TAXI GIRLS (1979)

Buoyed by the notoriety of Little Orphan Dusty that did nothing but make tons of money for him, co-director Jaacov Jaacovi was anxious to get back into the mix and repeat the success with another project. As he had done with Little Orphan Dusty, he approached Bob Chinn to go in halves on the directorial duties. Chinn, initially slated to direct all of Little Orphan Dusty, ended up only agreeing to only directing half of it due to Jaacovi’s “Best Value” budgetary limitations. Chinn, however, ended up directing more than half of it (and much of it was to his chagrin). But despite all of this, Chinn agreed to take on half of Taxi Girls, released in 1979, with the stipulation that his name not be on the film as Jaacovi’s insistence on shooting in L.A., where it was most definitely against the law to shoot porn, was a risk that was certain to attract heat.

The plot of Taxi Girls concerns Hollywood hooker-cum-stand up comedienne Toni (Nancy Suiter) who, tired of getting hassled and busted for working the streets, starts a driving a taxi so she can turn tricks while delivering customers to their destination. This blossoms into such a moneymaker that she goes into business for herself and enlists her fellow streetwalkers into running an entire fleet which, naturally, runs their slobbish, chauvinistic competition out of business.

Aside from it being a more financially successful than the previous year’s Little Orphan Dusty, Taxi Girls is a better picture altogether. Sunnier, lighter, and more humorously exaggerated, it ditches the dour human drama of Little Orphan Dusty in exchange of a formulaic idea that was getting a lot of mileage at the time; namely, “women try their hand at doing X and upset a bunch of boorish men when they become successful doing it.” This template was a gold-mine for sexploitation and adult films as it gave audiences who came to see T&A their money’s worth while also exploring (generally very lightly) gender politics that mirrored the ERA-minded feminism of the time.

And, for much of its running time, Taxi Girls coasts as a rather agreeable entry in this subgenre. Instead of the marauding gang of rapists from Little Orphan Dusty creeping into the frame, we see scads of women descending upon every man that stands as a roadblock on their road to success. After a police roundup that leaves them all in the cooler, Candida Royalle begins a sexual revolt in which the guard (Mitch Morrill) and desk sergeant (George Mitchell) are sufficiently smothered by ass from every angle, allowing the streetwalkers to make their escape. When Toni goes to Teddy (Mike Ranger, credited as Mike Wrangler), her boss at the cab company, to negotiate more taxis for her girls, she takes the whole squad with her and they fuck him silly in an attempt to convince him. When that fails and Toni goes to get a loan at the bank, she takes the whole gang into the back where they overwhelm the bank manager (John Seeman, credited as John Seman) with their non-fungible assets. When it eventually comes time to dicker with used car dealer R.J. Reynolds to get her fleet of cabs, Suiter brings the squad to ensure they get a fair deal on a string of burgundy, 1978 Ford Fairmonts.

But the gas in the engine of Taxi Girls is most definitely Nancy Suiter who, during her all-too-brief sojourn in features, was an absolute treasure. With her pouty lips and cocked eyebrow which come on like a 50/50 spit between Scarlet Johnansen and Charlize Theron, it is a cinch that her button-cute, California beach blonde looks could get find her no small amount of work in the adult film industry. But Taxi Girls is a miraculously great showcase for her as a charming and breezy comic actress; her corny stand-up being the middle point between adorably bad and legitimately hilarious (the “sitting right on top of it” TV joke is soooo stupid but she knows it). The minute Suiter hurls “Just cool it, swampo” to Nancy Hoffman in the jail cell opener, Taxi Girls is her film to lose and, despite being surrounded by an absolute powerhouse of a supporting cast of actresses, Suiter shares the wealth; but, as her project management skills illustrate in the film’s first hour, she never completely cedes the floor.

And it’s somewhat easy for Suiter to run away with the show because, despite being second billed, John Holmes doesn’t show up in the film until almost an hour in. As Suiter’s ex-husband who wants her back and to give up her newfound life with the cab service, he’s clumsily introduced in a montage with terrible voiced-over dialogue that looks exactly like the production ran out of money or time before they were able to shoot the actual scene that was to be in its place. With Chinn getting close to being at his wits end with him and Jaacovi not being his biggest fan, either, the inclusion of John Holmes was purely a economic decision on the part of Jaacovi as Holmes’s name on the marquee guaranteed asses in seats. As a result, Holmes isn’t given a great deal to do but his he does well with what he has and he was definitely worth including if only for the sex scene he has with Suiter, certainly the one thing people paid their money to see. Given Suiter’s unmistakably flushed complexion and 100% authentic reaction shots throughout the scene, the audience was able to go home feeling like they hadn’t been gypped.

