Wishman wrote, produced, directed, and sometimes edited. At her end of the business, auteurship was not a marketable asset. Wishman almost always used different male pseudonyms in the credits to make it look like it was a bigger production. Wishman never got rich, as she admitted, and thrift was an integral part of her low-budget art. She often recycled footage from previous films in new ones.

"Only Jean-Luc Godard can match her indifference to composition and framing; if two people are talking and one is partially obscured by a post, so be it -- the camera will not change its angle," wrote critic Jim Morton. "Sometimes we are treated to static shots of feet -- or torsos, or hands -- while voices talk off-screen. At other times Ms. Wishman will trade off shots in such a way that we never see the person who's talking -- instead we watch the listener, his head nodding thoughtfully to words from a speaker we can't see. Often her camera imitates a human eye roving restlessly around the room, occasionally allowing insignificant objects to hold its attention." There was an economic reason for this. Wishman found she could shoot a film faster (cheaper) by not worrying about getting usable dialog. She'd shoot quickly, then dub the dialog later. Hence the camera's aversion to showing actors' lips moving while they talk.

Trailer V.O.: "Do you know that the female breasts, known to be the source of life since Eve, can be... Deadly Weapons!" The film follows a Wishman plot template. A "nice girl" is wronged by a man; she kills him and turns to a life of crime; she comes to a bad end. Chesty Morgan plays Crystal, an ad executive in love with a mobster. Typical line: "You're a successful advertising executive. Beautiful, loads of dough. I'm nothing but trouble, baby." One night, as Crystal is going over her ad layouts, boyfriend Larry phones and proposes marriage. Crystal says yes. Then there's a knock at the door on Larry's end of the line. Crystal overhears two mobsters come in and shoot Larry dead.

Crystal vows revenge on the two men responsible, Tony (Reems) and the one-eyed Captain Hook. Conveniently, neither knows what she looks like. Stock footage of jetliners and hotels allow Crystal to track them to Las Vegas and Miami (most of the film was shot in Wishman's suburban home.) Crystal seduces each man in turn. She puts a mickey in his drink, then smothers him between her breasts. The plot doesn't bother to explain why she chooses this method. (She has a gun.) The film's surprise ending leaves Chesty with a bullet between her killer breasts. In her dying moments, she achieves one last act of revenge.

Doris Wishman made films to the end of her long life. She was working on one when she died of cancer at the age of 90. Only in her late years did she get much critical recognition. "She made her films for a specific marketplace but created definite subversive subtexts that were statements on the exploitation of woman," wrote novelist Christopher J. Jarmick. "In most of her films, Wishman twisted male ideals of female sexuality and male fantasies in previously unimaginable ways."

On more than one occasion, Wishman vowed, "After I die, I will be making movies in hell!"

Marlo Monte plays Charlie, a Watts pimp. As the movie begins, police have cornered him on the edge of a building and he's about to jump. The main plot is a flashback telling how he got there.

In the flashback, bigoted white cops arrest Charlie. One cop beats him up, then attempts to castrate him. The extent of his injury is left unclear. That night, the cop returns to his incredibly tacky home and argues with his wife. It turns out that the cop's wife has been seeing Charlie's partner, who is also black. The wife fumes that the cop is under-endowed. She needs a real man.

Charlie is tried on trumped-up charges and sent to prison for three years. After his release, he returns home to the old neighborhood. Everyone he knew has betrayed him. Charlie intends to exact vengeance on the men who convicted him by possessing their wives or girlfriends and killing the men. He has perfected some means of mesmerizing white women. Shown in close-ups, the women moan ecstatically and become his willing minions.

The camera shoots from underneath Charlie's crotch. He's having this incredible erection. For a moment, it looks like it could be real. It keeps getting longer and longer. The attorney falls down, paralyzed with fear. His bathrobe falls open, revealing his buttocks and implying the possibility of rape. Instead, the penis goes for his neck.

Cut. "You haven't seen any strange black men loitering around, have you?" a cop asks the attorney's girlfriend. Charlie's next intended victim is the corrupt judge. The cops arrive and there's a chase, leading to Charlie being on top of a building, about to jump. They bring in his girlfriend to talk him out of it. Her advice is: "Jump!"

Film as Meme

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