May we sing the praises of the underrated 1987 film, "Working Girls?"

I adored it. Love the cheesy soundtrack too

Oh, I love that film too. SUPER underrated. I’d watch it again

It was underrated at the time, and its lesbian protagonist was often ignored in discussions about cinematic representation (since her job is fucking men), but I was a little surprised it got the Criterion treatment.

I just rewatched it this morning on Criterion and I looked up the actresses on IMDB to see what happened to them. I laughed when I came to the actress Ellen McElduff, who played Lucy, the madam (What's new and different?) and saw that she was claiming to have been born in 1964. That would have made her 21 when the film was shot and she was clearly a good decade and a half older than that.

[quote]Not the beloved classic Mike Nichols film w/ Melanie Griffith

Fixed that for you, idiot OP.

I loved the kinky scenes with the gross men

OP thinks snarking about Working Girl makes her alluring and clever.

Meanwhile, I reality based film history, Working Girl is a perfectly fine movie.

Lizzie Borden, however, thoroughly deserved her MARGINAL status and current position among the oubliettes. Tant pis.

It - along with the whole 80s zeitgeist - gave me the drive to go work on Wall Street. It all seemed so glamorous then. The dream curdled and died after years of working 80 hour weeks and realizing there was nothing glamorous about it.

"What's new and different" as genius as a catchphrase for the madam. It was a very good film. It annoyed feminists I knew who wanted the women to be treated as cardboard characters. It did well enough for an indie film on the art house circuit.

Working Girl was in no way underrated. At all.

Critical and commercial smash hit. ($103mil) nominated for several top awards in different categories, won several.

I was born around the time it came out, saw it first in late 90s, and even I know that you dim wit.

[quote] Working Girl was in no way underrated. At all.

Nobody said it was, OP was talking about Working GIRLS. A completely different film.

^^ never seen or heard of your version.

😂

Obsessed with it, op. The lady pimp is my favorite character.

We played this film at the Boston Film Festival.

I remember liking it and one of my coworkers, a gay woman, was a big Lizzie Borden fan.

LB was in our office the afternoon before the screening. She was insufferable. And she smelled. BO and patchouli.

What i remember most was how really uncomfortable the film made my straight male friends.

The "madame" reminded me of Divines' mother in Polyester.

Saw it first In my feminist film school class. I took it so seriously, I focused on how claustrophobic the film feels, it is deliberately not sexy.

But it is a very funny film in many scenes.

I have a problem with the music used in the film.

HOWLD AWL CAWLS MISS MCGILL?

CAN I GET YOU ANYTHING MISTA TRAINA?

CAWFEE , TEA, ME!?

Wrong film, r16

The scenes of her arriving via the ferry to downtown had the PERFECT song - one of my favorite film glamorizations of NYC.

Wrong film.

Working Girl was in no way underrated. At all. Critical and commercial smash hit. ($103mil) nominated for several top awards in different categories, won several. I was born around the time it came out, saw it first in late 90s, and even I know that you dim wit.

I realize R11 already addressed this, R10, but it bears repeating. You're an idiot.

R20

You think I took the trouble to post that and didn’t read the thread? I was playing with you…august gentle persons.

I love these threads, like 50 years ago today [unremarkable] show premiered…

Smells of fixodent and pickled herring.

Both films are great but one is a fantasy along the lines of Snow White and the other is a deliberate effort to defantasize prostitution.

Wow so many of you lack reading skills. And OP explicitly explained he is posting about an underground film and not the Cyn & Tess masterpiece.

I don't know why OP's panties are in a bunch. Everyone can enjoy his movie, and who doesn't love Dolly Parton. I guess Jane is love or hate, however.

Feminist claptrap.

R4, Ellen McElduff was part of Mabou Mines and was in a number of those shows and they are well documented in photos.

She is in the center of the photo at the link. No way she is twelve years old.

can we now do a "mash-up" thread about Working Girl and Working Girls? ? ? ? ?

No

I suppose we already have

Harrison Ford was a little past his peak, but still in classic movie star/leading man mode. Alec Baldwin was at his peak, but he’d never have the same appeal as Ford. Still, sexy as fuck.

I don’t remember any lesbian madames, though. Do the dvd extras have the coke-snorting Kevin Spacey character making a stop at a brothel?

Kevin spacey was the madam

Katharine Parker ran the brothel. Sure she was a blue blood BUT her dirty secret was her parent were the poorest branch of the family, living in very faded elegance on shoe string finances. It was never going to be enough for Katharine Parker. She got into the biz early, as college freshman on a summer visit to Monte Carlo, where a Austrian tycoon spotted her at Jimmy’z and decided to make her very rich, running girls out of Eastern Europe to best addresses on the Eastern Seaboard USA. A kind of Sidney Biddle Barrows. But Katharine was excellent and 10-15 years in, was very distant from the operation, though raking in a couple million a year under the table.

Lord this thread went off the rails quickly.

Ignoring the "humor" or the just plain idiocy, Working Girls is a good and interesting film. Well worth checking out.

