POSSIBLE SPOILERS
A top notch cast: Barbara Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, Eli Wallach, James Whitmore, Maureen Stapleton, and Karl Malden star in this excellent courtroom drama about a high priced prostitute who is declared mentally ill and unfit to stand trial for manslaughter.
Claudia Draper (Streisand) lives in a plush condo on 66th Ave. in NYC. She dresses in elegant apparel, wears minimal but lovely makeup, and meets nice looking businessmen in fancy restaurants. She's not your typical hooker. She doesn't have sleazy tattoos, she doesn't wear cheap miniskirts and KMart boots like Julia Roberts did in PRETTY WOMAN. She doesn't shoot up with heroin. She doesn't hang out on corners and drink malt liquor and try to wave down cars. You'd never know she was a hooker, because she doesn't fit the traditional description. Her MO is different. She had no pimps telling her what to do. She chooses who she will have sex with, preferring soft candlelight and sexy piano music and champagne to a smelly alley littered with needles or diesel trucks smelling of sweat and dead chickens. Believing herself to be of the highest quality among sex workers, she charges big money for her time, and that is how she lives, how she pays the rent and bills. She didn't run away from home at age 14 and fall prey to deviants, she divorced her husband and went into the age old profession by CHOICE.
For these very reasons, I have a bizzare facination with Claudia Draper. I admired her, for being who she wanted to be and not giving a damn what anyone thought about it. She doesn't seem to have a problem with it morally, and she's a grown woman anyway. And she's not had any serious problems with clients...until one night, when a client steps over the line and tries to treat Claudia like she's his wife, acting proprietary, then menacing.
Claudia ends up facing manslaughter charges, and because her profession is such a scandal and disgrace to her parents (Stapleton and Malden), she finds herself fighting with everyone about whether or not she is able to stand trial. She's a prostitute, so surely she's crazy. What sane, respectable woman would choose to do what she does for her living??? Her parents, who don't want her "destroyed" in an open trial, demand that she be locked up in a mental ward. They insist she's mentally sick, and her psychiatrist (Wallach) agrees and wants her deemed insane and hospitalized. Claudia passionately disagrees with everyone's opinion of her mental status, and would rather go to trial and even to prison. Her dignity and choice to not take an easy way out was another feature I admired. She admits she killed someone, and that it was in self defense. She didn't kill someone because she had been slowly breaking down because she was a call girl. Her lawyer Aaron Levenski (Dreyfuss) is the only one who seems to listen to her and hear what she has to say. Everyone else ignores her and talks to her as if they are talking to a dog who won't do tricks on command.
Family dysfuntion thrives in this woman's history, but as Claudia asserts, "It's not relevant to what's going on here." And she's right. She's had some bad things happen to her, but she doesn't want a pity party, she doesn't want to be tucked neatly away so that people don't have to look at her and accept her and realize that some people lead lives different from ours. Everyone is so busy hating her because she's a "whore" "call girl" "hooker" that they WANT her out of their sight so she won't BOTHER them anymore. Sometimes, the most benevolent looking people are the worst of all, and like many families, Claudia's hides its secrets. If they can deny it long enough, maybe it will go away. If they put Claudia away, maybe their own guilt will go away.
Stapleton had a line that made me think really hard: "A divorced woman is an easy target. She's vulnerable to any polite man who comes along." Hmmmm....
A very well executed psychological legal drama with good writing and great acting by all. A+++!!!
A top notch cast: Barbara Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, Eli Wallach, James Whitmore, Maureen Stapleton, and Karl Malden star in this excellent courtroom drama about a high priced prostitute who is declared mentally ill and unfit to stand trial for manslaughter.
Claudia Draper (Streisand) lives in a plush condo on 66th Ave. in NYC. She dresses in elegant apparel, wears minimal but lovely makeup, and meets nice looking businessmen in fancy restaurants. She's not your typical hooker. She doesn't have sleazy tattoos, she doesn't wear cheap miniskirts and KMart boots like Julia Roberts did in PRETTY WOMAN. She doesn't shoot up with heroin. She doesn't hang out on corners and drink malt liquor and try to wave down cars. You'd never know she was a hooker, because she doesn't fit the traditional description. Her MO is different. She had no pimps telling her what to do. She chooses who she will have sex with, preferring soft candlelight and sexy piano music and champagne to a smelly alley littered with needles or diesel trucks smelling of sweat and dead chickens. Believing herself to be of the highest quality among sex workers, she charges big money for her time, and that is how she lives, how she pays the rent and bills. She didn't run away from home at age 14 and fall prey to deviants, she divorced her husband and went into the age old profession by CHOICE.
For these very reasons, I have a bizzare facination with Claudia Draper. I admired her, for being who she wanted to be and not giving a damn what anyone thought about it. She doesn't seem to have a problem with it morally, and she's a grown woman anyway. And she's not had any serious problems with clients...until one night, when a client steps over the line and tries to treat Claudia like she's his wife, acting proprietary, then menacing.
Claudia ends up facing manslaughter charges, and because her profession is such a scandal and disgrace to her parents (Stapleton and Malden), she finds herself fighting with everyone about whether or not she is able to stand trial. She's a prostitute, so surely she's crazy. What sane, respectable woman would choose to do what she does for her living??? Her parents, who don't want her "destroyed" in an open trial, demand that she be locked up in a mental ward. They insist she's mentally sick, and her psychiatrist (Wallach) agrees and wants her deemed insane and hospitalized. Claudia passionately disagrees with everyone's opinion of her mental status, and would rather go to trial and even to prison. Her dignity and choice to not take an easy way out was another feature I admired. She admits she killed someone, and that it was in self defense. She didn't kill someone because she had been slowly breaking down because she was a call girl. Her lawyer Aaron Levenski (Dreyfuss) is the only one who seems to listen to her and hear what she has to say. Everyone else ignores her and talks to her as if they are talking to a dog who won't do tricks on command.
Family dysfuntion thrives in this woman's history, but as Claudia asserts, "It's not relevant to what's going on here." And she's right. She's had some bad things happen to her, but she doesn't want a pity party, she doesn't want to be tucked neatly away so that people don't have to look at her and accept her and realize that some people lead lives different from ours. Everyone is so busy hating her because she's a "whore" "call girl" "hooker" that they WANT her out of their sight so she won't BOTHER them anymore. Sometimes, the most benevolent looking people are the worst of all, and like many families, Claudia's hides its secrets. If they can deny it long enough, maybe it will go away. If they put Claudia away, maybe their own guilt will go away.
Stapleton had a line that made me think really hard: "A divorced woman is an easy target. She's vulnerable to any polite man who comes along." Hmmmm....
A very well executed psychological legal drama with good writing and great acting by all. A+++!!!