Doris Wishman

Doris Wishman
Wishman on a film set, c. 1960s
Born (1912-06-01)June 1, 1912
New York City, U.S.
Died August 10, 2002(2002-08-10) (aged 90)
Miami, Florida, U.S.
Alma mater Hunter College
Occupation Director, producer, writer
Years active 1959–2002
Spouse(s) Jack Abrams (d. 1958)

Doris Wishman (June 1, 1912—August 10, 2002) was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. She is credited with having directed and produced at least thirty feature films during a career spanning over four decades, most notably in the sexploitation film genre.

A native of New York City, Wishman began her film career as a hobby after the death of her husband in 1958. She made her feature debut with Hideout in the Sun (1960), and went on to direct numerous nudist and sexploitation films, such as Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls (1963), Behind the Nudist Curtain (1963), and Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965). In the 1970s, she would make her first foray into directing pornographic films.

In 1979, Wishman filmed her first and only feature horror film, A Night to Dismember, which she spent several years editing after multiple reels were destroyed during post-production.[1] She would make a further three films in the early 2000s before dying in 2002, aged 90.

Life and career

Early life

Doris Wishman was born on June 1, 1912, in New York City.[2] Her father was a hay and grain salesman; her mother died when she was still a child.[3] She was raised in the New York City borough of the Bronx, where she graduated from James Monroe High School. After graduating from high school, Wishman claimed to have taken acting lessons at the Alviene School of Dramatics in New York City in the early 1930s, where she was a classmate of Shelley Winters.[4] She later studied at Hunter College.[2]

She later worked as a film booker for her cousin Max Rosenberg, an independent film distributor who handled both art films and exploitation film fare during the late 1940s and early 1950s.[5] During this same period she was married advertising consultant Jack Abrams, and resided with him in Florida until his 1958 death of a heart attack at age 31.[2] By her own account, Wishman began her film production career after Abrams' untimely death in 1958 as she felt she "needed something to fill my hours with."[2]

Beginnings; nudist films

In 1957, a New York Appeals court ruling allowed films depicting nudism to be exhibited in movie theaters in New York State. Inspired by this development, Wishman claimed in several interviews to have borrowed $10,000 from her sister to produce her first film, Hideout in the Sun, a nudist film, shot in late 1958 and released in early 1960. Her next film, Nude on the Moon, released in 1961, was a science fiction nudie. The film was banned in New York State after the New York State Censorship Board ruled that films featuring nudity in a nudist colony were legally permissible but nudity in a fantasy film set in a "nudist colony on the Moon" was not. Her fourth nudist film, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962), starred legendary burlesque performer Blaze Starr.[3] Wishman produced eight nudist films in total between 1958 and 1964. After the popularity of the genre began to wane, she decided to abandon nudist exploitation films and transition into the new sexploitation genre.

Sexploitation films

Wishman began to produce and direct sex-exploitation or sexploitation features in 1964. Her second release in this genre was Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965), her first collaboration with her long-time cinematographer C. Davis Smith. During this period she frequently worked under the pseudonym "Louis Silverman," the name of her second husband. She also directed The Sex Perils of Paulette, which featured Tony Lo Bianco in his film debut.[6] All of her sexploitation work was shot in black and white until the release of her first soft-core color feature, Love Toy (c. 1970). Shortly thereafter she produced a sex comedy entitled Keyholes Are for Peeping (1972) starring comedian Sammy Petrillo, and in the mid-1970s, she directed a pair of low-budget thrillers featuring burlesque performer Chesty Morgan: Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73, the former of which was distributed internationally by Hallmark Releasing Corporation, and made on a budget of $50,000.[7]

Pornographic and later exploitation work

In the mid-1970s, Wishman directed two hardcore pornographic features entitled Satan Was a Lady (1975) and Come With Me, My Love (1976), both of which featured Annie Sprinkle. Wishman was not fond of working on pornographic films and later in her life denied having directed them. Additionally, in 1978 she released a semidocumentary feature entitled Let Me Die a Woman, which she had originally begun shooting in 1971. The film featured interviews with several transgender individuals, one of whom was Deborah Hartin, and included dramatic reconstructions of scenes from their lives.[7] One such dramatization featured porn star Harry Reems before he became internationally renowned for his role in Deep Throat (1972).[6] The film also featured Dr. Leo Wollman. In light of the expanding slasher film craze that began with Halloween in 1978, Wishman's final feature was a horror film entitled A Night to Dismember. Begun in the late 1970s, it went through various manifestations and was finally completed in 1983.[3] The film stars pornographic actress Samantha Fox. It was never theatrically released.

