DORIS DECEMBER: LOVE TOY (1971) ****

Doris Wishman’s fabulously tawdry Love Toy is kind of like a warped predecessor to Indecent Proposal.  Marcus (Larry Hunter) loses everything he owns to Alex (Bernard Marcel) in a game of gin rummy.  Since Alex is a total perv, he says he’ll forgive Marcus’s gambling debt if he can have one night with his beautiful and innocent daughter, Chris (Pat Happel).  When Marcus refuses, Alex and his equally scummy wife Mary (‘60s sexploitation staple Uta Erickson in her next to last role) tie him up and begin to have their way with the waifish Chris.  

First, Alex makes Chris act like his childhood pet, Samuel, and forces her to get down on all fours and lap up milk from a saucer like a good little kitten.  Then, he wants Chris to be his “Mommy” and makes her breastfeed him.  (This dude has a thing for milk apparently.)  After that, Alex wants her to roleplay as his “Wife” and then… his “Daughter”.  Other games include “Horsey” and “Mistress”.  Eventually, Mary gets in on the antics, and finally, Marcus is forced to participate as well.

Moral of the Story:  Don’t play gin rummy with sex maniacs.

Wonderfully deranged, Love Toy is probably the nastiest, dirtiest, roughest roughie of Doris’s career.  Unlike the majority of Wishman’s projects, the editing is often crisp and concise, which helps the sex scenes pack a punch.  The scenes of humiliation wouldn’t work so well if Wishman didn’t do such a good job at setting them up.  Alex’s monologues about his past, especially when he’s talking about Samuel (“He had sad eyes… like you…”) perfectly set the stage for the degradations to come.  It also helps that the scenes of domination and cruelty have a nasty streak a mile wide.  

All four leads are excellent, especially Happel and Marcel.  His psychotic babblings are often just as jaw-dropping as his sexual antics.  I will say that the stuff with Erickson torturing the tied-up Hunter isn’t quite as memorable or effective (although I did like the scene where she used a bottle of perfume as a marital aid), but it serves as a decent palate cleanser to get you to the next degradation scene.

Like the previous year’s The Amazing Transplant, Love Toy features an opening title sequence of black and white photographs with red lettering.  Wishman dropped this motif after this film, which I guess was her way of saying goodbye to the roughie genre.  It was also nice seeing the same apartment location that would later turn up in Keyholes are for Peeping and Double Agent 73.

Yes, it’s a Doris movie through and through.  There are scenes where the sound is obviously out of synch as lots of dialogue is spoken by actors who are conveniently off screen.  There are random instances of actresses staring at themselves nude in the mirror, impromptu dance numbers, and an out of left field flashback to pad out the running time.  And as with Bad Girls Go to Hell, we learn in the end (SPOILER) it was all a dream/premonition.

Fans may be disappointed that there is only one incongruous shot of feet in the movie, and that it is a part of older footage that was spliced in after the fact.  Because of that, Love Toy is probably her least foot-friendly movie since The Hot Month of August.  However, it just goes to show how good the editing was this time around.  Doris didn’t need throwaway shots of feet to cover herself in the editing room.  

Well, maybe the editing isn’t perfect.  Like Keyholes are for Peeping, there’s a scene in color where someone spies on a couple having sex in black and white.  Since it takes place within the context of a flashback/memory/fantasy scene, it sort of makes sense.  However, this odd digression doesn’t derail the proceedings.

Overall, Love Toy is probably Wishman’s most competent, coherent, and effective movie, in terms of titillation.  While it’s missing the anything-goes nuttiness of her best stuff (Deadly Weapons and Let Me Die a Woman), it is really a sight to behold.  It’s certainly my favorite new-to-me film on AGFA/Something Weird’s three-part box set.

It's also the final film in the set.  I was able to watch and review all twenty-two movies in less than seventy-two hours.  (Seventy hours and twenty-five minutes, to be exact.)  While that brings the reviews from the box set to a close, I will try to track down a few more other Doris films before the end of the month.  

DORIS DECEMBER RANKINGS:

1. Deadly Weapons 

2. Let Me Die a Woman

3. Love Toy

4. Bad Girls Go to Hell

5. Double Agent 73

6. The Immoral Three

7. Indecent Desires

8. My Brother’s Wife

9. The Hot Month of August

10. The Sex Perils of Paulette

11. Another Day, Another Man

12. A Taste of Flesh

13. Nude on the Moon

14. Diary of a Nudist

15. Too Much Too Often

16. Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls

17. Hideout in the Sun

18. Blaze Starr Goes Nudist

19. The Amazing Transplant

20. The Prince and the Nature Girl

21. Passion Fever

22. Keyholes are for Peeping or Is There Life After Marriage?

DORIS DECEMBER: KEYHOLES ARE FOR PEEPING OR IS THERE LIFE AFTER MARRIAGE? (1972) *

(Originally reviewed September 13th, 2019)

Sammy (Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla) Petrillo gets his marriage counselor diploma in the mail and sets off to make a name for himself in the profession.  Meanwhile, his own personal life is a wreck.  His girlfriend (Kristen Steen) won’t marry him because he always has to care for his dominating mother (also Petrillo, with his voice dubbed by the director, Doris Wishman).  As Petrillo meets with his patients, the superintendent (Phillip Stahl) in his apartment building spies on various tenants by looking through their keyholes.  

The naughty footage looks like it might’ve been taken from outer sources, perhaps old stag reels or even from Wishman’s other films for all I know.  Many of the sex scenes are tinted yellow for some damned reason.  Others are filmed through a negative filter which makes it impossible to tell what the hell is going on.  None of them are remotely sexy.  

Most Wishman movies are unintentionally hilarious.  If you’ve ever seen Let Me Die a Woman or Deadly Weapons you know what I’m talking about.  With this one she tries to be funny on purpose and the results are disastrous.  

Petrillo made his living imitating Jerry Lewis.  He unwisely dropped the act for this movie.  Sporting long hippie hair and doing random impressions (everyone from The Invisible Man to Porky Pig), and telling unfunny jokes, he never once elicits a single laugh from the audience.  You know they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when he shows up in drag.  The results are pretty dire, even for Wishman’s standards.  

The film falls into a predictable pattern early on.  It goes back and forth from the unfunny scenes of Petrillo (who also may be familiar to you from his bit part in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die) interviewing women to the voyeur peeping on lovemaking couples.  Neither plotline hits its intended marks, making Keyholes are For Peeping or is There Life After Marriage? a frustrating experience to say to least.  

Wishman’s made some bad movies in her time, but this one just might take the proverbial cake.  

AKA:  Keyholes are for Peeping.  

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:  

1) When Doris Wishman added newly shot sex scenes to older movies in the past, the results were wildly uneven.  Here, she tosses in a bunch of old sex scenes (I spotted bits from The Hot Month of August and Passion Fever, but I’m sure there were others) with newly shot footage.  She doesn’t even attempt to make them match.  When the building’s super peeps through keyholes, he’s in color and the people fucking in the room are in black and white.  (I’ve seen lots of movies where it turns from night to day within the same scene, but very few that go from color to black and white and back.)  Sometimes they’re solarized so you can’t make heads or tails of it.  (Let Me Die a Woman also contained a random solarized sex scene.)  

2) I liked Sammy Petrillo in Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, but BOY, is he bad here.

3) Director Trademarks:  Random dance scene, shower scene (this time the score isn’t overly bombastic, just overly annoying), off-kilter narration, poor dubbing (when Petrillo is in drag), whiplash editing (the Hawaiian sequence is a fever dream of incompetence), shots of undergarments hitting the floor, and (what else?) feet.

4) Sigh.

5) You know that overused joke I make about Martin Scorsese calling a particular moment in a Doris Wishman movie “CINEMA”?  You won’t find that joke here.

6) To add insult to injury, the movie never answers the question in the title.  In fact, the film ends asking the audience, “So… is there life after marriage?”  You would at least think that after an hour and nine minutes of fast motion “comedy” scenes, incoherent editing, and lame “comic” sound effects, Wishman would’ve had the decency to answer that query.

DORIS DECEMBER: THE IMMORAL THREE (1975) ***

(Originally reviewed April 24th, 2019)

Jane (Cindy Boudreau) is strangled to death while sunbathing on a balcony.  At her funeral, Jane’s three long-lost daughters, Sandy (Sandra Kay), Nancy (Michelle Marie), and Ginny (also played by Boudreau) meet for the first time.  They also learn their mother (whom they never met) was a special agent who slept with and killed enemy agents.  That means her daughters were “occupational side effects”.  Jane’s will states the three girls need to team up and find her murderer before they can collect the three-million-dollar inheritance.  They are given a list of four suspects and set out to determine which one is the killer.  

Early on in Doris Wishman’s The Immoral Three, one of the characters mention in passing that Jane was known as “Agent 73”.  That means this is actually an under the radar sequel to Double Agent 73!  All I have to say is that Cindy Boudreau is no Chesty Morgan, but then again, who is?  While she may not have Chesty’s impossible bustline, unlike Chesty, Boudreau can recite intelligible dialogue, which helps.  I guess.  There’s no camera boob gimmick this time out though, which is a little disappointing.  

The good news is, this is a Doris Wishman movie through and through.  It may not be up to the dizzying heights of Wishman’s classics like Double Agent 73, Let Me Die a Woman, and Deadly Weapons, but The Immoral Three has enough moments of WTF (Wishman’s Type of Filmmaking) to make it worthwhile.  There’s the oddball plot.  Misogyny.  Murder.  Nudity.  Shots of people walking slowly towards the camera.  And of course, random shots of feet.  As a bonus, the flick features what has to be the most inexplicable use of a xylophone found on a soundtrack.

The Immoral Three is one of Wishman’s better put together films.  Sure, it kind of drags around the halfway mark, but her Kitchen Sink approach assures you’ll be riveted.  While most of this plays like some sort of sexed-up mash-up of Charlie’s Angels and Mission:  Impossible, some scenes feel like a prototype for a slasher movie with a black-gloved killer stabbing people.  We also get a not-bad double twist ending.

The main draw will be the shit-ton of nudity.  The lovely ladies in the cast get naked at the drop of a hat.  Whether getting changed, skinny-dipping, or having sex (willingly and otherwise), there’s never a shortage of skin on screen.  

The nuttiest scene comes when Kay simulates fellatio with a banana to arouse a potential suspect.  When she goes down on him, Wishman superimposes shots of Kay sucking the banana over his face, which scores maximum laughs.  While I can’t say The Immoral Three lives up to the promise of Double Agent 73, moments like these assure exploitation fans will have loads of fun with it.

AKA:  Hotter Than Hell.  

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:

1) This print features both titles, The Immoral Three AND Hotter Than Hell.  

2) One can only imagine what the film would’ve been like had Chesty Morgan reprised her role as Agent 73.  Then again, it would’ve been a shame to see her killed off so early in the film.  (Or I guess she could’ve played a dual role as Boudreau does here, although it might’ve been weird seeing her playing her own daughter.)

3) The $3,000,000 inheritance the heroines are trying to get is the same amount the hero of Nude on the Moon received.  

4) I think the secret to The Immoral Three’s success is that it has a sense of fun about it, something that really wasn’t present in Doris Wishman’s films since her nudie movie days.  Oh, and the rampant nudity helps too.

5) Director Trademarks:  Odd dubbing, weird narration, awkward telephone conversations, women staring at their nude frame in the mirror, random dance sequence, and naturally, feet.

6) The banana scene is, as Martin Scorsese would say, “CINEMA!”

7) The theme from Double Agent 73 is heard again to cement the fact that this is indeed a sequel, albeit a loose one.

8) The death by candy dish scene is a direct homage to (or “blatantly stolen from”, however you want to phrase it) Bad Girls Go to Hell.

DORIS DECEMBER: LET ME DIE A WOMAN (1977) ****

(Originally posted July 17th, 2007)

In many ways, this is director Doris (Deadly Weapons) Wishman’s ultimate movie.  It’s a crazy, anything-goes pseudo-documentary about sex changes and transvestites.  It would make a perfect double feature with Glen or Glenda.  While it doesn’t match that film’s fever dream WTF? power, it comes pretty close.  It also delivers what Glen or Glenda promised and couldn’t show:  actual footage of a sex change operation performed in graphic detail.  

Wishman intercuts an interview with “Leslie” (“A year ago, I was a man!”) a real transgendered Puerto Rican with footage of a real doctor, Leo Wolman (who relies heavily on cue cards) who introduces us to several real transvestites and transsexuals.  He refers to their plight as a “monstrous biological joke”.  There are even sex scenes with said transsexuals and some simulated scenes with porn vets Harry Reems and Vanessa Del Rio.  The craziest part (if you don’t count the operation scenes) is Wolman’s story of a man who wanted to become a woman so much he cut off his own penis using a chisel and a hammer!  This incident is lovingly recreated in graphic detail for your viewing pleasure.  If that doesn’t make you squirm in your seat, I don’t know what will.  

This is one of the craziest movies ever made and only the strongest of stomachs need apply.  If you loved Glen or Glenda (or maybe even Faces of Death) then what are you waiting for?  Wishman started filming this as early as 1971 (as Adam or Eve) but later added the interview footage and released it in ’77.

AKA:  Man or Woman?

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:  

1) Let Me Die a Woman and Glen or Glenda would make a fascinating double feature.  Both films tackle the subject of transition within the confines of an exploitation movie.  Both films offer a plea of tolerance and acceptance for their subjects.  However, since they are at their core, exploitation movies, the addition of sensationalism and smut (remember the bondage scenes in Glen or Glenda?) give them an extra layer of weirdness that makes them strangely even more appealing.  Although these scenes somewhat cheapen the message, it certainly makes them memorable, especially when you consider no one was really making movies that addressed the subject in a serious manner (unless you count The Christine Jorgensen Story).  

2) The scene of our main subject, Leslie getting dressed in front of the camera is supposed to be kind of like a slice of life sort of thing, but yeah, it kind of feel a little exploitative.  Despite that, she remains an engaging presence and helps to put a friendly and down to earth face to trans women for the audience.

3) Doris Wishman Trademarks:  Feet, random narration, showers featuring overly bombastic scores, and surgery scenes.

4) The scene where a guy uses a hammer and chisel to hack off his dick is one of the greatest scenes in exploitation history.  

5) Despite the air of overriding exploitation elements, this is probably the most progressive movie of the ‘70s in regard to gender identity.  Some of it hasn’t aged too well, but its heart is in the right place (most of the time) and it makes every attempt to show the various trans participants as real people with real problems and showcases their plight with sincerity.   

6) The Mondo movie aspects kind of run against the grain of the film’s positive messaging, but it helps to make it truly a one-of-a-kind experience. 

7) The sex change surgery sequence shows in graphic detail what Glen or Glenda could only hint at.  Like the chisel scene, it helps cement the film’s place in the annals of exploitation history.

8) The only scene in the movie that doesn’t really work is the long, solarized sex scene that occurs near the end, but then again, what would a Doris Wishman flick be without a gratuitous eleventh-hour sex scene?

DORIS DECEMBER: THE AMAZING TRANSPLANT (1970) * ½

(Originally posted August 17th, 2007)

Doris (Deadly Weapons) Wishman directed this nutty flick about a virginal schmo who gets his dead lothario friend’s penis transplanted onto his body.  He soon discovers he’s got game with the ladies, but the procedure has one unfortunate side effect:  it turns him into a crazy eyed rapist whenever he sees a pair of ladies’ gold earrings.  All of this sounds a hell of a lot better than it actually is, the main problem being that we don’t learn the facts about the so-called “amazing” transplant until the hackneyed “twist” ending.  Although the sex scenes will appeal to most fans of ‘70s “roughies”, much of the flick is so abysmally edited and acted that most viewers will probably give up on it before it reaches its “shocking” conclusion.  Rabid Wishman fans will undoubtedly have a field day with it as it features all her trademarks (badly synched dialogue, atrocious editing, and lots of close-ups of feet), but everyone else will want to steer clear.  Wishman later directed the ultimate elective surgery flick, Let Me Die a Woman seven years later.

AKA:  Sex and the Swinging Girl.

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:

1) Even though this film is in color, Doris Wishman still uses her old standby of having a title sequence that features a bunch of black and white stills.  This time, the titles are red, which is a nice touch.

2) This movie begins with a naked woman playing a zither.  No matter how bad the rest of the movie gets (and it gets pretty bad), at least it has that going for it.

