MONEY ON THE SIDE
US, 1982, 100 minutes, Colour.
Karen Valentine, Jamie Lee Curtis, Linda Purl, Christopher Lloyd, Richard Masur, Susan Flannery.
Directed by Robert E. Collins.
Money on the Side is a telemovie, 80s style, for home audiences about issues of prostitution. It focuses on three women who work as prostitutes. Their personalities are very varied, as are their motivations. Karen Valentine, a television star, portrays a woman who is trying to raise money for her son who needs special education. This contrasts with Jamie Lee Curtis’s character who enjoys the thrills of being on the job. Linda Purl, often a rather demure character in telemovies, is getting money in order to buy a house. The supporting cast includes Christopher Lloyd, before his Back to the Future and comic roles, as the police sergeant and Richard Masur.
The film doesn’t moralise so much as rather communicate the issues and the characters via the story, leaving it for audiences to understand and appreciate what is happening and why the women are acting as they do.
The film was directed by Robert E. Collins who made quite a number of telemovies during the 1970s and 1980s including Gideon’s Trumpet, Mafia Princess, The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro and Into the Arms of a Killer.
1.The impact of this kind of telemovie? For a home audience?
2.The California settings, familiar, the touches of affluence, poverty? Authentic?
3.The structure of the film: the interviews, the interactions, the set-up, the arrests?
4.Janice’s story, her relationship with Nelson? Their child, illness, the arguments, his opting out, her decision to work as a prostitute to get the money, her attitudes, hardships?
5.Annie, her relationship with her husband, clashes, his being laid off, difficulties in getting work, domestic violence, death, her decision to become a prostitute, her aim of getting money for the house?
6.Michelle, Jamie Lee Curtis’s presence and style, the background of her divorce, being a secretary, men friends, university studies, the thrill of prostitution, her clients, getting caught?
7.Karen Gordon, her work, her relationship with Claude?
8.The sergeant, his investigations, the parties, with Claude?
9.The women’s reactions to the situations?
10.The contrast with the men’s reactions?
11.The economic difficulties and background of the film? The moral issues? The film presenting characters and stories? Any moral judgments?