It does have a strong feminist bent but it's from a different time and still relevant.

I listened to the commentary, which was with Borden, the DP and one of the actresses. It was very interesting. They also did a roundtable on Zoom with two of the actresses, the AD and the Producer, and it was a little less interesting, but still worth seeing. The budget for the film was $90,000 (!) Each of the actors was paid $25 per day. They had a really hard time finding cast, especially men who would take their clothes off. For the Asian john who refused to wash, they had to resort to an ad in Screw Magazine, which he answered, and then showed up to the shoot and refused to wash.

The oddest thing (and something, as a filmmaker, I was shaking my head at) was how Borden actually had Smith (the lead actress) give that man a hand job on camera. The shot got cut after the Cannes Film Festival. In the finished film you see the motion of her arm, but bodies are covering it. I was shocked that Borden didn't hire an actual prostitute to be a "stunt hand" and that Smith somehow got talked into doing it by Borden. Talk about manipulation.

There's nothing shitty about the Nichols film, OP. You have your head up your ass.

Then go start a thread about it, R35.

There's no need to, R35. I can say right here that OP has his head up his ass about "Working Girl."

R36, not R35.

Yeah, WHO has his head up his ass?

R39, I'm sure you NEVER put the wrong number in a post on a DL thread. Do fuck off, Mary.

OP's stupid headline is typical of the state of "public discourse" in the USA. Take a middling IQ and add enough awareness to know one needs a headline to be snappy, controversial, and declarative. WHO CARES if it makes no sense or is patently wrong. WE WANT CLICKS! Provoke people and you'll get a reaction.

Also, OP wrote "Working Girls?" as if the question mark were part of the title of the film. Dumb dumb dumb.

This is hardly a provocative subject.

This is a small discussion about a little known indie film with a similar sounding name as the very successful commercial film starring Melanie Griffith.

The similar name is confusing but op included a link to the trailer of the film which eliminates all confusion.

There was no confusion, R43.

Baldwin.

And who said this was a provocative subject, R43?

I loved this film. I went to a special screening when it first came out at a small art house movie venue where the director took questions when the lights went back up. I raised my hand, someone came up with a hand mile, and I asked,” is it true you’re doing a sequel called “working boys,” and if so, where can I audition.?” I brought the house down, a theater erupted in laughter including the director. One of my better moments.

hand mike.

Loved it. I often recall the madam’s inane, “Hi. What’s new and different?” The title was appropriate, but unfortunately caused confusion with the Melanie Griffin film, which was typical Hollywood fare. Thanks for remembering it!

"caused confusion with the Melanie Griffin film"

Oh, dear, R49. Confused, indeed.

R26, I agree with you it seems likely Ellen McElduff falsified her age. Her mother was born in 1920 and passed away in 2015 at the age of 95. If she had really been born in 1964 her mother would have had her at the age of 44, and she would have aged unusually rapidly for someone whose mom lived to be 95. From her mom’s obituary: the husband listed in the obituary is the actress’s husband. “She is survived by her daughter Janet Lee Fisher and husband, Mike; her Special Friend, Paula Fisher; her daughter-in-law, Kathy Triplett; her daughter, Ellen Wood McElduff and husband, Eric Overmyer; “

[quote] She is survived by her daughter Janet Lee Fisher and husband, Mike; her Special Friend, Paula Fisher

“Special Friend”?

NOW PLAYING

My Burning Bush

7 pm. 9:30 pm. 12 am

Ellen McElduff needs to ring up her old Working Girls co-star Melanie Griffith to get her surgeon’s name if she wants to keep up this Catherine Zeta-Jones age charade.

Ellen McElduff appears in some yearbooks from 1965 on Ancestry.com.

Wow, she shaved 15 years off her age. That's ambitious.

Simple typo. She transposed the 4 and 6 in 1946.

I saw this movie when it was released and I have no memory of it whatsoever except the madam always saying "What's new and different?" which has come in to my head at odd moments of my life ever since.

Thanks for the recommendation OP. I never heard of this movie before and was intrigued, so I watched it on HBO MAX. I enjoyed it, although Lucy and Dawn were annoying. It reminded me a little of Beverly Hills Madam with Faye Dunaway and Robin Givens.

Is Beverly Hills Madam streaming?

I hated that film SO much!

After wasting 2 hours watching some bitch fuck and backstabbing her way to the middle, I wanted to corner Mike Nichols and demand that he give me 2 hours out of his own lifespan, to make up for the 2 hours 2 wasted on the slick piece of shit he'd made.

BeverlyHills Madam is uploaded on YouTube. An account holder digitized a vhs tape, not a good version. BHM is a cautionary tale, but filled with 1980s glamor and great eighties music.

Beverly Hills Madam was on Amazon Prime about a year or so ago, but they have high turnover, so I don't know if it's still there.

Glad you liked the film, R59!

"After wasting 2 hours watching some bitch fuck and backstabbing her way to the middle, "

That's actually NOT what happened in "Working Girl," R61. The backstabbing bitch was actually Sigourney Weaver's character. You're really not very reliable in your plot description.

