Friday, January 31, 2014

Deadly Weapons (1974); Double Agent 73 (1974)

These were both filmed by Doris Wishman and both star Chesty Morgan, so it makes sense to review both together.

Deadly Weapons

How bad is it? Even the director disliked it.

Should you see it? No.

The plot is a simple revenge story, where the star uses her enormous breasts to smother men. It could've been sexy, it could've been funny, but it's just tedious. Doris Wishman is, in my opinion, the worst director who ever made more than a few films; some people have nothing to work with, some have huge budgets that don't amount to much and then there's Doris who squandered whatever she had.

A word about the star and the type of film: unlike today, breast reduction surgery in the 1970's was rare, expensive and never covered by insurance. Some women made money by allowing their huge breasts to be photographed and then used the money to pay for surgery to reduce their size. Some tried to make as much money as they could first, and Morgan was one. Wishman didn't like her. Russ Meyers didn't like her (he probably would've given her only a token non-speaking role, as she couldn't act and had a thick Polish accent), Fellini cut her scene from his "Casanova." I actually met her briefly when I was 15 and I didn't like her, either.

The movie seems to take place entirely indoors, probably filmed in one house. The camera is static, the dialogue minimal and hard to understand (Chesty's voice is dubbed to cover her thick Polish accent), the entire production is terrible. One expects a film of this type to be "titillating" but it doesn't even manage interesting or tawdry; one doesn't care about Morgan, one doesn't even feel sorry for her for being in such a film and so burdened.

The two scenes that stand out in my mind involve one where she's bathing - and it's about as interesting as if watching her peel potatoes and one where she's undressing and flab just hangs everywhere. 

Double Agent 73

How bad is it? It's almost as bad as the above.

Should you see it? Only if you're really desperate and it's free.

They don't even look mammoth here. There's NOTHING to see here, folks.




This time, Morgan's voice is her own, at least.  Chesty's infiltrating a drug smuggling ring and, after she kills men, she uses a camera surgically implanted in her left breast to take pictures for identification, (why not before?), so the film has a lot of her extricating a breast, holding it like a loaf of sliced bread and pointing it, with a shutter click sound effect. There's also a time bomb in the camera, for reasons inadequately explained.

Sometimes I think that the film could be remade into something worth watching. There's actually someone who would currently fit the role (and her English isn't great, either):



If you're going to see a Doris Wishman film, I'd pick one of the early nudist camp films. Nude on the Moon (1961) has a couple of laughs (my main recollection of it is one guy who looks like he has bird crap in his hair). Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965) is probably her best. Another Day, Another Man (1966), The Amazing Transplant (1970), Keyholes Are for Peeping (1972) and the documentary Let Me Die a Woman (1977) all have a few admirers, but I cared for none of them.

1 comment:

  1. There was another movie in this series !! It is called " The Immoral Three " and features Chesty's " Daughters " trying to avenge her death !!

    ReplyDelete