BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL (1965)

According to the Criterion Channel, cult figure Doris Wishman is known for being the most prolific American female director (some thirty movies made between 1960 and 2002), but she's not particularly celebrated in Hollywood history because the vast majority of them were nudist movies or sexploitation flicks (mostly soft-core). I was excited to finally run across one of her movies but disappointed to discover that women can make boring sexploitation movies just like men. Gigi Darlene (at left) plays Meg, a woman who wants her husband to stay home Saturday morning, but he has a big client he has to see. She lolls about, takes a shower, and leaves the apartment only to be assaulted in the hallway by the janitor. When he takes her back to his apartment to rape her, she manages to conk him over the head, killing him. She takes a bus from Boston to Manhattan (where the murder of the janitor is front page news) and meets a guy named Al on a park bench. He's sympathetic to her situation and takes her back to his place. She seems about to settle into being a maid/wife figure, but he's a mean drunk and he beats her with a belt and passes out. Next, she meets Della, a friendly lesbian who takes Meg to her place where they hang out in their underwear. Eventually they have consensual sex, but Meg knows this relationship isn't for her, so next she winds up renting a room from a married couple, but the husband attacks her, so Meg becomes a companion to an invalid. This seems like it might finally be the right place for Meg, but when the invalid's son turns out to be a cop working on the Boston janitor case…

In its day, this passed for soft-core porn, though now it would barely get an R rating. Aside from women in revealing lingerie, we see a little bit of bare ass and that's it in terms of exposed flesh. The sexual assaults are a bit rough but not exactly explicit. I don't remember hearing cussing. Any moral message this might carry is muddled: Is Meg a bad girl? Why? Just because she walks around in private in her underwear? Wishman wrote and directed this, but I don't see a point of view here that is either feminist or uniquely female. Gigi Darlene is attractive but seems like an amateur, though she made over 20 sexploitation films in the 1960s. The only actor of note here is Alan Feinstein who plays Meg's husband—he went on to a long career in TV, primarily soap operas (Edge of Night, Falcon Crest), and he stands out in his limited screen time as the only real pro here. The uncredited musical score is great fun. I noticed a number of religious icon artworks featured in the background (and occasionally seen in close-up) but I don't know if that is a thematic touch or just coincidence. I'm glad to have caught a Wishman movie but I think one may be enough. [Criterion Channel]