As mentioned before, quite a cast was assembled for Taxi Girls, not the least of which were Jamie Gillis (credited as Jaimi Gillis) and Serena, credited together as guest stars with an ampersand separating their names; a tacit understanding that the audience was getting them mostly as a pair and “doing their thing” (the mileage for which will wildly vary depending on one’s proclivities). For deep in the third act exists a gang-rape that looks like it could have escaped from the basement of the same year’s 800 Fantasy Lane, a film that shares about 90% of the cast of Taxi Girls and was directed by Jaacovi’s spouse/partner-in-crime, Svetlana (who appears in Taxi Girls as a stand-up comic doing a lot of Yakov Smirnoff-like material). At the very least, the assault doesn’t play out in one giant helping as it is cross-cut with John Holmes discovering the fiendish goings-on and orchestrating a rescue/revenge which, with the nut twisting and the bottle shattering, does turn out to be nice and satisfying. The only thing that would have made it better is if Ric Lutze would have been strangled with his own Greek medallion by the incredible Aubrey Nichols (credited as Adele Lambert and giving one hell of a great show in those scenes blessed with her presence).

Crisply shot by Lazlo Goldman (likely a pseudonym for Chinn’s then-regular lenser, Lazlo Crovney) with some nice, broad-daylight Hollywood Boulevard exteriors that also functioned as “Exhibit A” in its first of its many legal headaches, Taxi Girls is still a bit ragged in places with some terribly looped dialogue, a poorly stitched-in insert of George Mitchell’s unmistakably troubled appendage instead of utilization of a stunt cock during a warm-up comedic moment in the bank, and almost everything surrounding the the introduction to Holmes’s character. But, gosh, it sure is mostly fun and a completely antithetical experience to Little Orphan Dusty. It ain’t perfect but it’s like dive-joint pizza; certainly not gourmet but pretty damn tasty and only threatening to become your gastro-enemy the closer you get to the meal’s completion.

Oh, and Chinn was ultimately right as Taxi Girls not only attracted heat but turned out to be a virtual magnet for it, so being a silent partner amid the thick legal smoke that the film generated was truly a blessing. For not only did Jaacovi draw a bust shooting adult actresses portraying hookers getting busted on Hollywood Blvd (all but assuring him that Taxi Girls was as close to an 8 1/2 moment that he would ever get), he got hung with a pandering rap as part of a 1978 arrest he incurred while casting the film. But these things were nothing compared to the numerous issues Jaacovi brought upon himself by brazenly using Cheryl Ladd’s unauthorized appearance for the film’s promotional materials (as he had done with Farrah Fawcett during the Little Orphan Dusty campaign). It was all fun and games and free publicity that generated piles of box office cash until money wouldn’t make it go away as it had with Farrah Fawcett’s people and Jaacovi faced a ruinous financial penalty deep in 1983 when Ladd sued him into the ground and won a $1 million lawsuit for sticking her likeness on the ad campaign for a porn film without her permission.

Despite their professional partnership being completely in the rear-view mirror (well… almost), Bob Chinn would emerge from the production unscathed and would immediately begin work on the back-to-back Hot Legs/California Gigolo package for Caribbean Films. And before finding himself on the skids and making dreck under the name of Jourdan Alexander, Jaacovi’s insistence on copycat ad campaigns with dubious and tangential relations to their marketing inspirations would continue, unmolested. For directly after Taxi Girls, Jaacovi made and released Heavenly Desire, a truly stupid movie starring Johnnie Keyes, Seka, and Serena that advertised itself as a film with “all the heavenly rewards Warren Beatty had to wait for!” which, upon viewing the film, seems only slightly less ridiculous than if Jaacovi had billed Keyes as “the Warren Beatty lookalike.”

(C) Copyright 2023, Patrick Crain