Escort Girl

Admit it-there is no better way to spend a lonely night than curled in the arms of a psychotronic movie. You know the kind I mean-damaged, cheap, unpredictable, a little bit crazy, determined to entertain.

If that's what you're in the mood for, then look up Escort Girl for a good time. It's a low-budget bottom-of-the-barrel exploitation picture from 1941, full of the kind of stuff no respectable movie would dare touch, sloppily put together, and unyieldingly entertaining.

The curtain rises on one of the three sets this threadbare production bothered to slap up-it's supposed to be the tony apartment of a madam named Ruth Ashley (Betty Compson), but with some rearrangement of the furniture it serves as a couple of other apartment locations, too. Ruth is meeting with gangster Gregory Stone (Wheeler Oakman), who is at least her business partner but maybe more than that, too. Together they run a call-girl service that the new District Attorney has his sights set on bringing down.

Ruth and Greg are played by a pair of washed-up silent era stars whose once sparkling careers foundered and by the early forties were reduced to slumming it in Poverty Row. Between their hammy acting and the hard-boiled dialogue the script gives them, watching them do their scenes is a fully satisfying breakfast. For the ringleader of a major metropolitan prostitution syndicate, Ruth Ashley is one skittery broad, forever on the verge of succumbing to the vapors.

The cause of her stress is her daughter June, who is initially described as a sort of virginal goddess of purity and hope so pristine that Ruth's greatest worry is that the child will learn the truth of mommy's occupation. "June's all I have," whimpers Ruth, "You know I think I'd die if she ever suspected her mother ran an escort bureau." Ruth should be careful what she says, because that's precisely the direction things seem to be going-the girl's new boyfriend Drake Hamilton has a job with the DA's office sniffing out the escort services! Oops! Of course Drake (Bob Kellard) looks more like a wrestler than a lawyer, but then Margaret Marquis as June looks more like a corn-fed girlie knucklehead than the Last Hope for Femininity that mama's speech in Scene One suggested.

With June's beau on their trail, things are looking grim for the escort bureau, until crafty Gregory Stone starts to manipulate the situation to demoralize and dehumanize everyone else in the story. His machinations are needlessly cruel and deliciously spiteful, not to mention illogical and counterproductive. It all builds to a Shakespearean climax of mutually assured destruction and violence... but why am I telling you this? This movie ain't about no plot!

Any fool can write a story, but it takes true genius to constantly interrupt that story with irrelevant digressions that are vastly more entertaining. The heart of Escort Girl are its many vignettes of call-girl life, a 1930s version of HBO's Cathouse, plotless sketches that wallow in the sleazy atmosphere and flesh out a world bigger, if no more realistic, than the crime melodrama histrionics of the film's actual storyline.

We meet Ice Queen Suzy (Mary Daily), a hardened cynic who flexibly adopts the persona of "Fifi" to seduce a Francophile rube, and dispenses fallen-woman wisdom to her less-experienced fellow whores. Then there is scene-stealing "Snuggles," played by Isabel La Mal as a hillbilly slut version of Gracie Allen. This airhead floozy gets beaten and bruised by one client, robbed by another when she was too drunk to notice, and yet keeps coming back for more abuse. Brunette Rita (Kathryn Keyes) rounds out the female part of the team, but don't forget gigolo Jack (Ric Vallon), working a wealthy widow for the long game.

There is a startling frankness about sex in these scenes in Escort Girl that is out of place for the time. Prior to 1934, movies were freer about sex, but the Production Code effectively stamped all such licentiousness out of American cinema until the late 1960s. It is a jarring shock to see a film that looks for all the world like a cheapo Monogram-style film noir that includes a striptease scene (just a pair of pasties and a G-string away from total nudity) and a half-naked girl aggressively seducing a reluctant young man. Escort Girl manages to violate nearly every one of the Production Code's guiding principles (the film doesn't directly ridicule religion or include any interracial romance, nor does it defile a flag, but happily breaks every single other rule).

This is a story about strong women-their strengths arise from crime and sin, perhaps, but they appear more empowered than the drowsy love interests that flit so insubstantially through most other films of the era. Although the physical abuse of the escorts is dwelled upon at times, the girls (and boy) also exploit their clients in turn-they are neither one-sidedly victims or victimizers, but a blend of both. In the finale, Gregory Stone gleefully takes advantage of June's depression and inebriation to try to seduce her into joining the profession-one part honest acknowledgement of the psychological damage driving so much of the sex trade, ninety-nine parts melodramatic writing so overripe your TV will attract flies.

The script of Escort Girl is attributed to Ann and David Halperin, but in its delirium and giddy hyperbole it is a screenplay worthy of the pen of Ed Wood. In one lunatic scene, June and Drake go to the races-a bizarre choice of pastime for supposedly straight-laced model citizens. She puts her bet on a horse improbably named "Special Investigator," at which point her flesh and blood Special Investigator boyfriend Drake notes that the horse by that name is a long shot. "Sometimes long shots come in," she coos-and sure enough, she wins! Yeah, right, that makes sense.

