DORIS DECEMBER: HIDEOUT IN THE SUN (1960) **

(Originally reviewed January 2, 2022)

Hideout in the Sun was Doris Wishman’s first film.  Even though she was only credited with writing the story and producing, she also co-directed.  It has a few touches that would soon become her hallmarks, namely lots of nudity and tons of shots of feet, but other than being notable for her first feature, it’s not very good.  

Two thieves make a daring getaway after staging a bank heist.  When they learn the cops are watching their getaway boat, they decide to take a hostage and head to a nudist camp to lay low while the heat cools off.  While the one guy barks orders and worries about the cops, his partner and the hostage enjoy all the amenities the nudist camp has to offer.  

The first half hour or so is really slow going.  The cops and robbers stuff is a chore to get through.  The obvious Wishman touches aside, it’s dull and tedious.  Things improve once the action switches over to the nudist camp.  It’s here where things lighten up a little and the movie starts to have some fun with the silly premise.  

Among the nudist activities featured:  Swimming, volleyball, sunbathing, nature walks, picnicking, birdwatching, badminton, drinking from a water spigot, sitting in a fountain, sniffing flowers, and my favorite… NUDE ARCHERY!  Hawkeye, eat your heart out.

It’s easy to see why many nudist movies had as little plot as possible.  This one is so plot heavy in the early going that you might doze off even before you get to see one naked lady.  Credited director Larry Wolk was probably responsible for the dull stuff.  I can’t say that for sure, but I want to say it just because I’m a big Wishman fan.  So, if you can make it past the boring crime plot, the nudity in the second half is pretty much nonstop, so that’s something at least.

The title tune (sung by Ralph Young of Sandler and Young fame) is a straight-up banger too, which is good since they play it often.

AKA:  Beauties in the Sun.

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:  

1) With “Hideout in the Sun”, Doris is three-for-three with awesome nudie movie theme songs.

2) Like Nude on the Moon, and Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, the early fully clothed scenes are rough going.

3) More feet.

4) Watching this back-to-back-to-back with Nude on the Moon and Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, it’s apparent that this is by far the most drab looking of the three.  It’s sorely lacking the eye-popping color that at least made those two stand out.

5) The dialogue is poorly dubbed throughout, which makes it understandable that Wishman would shy away from matching actors’ lips with sound for much of her career.  

6) The climax takes place at “Miami Serpentarium” where a bunch of lizards, snakes, and alligators lounge in the sun, which kind of makes it a nudist colony for reptiles, I guess?

DORIS DECEMBER: BLAZE STARR GOES NUDIST (1963) * ½

(Originally posted July 17th, 2007)

Renowned stripper Blaze Starr stars as herself.  She’s tired of being famous and wants to get away from it all.  She goes to a theater playing a nudie movie and decides to visit the nudist colony featured.  There she encounters naked picnicking, checkers, archery, canoeing, volleyball, chess, and swimming.  She loves being a nudist so much that she neglects her celebrity duties such as attending parties, photo shoots and press functions which causes problems for her boyfriend/agent.  She drops that loser and walks off into the sunset with the camp director, Andy (Ralph Young of Sandler and Young fame).  

Blaze looks good naked, but it doesn’t help that the first half of the movie is filled with scenes of her talking on the phone fully clothed.  This is a nudist flick, and there are a lot of naked bodies on display, but I just couldn’t stop asking myself these burning questions:  A) If Blaze was going to a nudist colony, why would she have to pack her bags?  B) If Andy is a nudist, how come he is never seen without his goofy rainbow-colored shorts?  C) Why would a nudist colony need a clothesline?  D) If these people are truly nudists, how come they have tan lines?  

Director Doris Wishman also directed Deadly Weapons.  Starr (from Maryland) was also the subject of the biopic, Blaze starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich.  This flick has been re-released several times under different names.  

AKA:  Blaze Starr:  The Original.  AKA:  Back to Nature.  AKA:  Nature Girl.  AKA:  Blaze Starr Goes Wild.

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:  

1) “Going Back to Nature”, like Nude on the Moon’s “Moon Doll” is a bop and a half.  Doris Wishman might not have been the most technically adept filmmaker, but she sure knew how to secure bangers for her opening credits sequences.  (The closing theme, “The Moon is the Lamp of Love” is also very good.)

2) Also, like Nude on the Moon, there is a LOT of padding in the early going.  

3) One of Wishman’s signatures is the lack of synch sound.  In Nude on the Moon, there was at least an attempt to mask some of the dubbing to make it less obvious.  Here, the bulk of Starr’s dialogue is in the form of thoughts/narration or spoken offscreen (so they didn’t have to loop her lines).

4) Another one of Wishman’s signature touches begins to crop up here as well:  Gratuitous close-ups of feet.  Quentin Tarantino, eat your heart out!

5) The print is a little beat up here and there, but the folks at AGFA still did a great job preserving the flick.

6) Blaze looks great topless, but an actress she is not.

7) Despite the novelty of nude accordion playing and nude “Siamese” dancing, many of the nudist camp scenes are mostly lifeless and dull.  The fully clothed scenes are even worse.  

8) Seriously, Blaze’s bust is the only thing that separates this from a * movie and a * ½.

DORIS DECEMBER: NUDE ON THE MOON (1961) **

(Originally reviewed Jan. 11th, 2008)

Doris Wishman, “The Queen of the Nudies” proved that she was truly the innovator of the genre when she directed this sci-fi tinged Nudie-Cutie.  See, up to this time, most Nudie-Cutie movies had a documentary feel to them.  They almost never strayed away from their principal location (namely some nudist colony) and were comprised almost solely of nudists playing volleyball, swimming and walking around totally naked.  Instead of setting her movie in some random nudist colony, Wishman got the idea for the movie to take place on the moon where nudists would play volleyball (or at least an alien variation on volleyball), swim and walk around totally naked.  That’s just the kind of trendsetter Doris was.  

After the great opening theme song “Moon Doll”, the plot begins.  An astronaut (who says, “Science is my life and nothing else!”) uses a three-million-dollar inheritance to build his own personal rocket ship and he and his mentor blast off to the moon.  (“If all goes well, we’ll be back in Miami in four days!”)  Of course, the moon looks just like your average nudist colony, except there’s gold rocks everywhere.  About a half an hour into the movie, the astronauts (FINALLY) find the moon nudists who all look like the nudists of Earth except they have antennae and wear shorts.  The nudists quickly capture the two astronauts and report to the Moon Goddess who uses telepathy to communicate.  When the normally reserved scientist sees all the naked women he yells, “I feel like a schoolboy!”  And for the next hour, the two scientists watch intently as women, men and even children parade around topless.  

The women in the cast run the gauntlet from cute, to passable, to horsefaces, but with this many titties on display, you can’t really complain.  Which leads me to my biggest gripe about the movie:  The title is NUDE on the Moon, but everybody walks around in bikini bottoms.  On the downside, we don’t get to see any of the girl’s bushes, but thankfully we’re spared the sight of seeing all the men’s frontages.  

The goofy premise and novel setting distinguish Nude on the Moon from the rest of the pack, but honestly after about an hour of watching topless chicks cavort around with antennae on their head while men in spacesuits take notes, it gets a bit old.  Seeing the astronauts fight the “gravitational force” of the rocket during liftoff is hilarious, as is the astronaut’s costumes and the aliens lack thereof.  Honestly, if you’ve seen one nudist camp movie, you’ve seen ‘em all, but if you ever wanted to see lots of women parade around topless on the moon, then this will be your best bet.  

Keep your eyes peeled for the theater marquee that advertises Hideout in the Sun, Wishman’s first movie.  

AKA:  Girls on the Moon.  AKA:  Moon Dolls.  AKA:  Nature Girls on the Moon.  AKA:  Nature on the Moon.

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:

1) “Moon Doll”, is, as the kids say nowadays, a straight-up banger.

2) Since our hero is funding his own space program with an inheritance, does that make him the Elon Musk of the ‘60s?

3) MAN.  I forgot how much padding the first act has.

4) Since there isn’t a lot going on in the early portion of the film, it at least gives you time to appreciate the excellent job AGFA did on the print.  The movie has never looked better.  

5) The scenes of the Moon Queen’s breathless telepathic whispering combined with the repetitive score would make a great ASMR video.

6) I think the reason Nude on the Moon is one of those “Close, but no cigar” movies is because there’s no real conflict.  The astronauts just land, gawk at the nude moon women, and take notes and pictures.  If it was one of those Queen of Outer Space/Cat-Women of the Moon deals where the heroes were in some actual kind of peril, it would’ve worked better.  

DORIS DECEMBER

Now that Halloween is behind us and we’re all fat from Thanksgiving, I thought it was high time to turn my attention to some of the all-time great directors of the silver screen.  Each month for the next few months, I will be spotlighting a different director and trying to run through as much of their filmography as I can.  Fortunately for me, this will be kind of easy as home video specialists like AGFA and Severin have been knocking it out of the park lately with their director box sets.

