Ken Russell's "Whore" (1991)

Oh My Gosh! Changed my life

I love this movie I own it

Liz cartoonishly flicking her tongue out as a means of seducing the guy exiting the taxi (before realizing he's with his boyfriend) is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

It’s a classic

Ha! I didn't realize that this film was intended to be a take down of Pretty Woman. 😂

Hilarious film. I remember being shocked by several scenes when I watched it as a teen (the scene where Ginger Lynn Allen is bleeding profusely in a public restroom and another when Theresa Russell's boyfriend comes home drunk and pukes in a salad just to name two). Theresa Russell was great in this.

Saw it at least 15 years ago, didn't like it.

Where is it streaming?

Just when you thought there could be nothing worse than Theresa Russell in a Nicolas Roeg film...

I love Theresa Russell. She is one of my favorite actresses (and I'm not joking). She is all over the place and you get a little bit of everything with her depending on the performance. In many films, her line delivery is often laugh-out-loud bad, but there are other instances in which she's given emotional and very nuanced performances ("Bad Timing", "Straight Time", and even "Impulse" come to mind). She can be intentionally and unintentionally hilarious in some parts, and quite serious in others. In any case, she is always entertaining and offers something interesting. I am a fan.

I love the dinner scene with the pimp

During the filming of "Whore," Ms. Russell said she had a difficult time separating her character's feelings from her own. "It was depressing," she says. "I didn't realize how depressing at the time. That degradation you're constantly putting yourself in -- even though you're acting it. But those feelings come up, too. You do start feeling like you're a pretty worthless human being." She laughs ruefully. "I had to have three glasses of wine instead of one before I went to bed. And it shows on the film. But that's O.K. It was right for the character."

R12 she made similar comments in an interview from a couple of years ago that was released on the Australian Blu-ray release. I remember she said in it that she got depressed and had overwhelming feelings of self-loathing while shooting the movie. She mentioned that she sometimes would play characters and get so emotionally invested that she'd end up "dreaming their dreams". She also mentioned that she paid several prostitutes for their time and just had coffee with them and asked them questions about their lives. She came across as pretty intelligent and down-to-earth—a valley girl type who came from nothing, but had brains.

R13 She definitively had brains.

She reminds me a bit of Cybill Shepherd.

I can't wait for DL Studios to produce Fat Whore.

Theresa on the Dennis Miller show. Comments about Whore start at 8:10.

"I wanna fuck you up the ass"

"You can stick it up your own, asshole!"

"I would if I could.... BITCH."

When isn’t a Ken Russell film divisive? I’ve met so many people who flat out loathe his work.

You are right, R18. He is the type whose work divides a room I think—you get it or you don't. I personally love all of it, even the later whackier stuff like "Whore" and "Lair of the White Worm".

I wish this was streaming somewhere. I haven’t seen it since the nineties.

R20 it doesn't seem to be available on any streaming platforms (a common problem, especially with more niche movies). I did a quick Google search and there is a high-quality version uploaded by someone here on this random site:

Pete Townshend was crazy about her when she was married to a friend of his. He wrote the song Athena about her.

Black Widow is another important TR movie.

Whore got a really good UK blu-ray release in 2022 - if you've got a region-free player go for it

R24 it doesn't indicate on the disc or cover art, but I believe that disc is actually region-free. I own it and it plays in my US Blu-ray player (I've also got a region-free player just in case). Kino Lorber announced they would be releasing a North American Blu-ray around a year ago or so, but so far it's not materialized. I am wondering if they canceled it.

Theresa Russel always played a ho......she was great. She is now in the “whatever happened to” file

R21 Thank you! That transfer looks pristine. It must be from the Blu-ray.

R27 I think it is, it has the same modern Lionsgsate logo that is on the Blu-ray release.

Why did 90s movies had such horrible voice overs?

You're a WHORE darlin

Stop the presses!!! Ken Russell has had a brainstorm. It's dawned on him that a hooker's life is no day at the beach. That's the revelation at the heart of his atrocious new film, "Whore," and for those of us who believed heart and soul in the flowery depiction of prostitution presented by Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" it's certainly an eye-opener. File it under "Things that make you go 'hmmmm . . .' "

How could we have been so naive? According to Liz, the jaded streetwalker played by Theresa Russell, there are all kinds of occupational bummers. The hours are lousy, there are no health benefits and the johns are all weird. None of her customers wants to use protection. Isn't that nutty? And for some reason they all want to kiss her. Yecch! Then, on top of all that, you have pimps to deal with. And guess what? They're mostly low-life parasites. What is this world coming to?