Escort Girl has dancing, fighting, kissing, a shootout, guest star Arthur Housman doing his drunk act, slapstick, soap operatic shenanigans, and a striptease! What more do you want? This movie may not have class, but it puts out!

Producer: J.D. Kendis
Director: Edward E. Kaye
Screenplay: Ann and David Halperin
Cinematography: Jack Greenhalgh
Film Editing: Holbrook N. Todd
Cast: Betty Compson (Ruth Ashley), Margaret Marquis (June Ashley), Bob Kellard (Drake Hamilton), Wheeler Oakman (Gregory Stone), Guy Kingsford (Breeze Nolan), Isabel La Mal (Snuggles), Arthur Housman (Drunk), Ric Vallon (Jack), Mary Daily (Suzie), Kathryn Keyes (Rita).
B&W-68m.

by David Kalat

I forgive you for wondering if Escort Girl isn't from this Earth at all, but an artifact from a parallel universe that fell through a gap in the space-time continuum into our dimension-or, barring that, is at least a hoax. There is nothing about this film that seems consistent with its alleged 1941 date of manufacture. Its sexual content prefigures the rise of sexploitation films for the raincoat crowd in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before true porn appeared, yet its two biggest stars are relics of the silent era, and the majority of people listed in the credits have no other credits to their "names," strongly suggesting they are pseudonyms. And, in a film industry ruled by the Production Code Administration, how would something this bluntly adult ever get made, much less shown?

To unravel our mysteries, we have to start with the Production Code itself. A series of embarrassing sex scandals throughout the early 1920s stirred up some public animosity towards Hollywood, arousing the national Puritanical streak. As people started to complain to their congressmen that something had to be done about the movie colony, Hollywood producers realized the situation was giving lawmakers an excuse to start regulating their industry. To forestall government interference, the heads of the studios got together and created a voluntary organization to self-censor-a bone to the Puritans to get them to shut up. But it didn't take long for those Puritans to notice that the films coming out of Hollywood were getting increasingly ribald and sensational, not less, so in 1934 there was a revision to the Production Code Administration that amounted to the inclusion of a clause, "We mean it this time."

From 1934 onwards, the PCA reviewed scripts and finished films to keep Hollywood on the up and up. The thing of it was, though, that this was a voluntary organization, not a legal mandate. The studios had all signed onto the PCA and were bound by their agreement, but smalltime independent producers in the margins were not-and while the main distributor and exhibitor chains were also honor-bound to show only PCA-certified releases, there were loopholes for the intrepid.

The "states' rights" distributor chains were independent outfits with limited reach across spotty patches of the South, flea-bitten theaters run by disreputable operators, but such were the hazards of working outside the purview of the PCA.

The "Forty Thieves" was a colorful nickname given the group of independent producers who made their money touring PCA-forbidden exploitation fare around the country as roadshow attractions. The Thieves included Dwain Esper, Louis Sonney, Steamship Millard, Pappy Goldin, and J.D. Kendis. Over the thirties and forties, Kendis cranked out a dozen tawdry B-pictures like Secrets of a Model (1940), Youth Aflame (1944), and Hollywood Burlesque (1949). Kendis started to develop his own pool of stock players - including Wheeler Oakman, who played crooks for Kendis in Slaves in Bondage (1937), Gambling with Souls (1936), and Escort Girl.

Over the years Kendis worked with such luminaries as Sam Newfield and Edward Dmytryk (whose screen debut The Hawk (1935) was distributed by Kendis in its 1937 re-release), but for Escort Girl he hired a film industry veteran who was not known as a director. Edward Kaye had uncredited appearances on camera in Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and the serial Drums of Fu Manchu (1940), and was the script supervisor for various 1940s era productions. Few other names in the production are identifiable as actual names of real people, but two stand out: cinematographer Jack Greenhalgh and editor Holbrook N. Todd. These two occasionally worked in tandem on low-budget quickies throughout the 1940s and 50s. Greenhalgh was the youngest member of the American Society of Cinematographers at the time, and in his time photographed Robot Monster (1953), Lost Continent (1951), The Mad Monster (1942), The Flying Serpent (1946), and Edgar Ulmer's Tomorrow We Live (1942). Todd edited Ulmer's Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957), collaborated with Greenhalgh on The Flying Serpent and Murder Is My Business (1946), and edited The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956).

by David Kalat

Sources:
Greg Merritt, Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film

At one point in Escort Girl, Arthur Housman, a professional screen drunk, plunks his coin into an odd looking jukebox - the thing has a screen like a TV, and as the camera pans in to the screen it reveals a striptease act. The contraption in question is a Panoram, a 1940s era video jukebox. Bars had these things loaded up with short film clips called "soundies," and patrons could watch their favorite song on the screen, interspersed with burlesque and cheesecake scenes. Aside from preserving a 1941 strip show for posterity, this sequence also gives a rare screen nod to a relic of pop cultural technology now largely forgotten.

