Richard Davidson Movies

The Working Girls in this New York-based film are laboring away at the World's Oldest Profession. Molly (Louise Smith), a Yale grad whos lives with her lesbian lover, turns tricks to keep food on the table. She approaches each day with fear and loathing, carrying out her responsibilities with crisp, businesslike efficiency. Her coworkers include Gina (Marussia Zach), who hopes to stay a hooker just long enough to finance her own business, and Dawn (Amanda Goodwin), an outspoken college student who harbors dreams of becoming a lawyer. The film covers a single day in the lives of these three ladies, neither judging nor apologizing: a job's a job, the film seems to be saying, whether it's punching a clock or rolling in the sack with an elderly stranger. Director Lizzie Borden's matter-of-fact approach to her material (based on six months' worth of interviewing genuine prostitutes) places Working Girls head and shoulders above the usual lachrymose "ladies of the evening" drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Christine (Sandy McLeod) is a ticket-taker at a Manhattan porn cinema. Her ability to separate reel life from real life is seriously impaired in this slow, often silent, and ultimately enigmatic study of a lonely young woman who first despises the porn and then becomes fascinated with it and the clients who attend the shows. Her inclinations become more active than passive after she decides to follow an elegantly turned-out "businessman" from the theater into an adult video shop, where they begin talking and he invites her to a Yankee game (that dates this movie!). Once at the game, the man leaves for a moment, and Christine follows him again, this time to some sort of strange rendezvous. At this point, it is difficult for both Christine and the viewers to distinguish reality from fantasy, leaving everyone in limbo. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In the third of four New Avengers episodes filmed in Canada, Steed (Patrick MacNee), Gambit (Gareth Hunt) and Purdey (Joanna Lumley) are assigned to guard an antique automobile known as Emily. It seems that the old car contains the only known fingerprints of an elusive secret agent known only as (what else?) The Fox. Perhaps because it was played purely for laughs, "Emily" emerged as the top-rated New Avengers episode of the 1977-78 season--not to mention the highest rated Avengers installment of all time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When American audiences were permitted to see German filmmaker E.A. Dupont's silent masterpiece Variety, it was the story of a carnival concessionaire (Emil Jannings), his alluring wife (Lya de Putti), and the handsome acrobat (Warwick Ward) who comes between them. Feeling doubly impotent because he himself had been a famous aerialist before suffering a crippling accident, Jannings fantasizes about killing his rival -- and, finally, does so. After serving a long prison term, Jannings is released by a compassionate warden, who feels as though the poor cuckold has suffered enough. This, again, is what Americans saw. In the original European version of Variety, which ran nearly twice as long as the U.S. print, Jannings deserts his wife (Maly Delschaft) when de Putti enters the scene. Moreover, he never marries de Putti, meaning that his only hold over her when Ward steals her away is an emotional one. Dupont had fashioned an ironic tale of a man suffering betrayal after having himself betrayed. The American censors wouldn't swallow that, nor would they pass the charming domestic scene wherein Jannings helps de Putti disrobe, unless the prologue involving Delschaft was chopped out and de Putti was transformed from mistress to wife. Though this sort of bowdlerization might seem like an artistic outrage, the American version of Variety is in fact superior to the original, especially in terms of pace; what seemed interminable in the German version zips along at an entertaining clip in the revised print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide