DORIS DECEMBER: TOO MUCH TOO OFTEN (1968) **

Mike (Buck Starr from A Taste of Flesh) is a loutish pimp who has a hot young college gal (Sharon Kent from Indecent Desires) for a plaything.  He moonlights as a gay prostitute and blackmails his married Madison Avenue client (Bob Oran from My Brother’s Wife) into giving him a job at his ad agency.  Mike then sets his sights on seducing the boss’s daughter (Yolanda Signorelli).  Eventually, Mike’s loathsomeness catches up with him.   

Like all the movies found in Doris Wishman’s roughie period, we begin with a title sequence that plays out over black and white photographs.  The music that accompanies this sequence isn’t one of the best found in Wishman’s films, but it’s not bad.  Other Doris trademarks include scenes of women gazing at themselves in the mirror (in the name of equality, Starr often looks at himself in the mirror too), women showering to an overly bombastic score (a theme that has been cropping up more and more of late), and of course, feet… glorious feet!

Starr’s character is suitably nasty (it seems like the kind of role Sam Stewart should’ve played), but Too Much Too Often (surprising gay S & M opening scene aside) is lacking the punch of Wishman’s other films of this period.  It has a basic Plot… Sex… Plot structure of your average ‘60s skin flick and is missing that certain kookiness that makes Wishman’s films so memorable.  Other than the scene where Starr eats chocolates from Kent’s tits, the sex scenes are mostly forgettable this time around.

Stewart does show up later in the movie as a man previously wronged by Starr who gives him his just desserts.  Unfortunately, the dubbing on Stewart makes him sound like Speedy Gonzalez, which undercuts most of his menace.  Then, just when the movie should be over, there’s an eleventh-hour flashback to explain Stewart’s motives.  This scene probably wasn’t necessary, but it does prominently feature Darlene Bennett naked, so it’s not a total wash.

Starr gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I like my liquor strong and my women WEAK!”

AKA:  Too Much… Too Soon.