Housman had been a dapper actor in the silent days, who weathered the rocky transition to talkies by specializing in playing drunks-luckily not much of a stretch for the hard-partying thespian. He is one of three notable silent screen figures in the cast.

Wheeler Oakman had previously played pimps in such Depression-era sexploitation fare as Slaves in Bondage (1937) and Gambling with Souls (1936), and overall came just shy of 300 roles over a career that spanned from 1912 to 1948. He played opposite Mabel Normand in her 1918 comedy Mickey, and against Jackie Coogan in 1921's Peck's Bad Boy. The arrival of sound in movies found Oakman turning mostly to gangster and tough guy roles, including Texas Cyclone (1932) with John Wayne.

The most illustrious member of the cast, though, was Betty Compson, an outsize personality and inspirational figure. She started as a violinist in a Utah theater, still named Eleanor Luicime Compson. In 1916 she changed her name and entered the world of silent film, working with some of the greats of silent slapstick. She worked for comedy producer Al Christie, then Famous Players-Lasky, and starred with Raymond Griffith in his comedy feature Paths to Paradise (1925). By 1920, she was running her own company, producing her own starring vehicles, making her one of the few meaningfully powerful females in 1920s Hollywood. In 1924, she signed with a British company and found herself on the set of Woman to Woman, co-written by none other than Alfred Hitchcock! She earned an Oscar® nomination and racked up more credits before deciding in 1948 to switch careers completely, leaving the screen to support her (third) husband.

In describing the quintessential Betty Compson role, the actress could just as well have been speaking about her performance in 1941's Escort Girl in this 1928 interview: "My wickedness has kept me going. I wouldn't have lasted more than five years, possibly not that long, as an ingénue. Yet you cannot call my girl a stereotyped vamp. She has a business, a racket of some sort, whereas the vamp's only occupation consists of breaking up homes. My girl, unless moved by jealousy, doesn't stoop to such petty tricks. She never does dirty work just to be mean. She has no yellow streaks. Often she is a victim of circumstances. She is morally bad through love, or she is placed among crooks and knows no better life."

by David Kalat

Sources:
Tim Lussier, The Incomparable Compson, www.silentsaregolden.com

Guess what? We got nothin' to show you here, folks. That's right. This movie is so underground that it didn't even receive an "official" theatrical release and no self-respecting newspaper would cover it. If any of you out there, find a review of it - we dare ya - let us know where.

RUTH: June is wondering what to do for summer vacation.
GREG: She's not coming out here is she?
RUTH: Are you mad? It's shabby and pretty low, that's the best you can say for it, but June's all I have.
GREG: All you have?
RUTH: You know what I mean. I want her to keep thinking I'm tops. You know I think I'd die if she ever suspected her mother ran an escort bureau.

SNUGGLES: Oh what a night! My head!
RITA: What time did you stagger in this morning?
SNUGGLES: I don't know. The hands on the clock were stuck.
SUZIE: Well from what I saw that's the only pair that were. Say, did you see what present her playmate left her?
RITA (looking at the bruise): Say, your boyfriend certainly didn't have the pause that refreshes-sure trademarked you plenty. And look at that beauty on your shoulder.
OTHER GIRL: Looks to me like you were out with a tattoo artist.

SUZIE: Who are you with?
SNUGGLES: A gentleman whose wife don't understand him.
SUZIE: Honey, that's what they all say. You better pull yourself together before Breezy sees you.
SNUGGLES: What's the matter? Ain't I doin' what he said? He said, the customer's always right!
SUZIE: Yes, but you're supposed to say no once in a while.
SNUGGLES: I did say no. I said no, no, no, no. But he said yes, yes, yes, yes.
SUZIE: Well, it's your party, but did he pay you in advance?
SNUGGLES: Certainly-oooh.... That's funny. I put it in my stocking. Now what do you suppose...
SUZIE: You better go back and get it and this time put it somewhere safe. But as long as you're with Wolfie, I don't know where that would be.

DRAKE: Do you want to dance?
JUNE: No. Let's just sit here and feel sorry for all the people who aren't as happy as we are.

SUZIE: Well, there we were, wrestling in the cab. So, finally I said to him, "You're no gentleman, you big gorilla."
SNUGGLES: I keep telling them that all the time but it never does any good.
SUZIE: Well, we finally broke the Half Nelson, and I froze and then he started to beef but plenty.
SNUGGLES: Ooooh, I always get frightened when they get angry.
SUZIE: Well, anyway, there we were. So finally I said to him, "Look, what do you want for $10?" And before I could do anything about it, he laid a twenty right in my lap!
RITA: With his hand still on it, no doubt.
SUZIE: Now, honey, live and let live is my motto. Besides he wasn't such a bad guy. Once you got to know him.
SNUGGLES: But if he wasn't a gentleman, when did you say no?
SUZIE: Who said no?

JUNE: Escort bureaus have become an obsession with you!

GREG: Life is hard and pitiless, and you have to face it the same way.
JUNE: That takes courage.
GREG: I can show you how to face life and come out on top. Are you cold?
JUNE: Cold-inside.

Compiled by David Kalat