Each director featured will in some way encompass the motto of The Video Vacuum, which has always been:  Quantity Over Quality.  These are directors who were grinding out picture after picture, year after year, and while not all of them were gems, they were all unmistakably the product of a unique, talented (or sometimes refreshingly untalented) mind.  It’s that kind of stuff that gets you inducted into The Video Vacuum Hall of Fame.

This December, we will be focusing our attention on all things Doris Wishman.  AGFA has recently released an incredible three volume series covering most of her impressive (and sometimes not-so impressive) body of work.  I will try to watch and review as many of these films as possible before the New Year and I hope you all come along for the ride.  

As when I went through the Al Adamson box set awhile back, if I have already reviewed a movie featured in the collection, I will either A) Just re-post my old review (especially if I have already reviewed it in the last year or two) or B) Post my old review alongside a brand new write-up (especially if I reviewed it way back when I had my old LiveJournal site).  

What do, you say?  Let’s dive into Doris December!

WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? (1972) ** ½

The year after director Curtis (Queen of Blood) Harrington and star Shelley (The Poseidon Adventure) Winters asked the question, “What’s the Matter with Helen?”, they asked “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”  Unlike that film, and the similarly titled Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, this isn’t one of those deals where two major leading ladies square off against each other.  Winters has the screen all to herself, and does a decent job, all things considered.  

Winters plays Auntie Roo, a rich, sad, lonely woman who is devastated by the death of her daughter.  So much so that she resorts to nightly seances with a phony drunk medium (Sir Ralph Richardson) to ease her troubled mind.  Roo holds an annual charity Christmas party for orphans where she meets the young Katy (Chloe Franks), whom she believes is the reincarnation of her departed daughter.  Katy’s storybook-obsessed brother (Mark Lester, from Oliver!) is convinced the old bag is the witch from Hansel and Gretel and is out to fatten up and eat his poor sister.  

That set-up kind of sounds convoluted, and it might be, a little.  However, Harrington keeps things moving with journeyman efficiency.  In fact, there’s so many subplots flying around here and there that it makes it hard to pin down just exactly where the story is going.  This works to the movie’s advantage sometimes, although it probably needed a couple of genuine shocks to make it worthwhile.  Harrington does a fine job letting the tension marinate.  It’s a shame the third act is predictable and lacking suspense.

Winters does a solid job with a difficult part.  We at turns feel sorry for Auntie Roo, are annoyed by her, and eventually distrustful of her.  She could’ve very easily lapsed into her patented shrewish theatrics, but she is rather restrained, or as restrained as Shelley Winters can get.  That is, until the last twenty minutes or so when she finally reveals her true nature.  I just wish they took her character’s madness a little further.  As it is, it feels like they were holding back during the finale, and as a result, the movie sort of peters out during the homestretch.  Shelley does get a nice moment when she chops through a door and peers menacingly from the splinters, which predates The Shining by eight years.

AKA:  House Terror.  AKA:  Who Slew Auntie Roo?

TRAILERS #2: HORROR AND SCI-FI OF THE ‘50S AND ‘60S (1992) ***

After starting things off with a trailer for Val Lewton’s The Leopard Man, this second collection of horror and sci-fi trailers from Something Weird goes into serial mode with previews for Missile Monsters (a condensed version of Flying Disc Man from Mars), Radar Men from the Moon, and Panther Girl of the Kongo.  Along the way, we get lots of trailers for Roger Corman movies (The Wasp Woman, Beast from Haunted Cave, and The Little Shop of Horrors) and films starring John Agar (Invisible Invaders, Hand of Death, and The Brain from Planet Arous).  The trailer for The Bat, which is hosted by Vincent Price, is among the best on the tape, and contains the great tagline:  “When it Flies… Someone DIES!”  There’s also The Hypnotic Eye (“Stare if You Dare”), filmed in the wonder of “HypnoMagic”!, and the world’s foremost mask collector tells you all about the “Miracle Movie Fright Mask” you’ll receive when you see The Mask!  

I also had a lot of fun with the double feature trailers.  Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory and Corridors of Blood make up the “Nerv-O-Rama” Double Feature.  You’ll have to sign a “Fright Release” if you want to see the double bill of The Horror of Party Beach and The Curse of the Living Corpse.  Then, who can stand the horror of The Curse of the Fly and its co-feature, Devils of Darkness?

