bottom Reel Editorial Team ·
The Cannon Films Sex Comedy That Ended A Trilogy
Tagline
“A madcap comedy about Xaviera's attempt to make a film in Hollywood based on her book.”
UK theatrical title: Hollywood Blue
Plot
Loosely based on the life of Xaviera Hollander, the Dutch prostitute turned bestselling author.
Xaviera Hollander’s book The Happy Hooker is a big success. Big-shot Hollywood producer William B. Warkoff Phil Silvers wants the movie rights and orders his people to get them.
Xaviera Martine Beswick comes to Hollywood by limousine to make a movie of her life. She gets involved with the most crooked producers in town – Lionel Lamely Adam West and Joseph Rottman Richard Deacon and his son Robby Chris Lemmon – who try to cheat her with dirty tricks, bad contracts and casting couch games. Notorious Xaviera tours the town by limousine on her way to make a movie of her life.
She beats them at their own game and ends up filming the movie without them, turning the exploitation back on Hollywood.
It’s described as: A prostitute writes a bestseller book about her profession which attracts the attention of a studio executive who attempts to adapt it into a movie.
Cast & Crew
Xaviera Hollander – Martine Beswick two-time Bond girl
Lionel Lamely – Adam West Batman
William B. Warkoff – Phil Silvers
Joseph Rottman – Richard Deacon
Robby Rottman – Chris Lemmon
Rita Beater – Edie Adams
New York Cop – Dick Miller
Laurie – Lisa London
Susie – Susan Kiger
Chris – Lindsay Bloom London, Kiger, Bloom and K.C. Winkler were all in H.O.T.S. (1979) the year before
Himself – Army Archerd
Directed by: Alan Roberts
Written by: Devin Goldenberg, Story by Alan Roberts & Devin Goldenberg
Produced by: Yoram Globus & Menahem Golan for Golan-Globus Productions
Distributed by: Cannon Films
Cinematography: Stephen Gray
Edited by: Nicholas Wentworth
Music by: Tom Perry
Release Date: June 4, 1980
Runtime: 88 minutes / 85 min / 1h 29 min on TV cut
Budget: $2 million
Social Impact & Reception
End of an era: The trilogy started with The Happy Hooker (1975) starring Lynn Redgrave – a serious-ish hit that made $8M – then The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977) with Joey Heatherton, a political satire flop. By 1980, the sex comedy market was dying, killed by hardcore porn and changing tastes. Cannon Films, famous for Death Wish sequels and ninja movies, picked up the property to milk the last drops.
Critical reception: Universally panned but considered the best of the three by fans.
Rotten Tomatoes audience: “As bad as the first two but if I had to pick a ‘good’ Happy Hooker movie, this is the best of the bunch. I was able to tolerate this one more than the others but still, this is a really bad movie.”
Another audience review: “First, the title The Happy Hooker Hits Hollywood is a much better title than ‘The Happy GOES Hollywood’. But ironically the last movie in the trilogy is the only really good one. Where the first was a draggy unfunny skinless bore. And the second one felt more like a Benny Hill Playboy channel sketch comedy show and not a movie. This felt like a comedy movie. It has comedy and drama. Good performances and actual story.”
Modern critic Eddie Harrison, film-authority.com, 1/5 in 2024: “…dressed up as some kind of parable of female emancipation, this third film is just an excuse to display some breasts…various US household names turn up to embarrass themselves in rank sexism that should be put in a time capsule and buried...”
It had no feminist impact, no cultural staying power – its main social footnote is as a textbook example of late-70s “T&A comedy” and Cannon’s business model of cheap, high-concept exploitation. The real Xaviera Hollander distanced herself from it.
Budget vs. Profit at Box Office
Production Budget: $2 million
Box Office Gross: No official domestic / international / worldwide figures reported – Box Office Mojo lists Domestic –, International –, Worldwide –.
Performance: The film had a very limited theatrical run June 1980, then went to cable and VHS. With Cannon’s cheap distribution, it likely lost money theatrically and made small profit on home video and late-night cable (MGM+, Tubi, FuboTV). The first film had made money; this one didn’t.
Ratings
IMDb: 3.9 / 10 from ∼1,233 votes
Rotten Tomatoes: 33% Tomatometer from 1 critic review, Popcornmeter 50+ ratings audience ∼30%
TMDb: 3.5-3.6 / 10 from ∼20 votes
Rating: R, 1h 25m-88m
Bottom line: The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood is a late, limp Cannon sex comedy that’s more about Adam West and Phil Silvers mugging in bad suits than about Xaviera Hollander. It’s only remembered because it’s the final chapter of a trilogy that started respectable and ended as a Hollywood self-parody that Hollywood didn’t notice.