| It seems ironic that one of the most successful and prolific skin flick directors of the sixties and seventies just happens to be a woman. The late director of such soft-core sleaze classics as Bad Girls Go To Hell and Wham Bam Thank you Spaceman is one of those hot potatoes that audiences don�t quite know how to take in an overtly politically correct era. On one hand, her body of work can easily be perceived as being degrading to women. But it�s not quite that easy to render a guilty verdict in the court of sexism and poor taste. Doris Wishman was one of a mere handful of female directors working in the movie business, at the time, and probably had more creative control over her films than any major female director (with the exception of Ida Lupino) before or since. She was also heavily involved in conceiving and producing many of her films, and was an active and enthusiastic filmmaker right up until her death. Kind of makes it difficult to cast the first stone doesn�t it? Her Chesty Morgan films are arguably her most infamous, and Deadly Weapons was the first to introduce the heavily endowed Polish born starlet to the world. The plot is minimal; taking a back seat to Chesty�s freakishly enormous size 73 breasts. Crystal (played by Morgan) is the girlfriend of a mobster named Larry. Larry isn�t exactly a saint. As the film opens, he�s shaking down another criminal in search of a little black book of incriminating evidence. He�s been sent by the Mr. Big of the movie to find it. Instead of handing the book over, he lies and tells his associates that he couldn�t find it on the guy. The original owner of the book is a Mr. Benny. Larry calls him, and blackmails him. He threatens to take the book straight to the police if the white collar criminal doesn�t come up with a hundred thousand dollars in the usual small unmarked notes. When he sees his girlfriend Crystal the next day, the pair have a heart to heart talk. Well actually, a heart to mountainous breast talk. �I want to be your wife, not your mistress� Crystal tells her toe-cutter boyfriend. �You�re a successful advertising executive� he tells her tenderly. �Loads of dough. I�m nothing but trouble. Trouble�. Then he gives her the little black book to keep in a safe place. She doesn�t stash it between her breasts for fear that it will take a team of Sherpa�s to find it in her Everest sized cleavage. Mr. Big discovers that Larry was lying, and sends two hitmen to his place to whack him. Larry is speaking to Crystal on the telephone as they rap at the door. �Just a second� he tells her. �There�s someone at the door�. Larry places the receiver down on the table before letting the visitors in. One is known as �Captain Hook�. He looks like Lee Van Cleef, and wears a Christine Lindberg patch over one eye. The other is wearing the most unconvincing false moustache I�ve ever seen. Crystal hears the pair kill her husband, and rather conveniently she also hears them discussing the hotels they�ll be staying at over the open phone line. Thus begins one of the most bizarre revenge plots in the history of exploitation cinema. Crystal tracks down the assassins one at a time before seducing them with her female charms. After lacing their wine with sedatives, she smothers them to death with her freakishly large breasts. It�s quite a sight to behold, and curiously it�s not in the least erotic. This film feels more like a circus sideshow than an exercise in eroticism. Exploitation filmmakers have come up with some creative ways of on-screen killing over the years, but this has to be the zenith. Although it seems impossible, Wishman�s follow-up Double Agent 73 was even more surreal. In that film, Chesty has a spy camera surgically implanted in each breast. Both films are worth tracking down for their sheer curiosity value. |
| Deadly Weapons (1973) |