Harvard Welcomes the Uncrowned

From pornographic violence to the outright bizarre to crazy gimmicks, the "Renegade Cinema of Doris Wishman," opening tomorrow at the Harvard Film Archives, offers the obscure film-lover a smorgasboard film-maker of the 60's and 70's, Wishman has been lost to the public eye for over a decade. She was purportedly found in a little lingerie shop in Miami and the Film Archive rushed her here for a retrospective.

Wishman's films defy genre--the closest category would be to put her with the exploitation films made during the same time she worked. But her films are not just about sex.

They're about women as sex-slaves, sexual killers, sexual deviants, transsexuals. Unlike the cold, stupid, callous hardcore pornographic films of today, Wishman's soft-core films are low-budget portraits of odd balls which happen to involve sex. These films were originally shown in art houses and drive-ins. And I can see why. I'm sure all anyone would do while watching, is screw.

Wishman's career bean making films in nudist campus. This was her first gimmick. Her gimmicks continued to include Chesty Morgan, the woman with the 73" bus line; films which acted out the worst of the Bible's sins: incest, rape, murder; and the twentieth-century's modern medical break throughs of the penile implant and transsexuality. Wishman wrote and directed all of her 25 films. And she often worked on a shoestring budget which gives her films the kitschy look of a cheap motel room. From the frolicking breasts in the nudist campus to the crazy platform shoes and the velvet decors of the '70's extravaganzas these films are like no other.

Wishman's 1962 classic "Nude on the Moon" will be shown. None of her films are heavy on plot, but here goes: two men ride to the moon in what looks like an enormous aluminum soda can to find a female, nudist utopia. This is "Earth Girls Are "Easy" and "Teenage Vixens from Outer Space" meet the sex-shop slaves, fulfilling the horny fantasies of the Earthling men.

These woman, a.k.a. "moon dolls," have pipe-cleaner antennae growing out of their bouffant hairdos. They wear loin cloths and wade in the plastic-bottomed pools surrounded by the fake shrubbery of the surfaceof the "moon." This was her second film and one which Wishman considers her least favorite "because the people are so ugly."

Also on the schedule is "The Sex Perils of Paulette." This is Wishman's first film in which she delves into the violence and exploitation which became popular in the late '60's and early '70's. This "roughy," as the type is called, has plenty of slapping, struggling and hard sex. The outlandish settings and situations of these films sometimes helps to lessen the impact of their intensity. And they cannot compare to episodes like the rape scene from "What's Love Got to Do With It?"

To be shown in conjuction with "The Sex Perils of Paulette" will be Wishman's "Coming Attraction Trailers." This compilation of clips gives a good preface to many of these films. The violence, the sex, the graphic detail are all communicated in just a few seconds. Some of these clips were made before the films themselves were started so Wishman could raise money. If you don't have time for anything else in this retrospective just come for this series of hilarious, often disturbing group of clips.

Probably the most famous of Wishman's films, "Double Agent 73" features Chesty Morgan, a Polish actress of little talent and lots of cleavage. As stated above, Morgan sports, or is burdened by, a 73" bust line. (Something that unusual bears repeating). "Double Agent" features Chesty for the second time in front of Wishman's camera. Despite the fact that Wishman has said Chesty Morgan was the hardest person she ever worked with on a film, she made "Double Agent" because Chesty's first film, "Deadly Weapons" did quite well. In "Deadly Weapons," Chesty plays the widow of a gangster who seeks revenge on the murder ring who killed her husband. After having sex with the men, she smothers them between her breasts. Like her first film, "Double Agent 73" does not let us forget (as if it would be possible) that Chesty is just that. She plays double agent "Jane" whose mission it is to kill the leader of a drug ring. Willing to sacrifice anything for her job, Chesty has a camera surgically implanted into her left breast. Everytime she kills someone she is to take a photo of them to show her boss. If Maxwell Smart had only thought of this one! No matter the inanity of the plot, it requires Chesty to disrobe in every scene, pull up her left breast while the shutter sounds and a flash lights up the scene. This is like no other film I've, and, I trust, you've ever seen.