Even though this collection is called “Horror and Sci-Fi of the ‘50s and ‘60s”, there are a few trailers from the ‘70s (Young Frankenstein, Massacre at Central High, and The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula) and the ‘40s (Spooks Run Wild, Ghosts on the Loose, and The Invisible Ghost), which are always welcome.  Sure, I’ve seen a lot of these trailers on other compilations before, but many of them like The Electronic Monster, The Unearthly Stranger, and The Vulture rarely, if ever turn up.  There’s also a good mix of genres here like giant monster mashes (The Giant Behemoth), comedy (The Three Stooges Meet Hercules), and big budget studio films (Seconds).  That kind of variety helps make this collection another winner from Something Weird.

The complete trailer line-up is as follows:  The Leopard Man, Missile Monsters, Radar Men from the Moon, Panther Girl of the Kongo, Night of the Blood Beast, House on Haunted Hill, Half-Human, The Cosmic Man, The Giant Behemoth, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, Invisible Invaders, The Woman Eater, The Giant Gila Monster, The Killer Shrews, The Bat, The Wasp Woman, Beast from Haunted Cave, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Blood Creature (AKA:  Terror is a Man), The Hypnotic Eye, The Electronic Monster, 13 Ghosts, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Fiendish Ghouls (AKA:  The Flesh and the Fiends), Village of the Damned, Black Sunday, The Snake Woman, The Mask, Hand of Death, Invasion of the Star Creatures, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, Atom Age Vampire, Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory and Corridors of Blood “Nerv-O-Rama” Double Feature, The Haunting, My Son, the Vampire (AKA:  Mother Riley Meets the Vampire), Children of the Damned, a double feature of The Horror of Party Beach and The Curse of the Living Corpse, The Flesh Eaters, The Unearthly Stranger, Devil Doll, Curse of the Stone Hand, a double feature of Curse of the Fly and Devils of Darkness, Cave of the Living Dead, Seconds, The Vulture, Night of the Living Dead, Young Frankenstein, The Brain from Planet Arous, The Colossus of New York, Massacre at Central High, The Castle of Fu Manchu, The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula (AKA:  The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires), Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, Ghosts on the Loose, Spooks Run Wild, The Invisible Ghost, Bride of the Monster, Horrors of Spider Island, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, The Manster, Invasion of the Animal People, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, The Cabinet of Caligari, Zotz!, and Paranoiac.

LETHAL (2005) ** ½

Sam (Heather Marie Marsden) is a sexy and badass mercenary who tags along on an assignment with her boss/mentor (John Colton).  When the deal goes sour, he is kidnapped and tortured by a sleazy Russian arms dealer named Federov (Lorenzo Lamas) who is looking for a mysterious “package”.  Sam then teams up with a beefy Fed (Frank Zagarino) to save her boss and bring down Federov.  The stakes are raised when Federov also kidnaps Sam’s sister (Jennifer MacIsaac).  

Lethal gets off to a promising start.  Marsden makes one heck of an entrance wearing nothing but skimpy underthings before opening up her closet.  You think it’s going to contain her wardrobe, but… surprise!  It’s where she keeps her arsenal of weapons.  She then gets a strong fight scene in a strip club where she takes center stage and Kung Fus a bunch of goons.  Once the plot (and by “plot”, I mean, “a bunch of action movie cliches”) kicks in, things start going downhill as the movie begins to get bogged down with a lot of exposition and shit.  

Marsden makes for a likeable leading lady though.  She looks great in her leather coat and crop top T-shirt while kicking ass.  She has a considerable amount of charisma too.  It’s a shame she never became an action star because based on the evidence here, she had the chops.  

I watched Lethal hoping for a great Lorenzo Lamas performance, and I have to admit, he’s pretty good.  He doesn’t go overboard with the Russian accent, but he comes awfully close.  It might not be his finest hour, but it’s fun seeing him chew the scenery a bit in a rare villainous role.  Zagarino, on the other hand, is stuck playing a bland federal agent, and it’s a role he ultimately can’t do a whole lot with since it’s so thinly written.

Director Dustin (Easy Rider 2:  The Ride Back) Rikert handles the various shootouts and fistfights in a competent manner.  He also tosses in some dime store versions of John Woo slow motion and Michael Bay whirl-a-rounds in there for good measure.  By the time Marsden does her little Matrix move in the third act, you get a sense that no one was really taking any of this seriously… and I mean that as a compliment.  Too bad he couldn’t bring some of that same kind of fun to the dialogue scenes, which are mostly dull.

Lethal isn’t going to be labeled a classic by anyone, but I had some fun with it.  The cheeky action scenes alone give the film personality, which is at the very least something you can hang your hat on.  I’ll remember it longer than dozens of other cookie cutter DTV actioners, that’s for sure.  (But not much longer.)