Later life and final films

After the failure of A Night to Dismember, Wishman moved to Coral Gables, Florida, in the mid-1980s, where she found work in an adult novelty store. Interest in her work began to slowly increase due to the home video release of many of her films through Something Weird Video.[2] A cult following started to form and Wishman was honored at the New York Underground Film Festival in 1998 and appeared twice on Late Night with Conan O'Brien,[8] one of which she was interviewed with Roger Ebert.[9]

Death

Wishman died on August 10, 2002, in Miami, Florida, shortly after being treated for lymphoma.[3]

Legacy

Filmmaker John Waters featured a clip from Deadly Weapons in his film Serial Mom. Film critic Joe Bob Briggs described Wishman as "The greatest female exploitation film director in history."[3] She was one of the most active women directors in the world during the 1960s and '70s working in the sexploitation genre.[10] Prior to her death, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Underground Film Festival,[11] and several of her films were selected for a gala celebrating her work at Los Angeles's Nuart Theatre in 1998, titled "Doris Wishman: Queen of Sexploitation."[2]

Filmography

Year Title Notes Ref.
1960Hideout in the Sun[12]
1961Nude on the Moon[12]
1961Diary of a Nudist[12]
1962Blaze Starr Goes Nudist[13]
1963Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls[12]
1963Playgirls International[14]
1964Behind the Nudist Curtain[14]
1964The Prince and the Nature Girl[14]
1965Bad Girls Go to Hell[15]
1965The Sex Perils of Paulette[6]
1966Another Day, Another Man[16]
1966My Brother's Wife[16]
1967A Taste of Flesh[17]
1967Indecent Desires[18]
1968Too Much Too Often![18]
1968Love Toy[2]
1970The Amazing Transplant[7]
1972Keyholes Are for Peeping[7]
1973Deadly Weapons[19]
1974Double Agent 73[19]
1975The Immoral Three[20]
1975Satan Was a Lady[21]
1976Come with Me, My LoveAlso known as: The Haunted Pussy[7]
1978Let Me Die a Woman[22]
1983A Night to DismemberFilmed in 1979[8]
2001Satan Was a LadyDiffers from 1975 film, but uses same title[21]
2002Dildo Heaven[21]
2007Each Time I KillReleased posthumously[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bowen, Mihael (1997). "Embodiment and the Realisation: The Many Film-Bodies of Doris Wishman". Wide Angle. 19: 64–90 – via Project MUSE.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Oliver, Myrna (August 21, 2002). "Doris Wishman; Exploitation Film Director, Cult Favorite". Los Angeles Times. p. B12 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Martin, Douglas (August 19, 2002). "Doris Wishman, 'B' Film Director, Dies". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Faust, M. (January 18, 2017). "The Singular Doris Wishman". The Daily Public. Retrieved August 11, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Max Rosenberg". The Telegraph. Obituaries. June 18, 2004. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Quarles 2001, p. 147.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 McKendry 2010, p. 60.
  8. 1 2 McKendry 2010, p. 62.
  9. ↑ Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Season 9. Episode 84. March 7, 2002. NBC.
  10. ↑ Mendik & Schneider 2003, p. 112.
  11. ↑ Mendik & Schneider 2003, p. 116.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Geltzer 2016, p. 175.
  13. ↑ Shteir 2004, p. 320.
  14. 1 2 3 Jancovich et al. 2003, p. 143.
  15. ↑ Jancovich et al. 2003, p. 145.
  16. 1 2 Jancovich et al. 2003, p. 146.
  17. ↑ Beldin, Fred. "A Taste of Flesh (1967)". AllMovie. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  18. 1 2 Jancovich et al. 2003, p. 151.
  19. 1 2 McKendry 2010, p. 61.
  20. ↑ Firsching, Robert. "The Immoral Three". AllMovie. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  21. 1 2 3 4 McKendry 2010, p. 63.
  22. ↑ Jancovich et al. 2003, p. 152.

Works cited

  • Geltzer, Jeremy (2016). Dirty Words and Filthy Pictures: Film and the First Amendment. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-477-30743-4.
  • Jancovich, Mark; Reboli, Antonio Lázaro; Stringer, Julian; Willis, Andrew (2003). Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Tastes. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-719-06631-3.
  • McKendry, Rebecca (2010). "Fondling Your Eyeballs: Watching Doris Wishman". In Cline, John; Weiner, Robert G. From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse: Highbrow and Lowbrow Transgression in Cinema's First Century. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. pp. 57–74. ISBN 978-0-810-87655-2.
  • Mendik, Xavier; Schneider, Steven Jay (2003). Underground U.S.A.: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-85002-5.
  • Murray, Raymond (1998). Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. London: Titan Books. ISBN 978-1-840-23033-8.
  • Quarles, Mike (2001). Down and Dirty: Hollywood’s Exploitation Filmmakers and Their Movies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-46257-5.
  • Shteir, Rachel (2004). Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-195-30076-5.
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