Wishman use her unusual filming techniques through out this exploitation classic. She made her films in lip-synch and dubbed afterwards. The majority of the time, Wishman filmed the backs of people's heads or showed the reactions of the people listening while someone is talking. Her camera follows like the eye to show the smallest, most unusual details, from the Jane's tacky jewelry to the plush red shag carpet. Her actors are not merely "m e t h o d" they are just plain bad. But it doesn't matter, you're too busy scoffing, guffawing and trying to make sure the snot doesn't fly out your nose from laughing. Without the crazy plot this film would remain a time-period classic for its decor and dress. Chesty is always equipped with her frilly tops to make her chest look even bigger and her bellbottom polyester suits which create a little dust cloud everywhere she goes.

Absolutely, positively not to be missed is Wishman's transsexual mock-documentary, "Let Me Die a Woman." The film follows the patients of one Dr. Leo Wollman. A minister, a psychologist, a sex-therapist and a surgeon who looks like he could repair your 1972 Gremlin, Wollman reads his cue cards very well. A sad portrait of the third sex, the film asks, and attempts to answer, "What, who and why are transsexuals?" Wishman says that she "felt so sorry for these people" and "felt as if she had exploited them." But then quickly counters with the fact that she paid them very well. All the "stars" are real transsexuals--some pre-, some post-operative. We get to know them inside and out, literally. This film verges on gore, with its shots of graphs of the female and male reproductive organs that quickly turn into the real thing. We find our what it is like to be a woman trapped inside a man's body and vice versa. We see the full range of their confused emotions and are taught the difficulties of having new body parts.

The film opens with the voice-over narration of a Puerto Rican male transsexual who says she is surprised every time she wakes up to find out she is really a woman. Finally she has the body of the sex she always felt she was.

The voice over continues as she dresses, paints her nails, applies her lipstick. Finally she looks at the camera and says with her accent, "Last year I was a man." As sad as it is, it is hard to repress the laughter. She appears throughout the film, telling her story which, because it is so sad, juxtaposes oddly with some of the other portraits and grows tiresome.

One scene tells the lesson of "your new vagina" thanks to Ronald/Rhoda. A recent sex-change male transsexual, Rhoda was anxious to try out her new vagina. But Wishman doesn't allow us just to hear it from Wollman, we see her in her first encounter. The poor woman suffers from major blood loss and has to return to the hospital to undergo another series of operations to repare the damage she underwent during sex.

As always the film shows the hues of its 1978 setting with music that toes the line between porn and disco. The dress and wigs and expressions will astound, entertain and horrify you all at the same time.

Be forewarned, this is a hilariously gory and graphic film. Despite your sex, sexual orientation or whether you have contemplated the possibility of changing your sex, the scenes showing the sex-change surgery will make you think twice, fall in the aisle from shocked laughter or chunder your meal.

Appropriately enough, all of Wishman's films are for "adults only." They offer a most unusual perspective on the world. As film reviewer Jim Morton said in Incredibly Strange Films, '"Double Agent 73 makes [John Waters'] 'Pink Flamingos' look almost genteel." If you've ever seen any of Waters' films, you'll know just how extreme this is. While Wishman doesn't utilize "Pink Flamingos" beastiality plot (with chickens, by the way), she is obviously an influence to Waters.

So come out to the Harvard Film Archives sometime this next week and see these films. Make sure to bring your Kleenex, your vomit bag and something to cover your eyes on occasion. But be sure let down your barriers to viewing porno in public, because this may be your only opportunity to see these films, Wishman is extremely hard to find on video.

And so is she, that's why she'll be at the Harvard Film Archive in the flesh on Saturday, August 13 for the 7:30 p.m. showing of "Double Agent 73." Admission for Wishman's appearance will be $6.50.

The schednle is as follows:

"Nadu on the Moon" Friday August 12 at 7 p.m., Monday, August 15 at 9 p.m.

"The Sex Perils of Paulette" and "Coming Attractions Trailers" Friday August 12 at 9 p.m., Sunday August 14 at 7 p.m.

"Double Agent 73" Saturday August 13, Doris Wishman in person at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday August 17 at 9 p.m.

"Let Me Die a Woman" Sunday August 14 9 p.m. and Tuesday August 16 at 9 p.m.