Main text from the 1992 Project 36-C Press Kit
Long before preachy poofter Pat Califia penned her stodgy stockade stories and racked up a deluded delegation of desperate dyke devotees, dazzlingly devious director Doris Wishman pioneered a professional presence in pornography.
One of her first pictures was Nude On The Moon, the revolutionary 1961 movie upon which Project 36-C is loosely based. Nude On The Moon was Wishman’s most bizarre entry in a series of nudist camp epics that included Hideout In The Sun, Diary Of A Nudist, Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, Blaze Starr Goes To A Nudist Camp, Nudist Camp Confidential and Behind The Nudist Curtain.
Nude On The Moon
Burlesque Queen Blaze Starr
Wishman, who lives with her ‘niece’ and claims her husband is dead, is a strangely secretive woman who released dozens of movies under numerous pseudonyms both male and female throughout the 60’s and 70’s. Her best known features include Bad Girls Go To Hell, The Amazing Transplant, Another Day Another Man, Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73.
Several of these rape/sex/murder-themed titles are available on video in Joe Bob Briggs' The Sleaziest Movies In The History Of The World series, but the only thing really ‘sleazy’ about a Doris Wishman movie is the involvement of Joe Bob Briggs in their distribution. Her unconventional movies baffled and frustrated sexploitation audiences and stand today as one woman’s don’t-get-mad-get-even response to a particularly misogynist genre of cinema.
Bad Girls Go To Hell
Double Agent 73
Joe Bob Brigg’s introduction of Nude On The Moon in
his Sleaziest Movies In The History Of The World series.
In her heyday, Wishman lured in the masses with suggestive titles and consequently suckered hundreds of thousands of dollars away from raincoat rapists and pocket pool perverts. Her completely un-erotic productions must have sorely disappointed audiences desperately seeking sticky-fingered satisfaction, as heterosexual relations were consistently portrayed as ugly, depressing, monstrous affairs. Indeed, the only difference between a Wishman love scene and rape scene is the dubbed dialogue.
Many of her movies are generously peppered with lesbian and gay references and children are rarely seen, alive at least. Her gayest and most feminist movies are the ones she seems most secretive about. In a 1986 interview published in RE/SEARCH # 10: Incredibly Strange Films, Wishman is shocked that Andrea Juno had unearthed Another Day, Another Man, a housewife-turns-hooker movie where the innocent invalid husband commits suicide and the camera wanders to dead houseplants when girls talk about men.
Another Day, Another Man
Two other films Wishman stands accused of directing are Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Terrible Things and Deadly Vengeance, which stars Arthur Roberts from The Amazing Transplant and an up and coming young singer by the name of Grace Jones! Both titles are remarkably Wishman-esque, complete with her trademark camera work, bizarre scripts and not-so thinly disguised queer innuendo.
The Amazing Transplant
The lesbian massage scene from Deadly Vengeance.
Note the music chosen to accompany this scene.
As a collected body of work, Wishman’s movies are infinitely stranger, less calculated and more outrageous than anything conceived and executed by John Waters, to whom she is most often compared. All things considered, including her almost psychotic desire for anonymity, her curious representation of heterosexuality, the countless examples of positive gay content and the accumulated body count of dead, ugly, stupid or castrated men featured in her movies, Wishman’s sexual orientation inevitably comes into question. Is she gay? Well, who really cares but if she is, only John Waters has done a worse job of staying in the closet!!
Interview with Doris Wishman – Part 1
Interview with Doris Wishman – Part 2
The Cinema of Doris Wishman
1912-2002
The most prolific female director in movie history!
Each Time I Kill (2002)
Dildo Heaven (2001)
Satan Was a Lady (2001)
Night to Dismember, A (1983)
Let Me Die a Woman (1978)
Come with Me, My Love (1976) (as Luigi Manicottale)
… aka Come with Me, My Ghost (1976) (USA)
… aka Haunted Pussy, The (1976) (USA)
Satan Was a Lady (1975) (as Kenyon Wintel)
Double Agent 73 (1974)
Deadly Weapons (1973)
Immoral Three, The (1972)
… aka Hotter Than Hell (1972)
Keyholes Are for Peeping (1972)
Amazing Transplant, The (1970) (as Louis Silverman)
Love Toy (1968) (as Louis Silverman)
Too Much Too Often! (1968) (as Louis Silverman)
… aka Too Much, Too Soon (1968)
Indecent Desires (1967) (as Louis Silverman)
Taste of Her Flesh, A (1967) (as Louis Silverman)
… aka Taste of Flesh, A (1967)
Another Day, Another Man (1966)
My Brother’s Wife (1966)
Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965)
Sex Perils of Paulette, The (1965)
… aka Paulette (1965)
Behind the Nudist Curtain (1964)
Playgirls International (1963)
Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls (1962)
Nude on the Moon (1962) (as Anthony Brooks)
… aka Girls on the Moon (1962)
… aka Moondolls, The (1962)
… aka Nature Girls on the Moon (1962)
… aka Nudes on the Moon (1962)
Prince and the Nature Girl, The (1962)
Diary of a Nudist (1961)
… aka Nature Camp Confidential (1961)
… aka Nature Camp Diary (1961)
… aka Nudist Camp (1961)
… aka Nudist Confidential (1961)
Blaze Starr Goes Wild (1960)
… aka Back to Nature (1960)
… aka Blaze Starr Goes Back to Nature (1960)
… aka Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1960)
… aka Blaze Starr the Original (1960)
… aka Busting Out (1960)
… aka Nature Girl (1960)
Hideout in the Sun (1960) (as Lazarus Volkl)
Sex Perils Of Paulette (1965)
A Night To Dismember (1983)
Doris Wishman’s Dildo Heaven (2001)
Each Time I Kill (2002)
Doris Wishman’s final film.
Satan Was A Lady (2001)
Doris Wishman’s third last (and greatest?) movie.
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