Up until *very* recently there weren't even 5 votes on this seemingly forgotten documentary and now there's 8! However, no one has yet posted a User Comment to summarize the movie so I suppose I must do it.
First let me say HOOKER was released on Vestron Video in 1985 and the Catalog #number# is "VA 4367". The back of the box also says this video release was "BASED ON AN ORIGINAL HBO PRESENTATION", so I'm guessing 'HOOKER' was originally broadcast in some form or other on HBO. Never having seen 'HOOKER' on HBO I can't say if the Vestron Video is exactly the same movie. Maybe the video release has more footage? Or perhaps less (that seems unlikely, but I reckon you never know)? I noted under 'Filming Locations' it says 'Nevada, USA'. Hmm . . . how does whoever posted that know for sure? Nowhere in the movie does it indicate where any of it was filmed! Maybe some of it was filmed in Nevada but you see some NYPD mugshots of hookers at the beginning of the movie so who knows . . . ?
'HOOKER' is divided into three segments and before I write further let me say there is no "live" nudity in the movie. The only nudity seen is via short clips of old photographs and posters -- none of the participants in the documentary are seen sans clothing so if you're looking for a true exploitation film go elsewhere!
The first part introduces the viewer to 2 women who are involved in the Light Bondage/Dominance trade. They don't take customers who are into bloodletting and/or serious pain; they like to maintain a light touch of sorts so they have a line which they will not cross. You see them with a (male) customer and the women also discuss their personal lives and what kind of men avail themselves of their services.
The second segment involves a married couple who run a nude massage parlor + interviews with some of the women who work there. The wife talks about how she and her husband ended up running a 'whorehouse' (as she calls it) and how the business became very lucrative. She also offers up a few funny lines. She says to a 74-year-old man: "You come here because you like to play with titties, don't ya?" Fun!
The third and final segment depicts a number of streetwalkers and their pimp. The gist of this last segment revolves around three women, one of whom meets with misfortune, and the pimp who talks about what it's like running a 'stable' and how he must not show favoritism or risk having a mutiny.
To conclude, it's getting difficult to find a nice original video of 'HOOKER'. I've had 3 tapes of it and only one of them still had the top label attached when I received it; the other two were lost before I bought the videos. Those of you familiar with the old Vestron releases know Vestron used the world's worst glue and over time the glue would dry and the label fall off. Ugh! The ironic thing is the one tape of 'HOOKER' I received that still had the label on was a mouldy mess. I had to remove the label off the mouldy tape, fish out the double-sided tape and stick the label to the clean video. Sheesh!