I remember seeing Working Girls at an art house and liking it, getting more at the power dynamics that you didn't see in other films. The main character could fool herself into thinking she was just earning some extra cash on the downlow but then one john mentally fucked her by insisting that she was a whore. Ultimately, she was 'rescued' by an old guy who gave her a steady gig as an escort. I had an argument with a lesbian friend who said it was liberating and I disagreed because the 'workng girl' was still lying to her partner about what she was really doing.

I don’t remember all the lesbian whores, but I could’ve guessed about the blonde.

Another interesting aspect of the film is that Molly, the main character, is a smart, college-educated Yale graduate yet she's doing sex work for a living. There's nothing wrong with that - people gotta make a living somehow. But you would think a person with her education and background would have other options. I don't think the movie went into detail about why she was doing it. Maybe the money was too good to resist. I would imagine many if not most women would choose not to work in the sex trade if they had other options.

Molly wants to work as an artist. Molly gets told off by another character, April after suggesting there are other options. April asks Molly what are you doing here if other options are available.

I saw this when Criterion put it out a year or so ago. I had never heard of it, but it piqued my interest. Not a bad low-budget drama. The late-'80s vibe is very heavy, but that works to its benefit. There were some character dynamics I found really interesting, particularly the one the lead character had with one of her regulars, whom she considered a true friend and confidant despite the nature of how they came to know each other. I do also love the Mike Nichols film, OP.

Yeah, I remember that scene R68, but I don't think she ever answered the question of why she was there.

Molly did not answer April but the confrontation was enough to trigger her

Having a higher education (even from an Ivy league school) and working as an artist ≠ making a killing.

SIX THOUSAND DOLLIS?

IT'S NOT EVEN LEATHA!

I'm not sure Molly herself knew exactly why she was there. She may have told herself it was to make some extra money so she could pursue her photography and support herself and her family in between gigs, but there were likely other subconscious things going on (and no, I don't think she was secretly bisexual or straight or longing to be).

That money was good, Molly keeps a little register of her transactions. She earned all that money the hard way. The actress did not work outside of the project.

She did, R75, she was predominantly a theater actress. She goes into it a little in the interview on the blu ray.

I watched the movie yesterday after reading this thread. I liked it a lot.

Not often that you see a gay woman in a lead role, especially in the 80s. The other working girls weren't judgmental of Molly for being gay, and they talked about her Molly's girlfriend. The only person who was judgmental was the new girl who, unaware of Molly's orientation, told Molly she was afraid of "dykes".

I wasn't surprised to read that the "johns" were based on actual brothel clients: lonely older men, men who wanted to be hit, men who were socially awkward (including Paul the angry incel).

It seems unrealistic that Molly could have hidden her job from her partner. Eventually, her partner would want to see her paycheck or see who was paying for Molly's photos. I was confused by a couple of scenes. When she was returning from the drugstore with a bag full of birth control products, she stopped at a playground and watched the children play. Was she just pondering the idea that those kids' parents wouldn't want their kids around her because of her job? Then, at the very end, she's in bed cuddling her partner again, and suddenly her eyes open wide and the credits roll. Why did her eyes open wide? I didn't hear the alarm go off. Is she worried about having to go sleep with that older man who runs the furniture store?

The scene at the playground represents freedom and innocence.

Molly is making good money but she's practically trapped indoors for hours, lady pimp is greedy and demanding. The scenes in the brothel are oppressive and claustrophobic. With the exception of Molly's errand to the drug store, she stuck indoors all day.

Money is freedom and it is a trap too.

I think the scenes with her girlfriend and their daughter are intended to represent the strict divide between what Molly is doing to earn money and her homelife.

SPOILER ALERT

How did you all interpret the ending? We see Molly wake up again with her arms around her partner ready to start another day - just like the day before. Will she go back to the brothel (even though she doesn't want to)? Will she call the furniture store owner? Will she quit sex work altogether? I thought it was deliberately ambiguous. Did anyone else read it that way?

It was definitely ambiguous. I think she had settled into bed with her partner, feeling like she had "gotten out" before it turned her into April (as an example). She's safe, she doesn't have to go back to the brothel. And then she realizes- well, who's going to pay for school, or braces, or her share of the rent, etc.? She has to do something. If being that guy's kept woman pays the bills, how is she going to manage that with a family? Those guys want you available when they want you. They don't want to know you have your own life. She'll go from one stranglehold to the next. If she does. But the bills won't pay themselves.

I love that people on here are seeking this film out to watch. And even happier that you're enjoying it.

While I did not know any prostitutes, stripping was pretty common among the Ivy League alums I know in the 80s. Mostly they were writers, a few visual artists, and some performance artists. For two shifts a month you could pay rent and do the other meaningful work you were trained for at those universities. The money you made from art might pay for groceries, but without stripping, you would not have a place to live.

I imagine there were women turning tricks for the same reason.

And yes, it was over educated women who did not have trust funds who needed to scramble for money.

R75, Louise Smith was fairly known in NYC theater at the time.

Her bio shows she moved into teaching.

I loved it