3) Director trademarks include:  Telephone conversations, shower scenes with overly bombastic music, obviously overdubbed dialogue, and (say it with me) FEET! 

4) Parts of this movie really feel like a color version of one of Wishman’s ‘60s roughies.  In that respect, it functions as a transition film between her second and third career acts.  I just wish the attack/sex scenes were worth a damn.

5) A killer being set off by the sight of golden earrings is a good idea for a movie.  A guy getting a penis transplant is a good idea for a movie.  Promising the audience a film about a guy getting a penis transplant and then giving them a film about a killer being set off by the sight of golden earrings is not a good idea.  

6) The opening strangulation scene is fairly decent.  However, the ensuing police investigation is a straight-up bore.

7) This is one of those movies where Doris just repeats the same motif again and again until she gets to seventy minutes and calls it a day.  The killer strikes.  The detective interviews one of his past victims.  They relate a flashback about the killer’s attack.  Repeat.  

8) I could’ve done without the scene where Doris zooms the camera in on an actress’s pimple-pocked butt while she vomits.

9) Man, sitting through an hour of quasi-giallo skin flick tedium just to get to a transplant that isn’t even shown is a total rip-off.  I think the only “Amazing” part about it is that is was done outpatient.

DORIS DECEMBER: DOUBLE AGENT 73 (1974) *** ½

(Originally posted July 17th, 2007)

Chesty Morgan returns in Doris Wishman’s follow-up to Deadly Weapons.  If that flick was Death Wish With Big Boobs, this one is James Bond With Big Boobs.  This time, Chesty is a spy with a camera implanted in her breast.  After she kills someone, she takes out her gigantic boob and squeezes it, and there is a shutter effect.  The camera will also self-destruct if she doesn’t complete her mission in time.  She doesn’t smother anyone with her boobs this time, but she does use them to beat one guy up and puts chloroform on them to knock another guy out.  Double Agent 73 isn’t as fun as Deadly Weapons, but it still has its moments.  With the Wishman trademarks:  lots of close-ups of feet, lots of bad dubbing and lots of big boobs.  She even tosses in a Psycho shower scene rip-off for good measure.  After this flick, Chesty parted company with Wishman and went on to work with Fellini!

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:

1) Ah yes, another great Doris Wishman title sequence.  This time, there’s a catchy James Bond-esque theme (which is fitting since it’s a spy movie) where Chesty flashes her tits at the audience at regular intervals.  Since a camera has been implanted in her breast, there’s a shutter effect every time she does it, so it’s like she’s flashing us LITERALLY.  

2) Another thing I love about the title sequence is the little cartoon sketch of Doris that accompanies her name in the credits.

3) There are plenty of Doris trademarks to enjoy, such as shots of feet, weird voiceovers, stolen nude volleyball footage from her old nudie movies, odd telephone conversations, and shower scenes with an overly bombastic score.  (In this case, a murder sequence a la Psycho.)

4) I admit that the conceit of having a camera in your boobs isn’t as cool as killing someone with your boobs, but it’s just weird enough to work… well, in a Doris Wishman movie that is.

5) I think Chesty looks more attractive here than she did in Deadly Weapons.  She’s photographed in more flattering light, her hair (READ:  Wig) and make-up looks better, and her wardrobe is sexier (especially her outfit in the end).  She still acts as stilted and bewildered as ever though.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

6) The surgery scene where the camera is implanted into Chesty’s boob is wonderfully inept.  Surgery scenes would also crop up in Wishman's The Amazing Transplant and Let Me Die a Woman.  

7) Oh, the camera in Chesty’s boob will blow up if she doesn’t complete her mission on time.  I wonder if John Carpenter saw this before he made Escape from New York.

8) Despite not living up to the dizzying heights of Deadly Weapons, Double Agent 73 is chockful of scenes of Chesty killing people and then flashing her boobs at them.  She also flashes her boobs every time she finds important documents.  Because of that, it’s OK in my book.  

9) The scene where Chesty has a problem removing a Band-Aid from her boob and Doris keeps the camera running is what Martin Scorsese would call, “CINEMA!”

10) The part where Doris suggests to the audience that the characters are in a nightclub by shining lights against flapping aluminum foil is fucking priceless.

