Exploitation cinema lost its grandest lady when Doris Wishman passed away on August 10th. During her 40 years of prolific filmmaking, Doris was responsible for such sleaze classics as Nude on the Moon, Bad Girls Go to Hell and Deadly Weapons (featuring the 73-inch breasts of Chesty Morgan). And even in her 80s she defiantly proclaimed that "When I die, I’ll still be making movies in hell." Well, it seems Doris wasn’t kidding! Just three days after her death, Satan Was A Lady (2000, 83 minutes) debuted on DVD. It was her first feature in nearly 20 years and premiered to raves at the 2001 New York Underground Film Festival. But even more to her word, Each Time I Kill, the movie for which she’d just wrapped principal photography is being posthumously finished according to her request — no doubt guided in spirit by this larger-than-life legend!
The movie: Sex. Blackmail. Betrayal. Murder. Go-go dancing. Yep, this is a Wishman flick alright. Red-headed Honey Lauren (as Cleo Irane) is a wannabe ballerina who, by night, eeks out a living peddling her bod and horsewhipping dirty old men. By day, she likes to drool outside a Miami department store window whilst longing for "that touch of mink" — both literally and metaphorically. Cleo really, really wants this mangey fur coat, so being a woman of the Wishman universe, she goes about getting it in an excessively oddball way. Namely, by bursting into the office of well-to-do whipping boy John King (Edge) and demanding he cough up 25,000 smackers or she’ll gab to his wife about how he spends their discretionary income. King pays, but Cleo’s beatnik beau Eddie (Glyn Styler a.k.a. Brent Newman) steals and gambles the loot away before she can buy her goldang coat. That’s when things get more complicated with Cleo seducing King’s dim-bulb son Brett (wooden adult star Hans Lohl) who actually treats her like the princess she desperately wants to become. Except, of course, she’s covertly trying to extort MORE cash from his pop and otherwise busying herself by slinking in and out of her clothes for no apparent reason. If only those were the extent of tawdry lil Cleo’s vices. Not so!
Snarling, venom-spewing lounge singer Glyn Styler’s deliriously smarmy portrayal of Eddie is an archetype straight from the grindhouse roughies of the ’60s. Right down to his ill-fitting, woefully outdated wig and black shades. But none of those surly sleazeballs could SING like this guy!!! His performance is significant part of the bizarre time-traveling charm of this picture that’s set very much in the present, but through Ms. Wishman, becomes a familiar echo of exploitation past. CineSchlockers will be amused to note that the film’s title is actually recycled from her extremely brief directorial foray into ’70s hardcore with Satan Was A Lady and Come With Me My Love (a.k.a. The Haunted P@#%$).
Notables: Six breasts. Four corpses. Boozing. Gratuitous lesbian barkeep. Wallet to the crotch. Pole dancing. Exceedingly slow elevator. One crippled cat. Bitch slapping. Comically inept lipsyncing. Coronary inducing phone call. Ashtray as a deadly weapon. Seductive thigh smacking.
Quotables: Cleo gazes out an office window and coos, "Heights make me feel SO sexy!" Later, while standing over the bloodied corpse of a once gorgeous rival, "You’re not so PRETTY anymore!" Eddie waxes philosophic, "We all gotta go sometime, babe." But he’s got his eyes open, "I wonder what that BITCH is up to!?" Mr. Roboto whimpers, "Cleo, I think about you morning, noon and night. I just can’t get you off my mind" and "Cleo, I think I’m falling in love with you."
Time codes: Stunning whips ‘n’ flames opening sequence (:00). Perhaps the world’s first REVERSE striptease — as performed by tattoo’d hiney covergirl Lindsey Amodeo (8:38). Another undulating display of the erotic arts (33:35). Doris makes her Hitchcock-like appearances (1:01:37) and (1:05:59). A hooker’s dream come true (1:13:00).
Final thought: If bad girls really do go to hell, they’ve got one of fringe cinema’s finest calling the shots. This neuvo classic is truly a must own.