With "Whore," Russell pulls off a rare feat; he manages to be both lurid and tedious at the same time. The film, which was adapted from the play by David Hines, plays like a night school survey study of prostitution -- it's Streetwalking 101. For the most part, the director has taken a day-in-the-life approach to his subject, with Liz delivering long monologues about the travails of her career straight into the camera. The whole affair has a kind of dinner theater air to it. It's hopelessly amateurish and banal. Russell, who put on a few pounds for the role, has a few high-camp comic moments, but it's often hard to tell if she's intentionally bad or just plain blowing it. There's little confusion about the film as a whole, though -- it's flat-out awful. At any rate, guess I'll hang on to my day job.

My favorite film.

Looking forward to the sequels "Whore! ""Prostitution Whore" and "Sex Worker"

Contrasting with The Washington Post review R31 shared, Roger Ebert gave this film high marks. If you look at his review history overall, it seems he really loved Theresa Russell as he was always championing her. In his review of "Whore", he described her as "the actress you call when you need great skill combined with great courage."

[quote]Where is it streaming?

Just dropped on Criterion.

R34 - I agree with Ebert’s overall assessment.

Not sure how you can watch Russell in Whore and come away thinking “this is an actress with great skill.”

R37 It’s meant to be campy.

This is one of the movies that really changed 13 year old me

When I was a kid, my parents for some reason had a screener copy of this on VHS that was in our movie cabinet for years. I didn't know what "whore" meant really, but the cover was very scandalous-looking. I remember the "This is no bedtime story" tagline beneath Theresa Russell sitting on a bed against the city skyline. I have to wonder if my dad got it thinking it was some softcore porn or something (he certainly wasn't a Ken Russell-type cinephile).

This was 1000x better than Pretty Woman.

Where can I watch this gem? I’m a Russell fan since Black Widow.

R42 the link at R21 is legit

What other Ken Russell movies are good?

Tommy, Altered States

I love Gothic too - Julian Sands perfect ass and lots of camp.

I’m amazed that Russell got funding for some of his films.

OP- Looks like Samantha Jones from Sex And The City

Ken Russell is one of my favorite directors. His style was not for everyone, but his vision was uniquely deranged and also at times rather emotionally intelligent. "The Devils", "Altered States", "Women in Love", "Gothic", "The Lair of the White Worm", and "Whore" are all favorites of mine. "Valentino" is great too, with Rudolf Nureyev as Valentino with Michelle Phillips as Natacha Rambova. By many accounts, he was a nightmare to work with (especially in the later years), but the creative output was always intriguing.

Theresa Russell and Ginger Lynn Allen both said he was drunk basically the entire time they were making "Whore".

I'm so glad I got to see him in person, I think it was months before he died - they did a retrospective at MoMA and he was there when they screened The Devils. My god that movie on a big screen is insanity. He still seemed sharp as a tack, I was surprised when he died

R50 you are blessed. I have seen "The Devils" on the big screen, once. That movie is already larger than life, and the theater experience of it is even more frenetic and intense. They toured the 35mm X-rated version of it and I was not going to miss the opportunity when it showed in my city. I can't remember when it was, but it was within the last 10 years. I'd love to see it again in a cinema.

Isn't there a scene where she sodomizes a cute cop with his nightstick or am I completely misremembering?

The Annual "Whore" Thread, and it's only January.

I just watched it for the first time. It was like trying on a new pair of shoes that don't quite fit right but after wearing them for a few paces across the floor they settle in. I can see these becoming one of my favorite pairs.

I am a whore.

I am a nun.

I am a whore.

I am a nun.

Whorenun.

R54 watch it a couple of times. It really grows on you.

For those wondering how to watch this, try newsgroup searches. You pay a small annual subscription fee but you can download pretty much anything over a secured connection without copyright hound dogs ratting you out to your ISP.

R48 - A bit.

There was another similar Russell film around the same time as “Whore.” “Crimes of Passion” with Kathleen Turner. I think that was the one with the night stick.

Yes Kathleen Turner is the world's first flat-chested prostitute.

[quote]Isn't there a scene where she sodomizes a cute cop with his nightstick or am I completely misremembering?

Yes, that was Kathleen Turner in Crimes of Passion, which had her dressed like a stewardess for a trick:

"And, remember, we may run out of Pan Am coffee — but we'll never run out of T-W-A-T."