11) The slow-motion fight scene in which Chesty uses a form of fighting that can only be described as “Titty Fu” is equally priceless.  She may not kill the guy with them, but she shows that her massive mammaries are still deadly weapons after all.

12) Despite the fact that Chesty doesn’t kill anyone with her boobs, the scene where she murders a guy by shoving ice cubes down his throat is bizarrely effective.  

13) Aside from the camera boobs, other James Bond-style gadgets include:  Exploding lipstick, a whisky decanter that shoots gas, deadly earrings, and a firecracker ring.

14) The movie kind of runs out of steam by the end, but it still remains one of Doris’s best, if only for the unique screen presence that is Chesty Morgan.  

DORIS DECEMBER: DEADLY WEAPONS (1974) ****

(Originally posted July 17th, 2007)

Nudie director Doris Wishman directed two movies back-to-back with Chesty Morgan, a Polish actress whose only talent was her 73-inch bust.  In their first film together, Chesty plays a woman whose husband is murdered by the Mob.  She gets revenge by seducing gangsters and suffocating them with her humongous breasts!  Pure genius!  Chesty can’t act and looks embarrassed, but you won’t care.  Unlike their follow-up, Double Agent 73, this one actually works pretty good as a revenge thriller (with 73-inch boobs that is).  Porn star Harry Reems co-stars.  This is a must-see cult film, that should be viewed at least once in your lifetime, though once is probably enough.

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:  

1) We are in Doris Wishman’s ‘70s exploitation era and that means one thing:  COLOR!

2) There have been many great theme songs in Doris’s films throughout the years.  Deadly Weapons’ “Hard Selling Woman” is at the very top.  Second only to “The Hell Raisers” from Another Day, Another Man, in my humble opinion.  

3) Doris also continues her hot streak with another awesome title sequence.  Boobs and great music.  What’s not to like?  Especially when they are seventy-three-inch-boobs, and they belong to Chesty Morgan.

4) The first thing we see after the title sequence is over?  FEET!  This is Doris’s magnum opus.

5) Awkward sounding phone conversations, shoddy dubbing, random narration, women looking at their boobs in the mirror, shower/baths featuring an overly bombastic song on the soundtrack (“Hard Selling Woman”, again), everything you could possibly want from a Doris Wishman movie, PLUS Chesty Morgan’s incredible bustline.

6) The scene where the grieving Chesty’s tears fall onto her breasts is, as Martin Scorsese would say, “CINEMA!”

7) Deadly Weapons is one of the greatest revenge movies ever made not just because Chesty uses her boobs to kill the men who murdered her husband… but… yeah.  It’s because of that.  But honestly, the idea of a woman using the very thing that men desire most to lure and kill them is ingenious, and when the thing they desire most is a size 73, it just makes it that much better.  People are often fond of saying bigger doesn’t always mean better, but Deadly Weapons proves those dumbasses wrong.

8) Chesty’s performance is one of the strangest in cinema history.  Is she embarrassed, ashamed, and feeling exploited in her striptease scenes, or is just trying to act sexy and she’s just such a terrible actress that she fails spectacularly?  Whatever the case may be, it’s one of those things that keep me coming back to this movie again and again.  Well, that and her seventy-three-inch bust.

9) I love the one-eyed bad guy, Captain Hook.  More revenge movies need mobsters with Peter Pan-inspired nicknames.

10) If Chesty looked embarrassed during her strip numbers, she looks lost and confused during Captain Hook’s breast suffocation scene.  There are moments where she’s looking at the camera for direction that make the scenes even stranger than it would be if the character was played by someone with actual acting skills.  

11) I’m not sure, but I think the guitar sting that is heard every time Chesty unveils her massive mammaries was stolen from the Torso trailer.  

12) Wow. I never realized this before, but Doris stole some of the scenes of naked girls swimming underwater from her old nudie movies.

13) Harry Reems is great as the cackling mustachioed hitman and has one of the best death scenes in screen history.  If I have a choice of how to shuffle off this mortal coil, that’s exactly how I want to go.

14) Despite successfully getting her revenge on the men who killed her husband, the film still ends on a downbeat and depressing note, which keeps it thematically aligned with Wishman’s roughie pictures.