Bad Girls Go To Hell - 1965

Cruelty is sifted through a cold steel colander, isolating incomprehensible kernels of insanity from the brine. What remains is pulverized into a monochrome powder stinking of vinegar. A fierce snort akin to a wyvern's screech fuses this substance with the brain, synapses alter and rescued from the dross is an idea: Bad Girls Go To Hell.

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It seems obvious that this is our only explanation. Or perhaps it's that at age 90, director Doris Wishman completed her 29th feature, Dildo Heaven. What I mean is: this is one sassy lass.

The peculiar rhythms of this most heinous/wonderful of the "roughies" are immediately apparent in the opening credits, which features a still montage with each lasting up to 17 seconds. Mood setter? Runtime padding? It of course matters not. The world is already askew and we're all fucked. We are introduced to Meg and her husband who have kinda-sorta sex by rolling around a bit under the duvet then making out in the shower. Quickly we see that this film has been entirely post-synced. This is no oddity for these vile blasts of celluloid, but what is strikingly bizarre is no attempt is made to match the audio with the lip movements. It's often so audaciously done that I cannot blame ineptitude on the part of the director or crew as it is more a basic disregard for logic within the frame (or in this case a few millimeters outside). When a character is seen speaking three seconds after their audio has already been heard, it's as if the film is daring you to judge it.

Meg's bland husband heads off to His Occupation, leaving her to clean the apartment for a good 5 minutes and take out the trash. The janitor mopping in the stairwell has apparently been jonesing to rape anything and instantly pounces upon our protagonist. There is no build up, no awkwardness, just an immediate attack. By now the audience's central nervous system shuts down as this is not Moviemaking As We Know It. Some rogue has infiltrated our precious pictures and purged all expectations. Ms. Wishman is laughing at us, flipping us off, and having the jolliest of times doing so and we are only twelve minutes in.

He has to rape something

The scuffle ends when the janitor "hears someone coming".  Meg returns home, broken, if calmly wiping the blood from her face counts as such. A note slips under the door. "Come to my apartment or I'll tell your husband what happened". The rape-shamed Meg obliges because she is factually the worst role model for women in history and is again assaulted within seconds. Luckily for her the art department dressed the set with a single dinner plate for her to lightly smash into the skull of her assailant, resulting in his death and more guilt for Meg. I'm only jesting, there was no art department on this film. Rather than alert the police that a man attempted a necessity-rape, blackmailed her (poorly) into a second round only to be killed in self defense, Meg leaves the state without informing anyone. "No one will believe that I didn't go to that apartment willingly" Meg's brain shout-thinks to the viewers. "If only I didn't destroy the note he put under the door" recollecting the action that was never shown because there was no time to perform it. Meg escapes to New York City, which is perplexing because the street she walks down to grab the bus labelled "New York" is clearly in New York City already. So she leaves New York City to live incognito in New York City and then time folded in on itself and I probably died and farm animals get voted into the moon-parliament.

Schroedinger's cutaway is simultaneously necessary and unnecessary

Ok, so clearly the production never left the city. But what fascinates me is the construction of this piece. There is certainly a style, some kind of style, even if it emphatically highlights Not Giving A Fuck (NGAF), though that may be too reductionist even for this film. I firmly believe that the pervading surreality in this and Wishman's other films is emblematic of her, dare I say, auteur sense. There is proof here and it lies in the editing. Her films famously cut to unnecessary shots of objects and scenery mid-sequence. But if observed closely a scrutinous audience can glean how this is wholly intentional rather than some continuity band-aid. Perhaps it serves to unnerve the viewer with inanity, perhaps she really likes the clock on the table over there, perhaps she is simply bats shit crazy, but either way there is some kind of overarching method to how these films are built. It's no accident that we get miles of footage focused on feet or legs of characters, though the purpose remains a mystery. All I know is that this is how Doris Wishman wants it. She even employs a handheld technique that I will refrain from deeming "visceral" but it's deployed in a more skillful fashion than Barry Mahon could. There is definitely something percolating in her head, something awful and unknowable, but something nonetheless.


Meg's picaresque adventure in The Big City follows a pattern relatable for us all:  She shacks up with a stranger, receives a raping or beating,  then moves on and repeats this folly ad infinitum (four times). Is it a treatise on female self loathing post-sexual assault; a "blame the victim" guiltacular? Nope, no moral and no psychology. Just grime permeating from the glands of all patrons on 42nd Street circa 1965.  My favorite attacker (we all have one) is the first man who has a meltdown after Meg discovers his liquor cache, a single bottle not hidden in any way, under the sink. He swigs from the bottle and within a few seconds is absolutely hammered, beats Meg with his belt (featuring some fairly kinetic camera work for this sort of film) and passes out from exhaustion/three minutes of inebriation in an armchair. Meg packs her belongings and quietly leaves, kissing him lightly on the forehead upon her exit because why wouldn't she I guess? Is she living her own Story of O? No, this is too stupid. Also, this man introduced himself as "I'm Al Baines" but the actor's mumbles plus sound recording so poor (even in post!?) led me to honestly believe he said "I'm Albanian" until I rewound. IMDb suggests "Ed Baines". Such is life.

Meg fills in on The Prisoner

After a "consensual rape" by a female roommate and an unconscious rape by a lascivious husband, Meg responds to an ad because she should keep doing this. "Companion wanted for semi-invalid. This may be just what I want!"A dream is fulfilled. Unfortunately the invalid's son pops in to visit and he happens to be an investigator from Boston looking into a murder by a blonde woman. "I've seen you before! You're Meg Kelton! You killed Amos Wright!" Ah, the janitor receives a name. We get a wonderful Hitchcockian cop-fearing POV shot of the man's bulbous face as Meg screams and superimposed fog traces the edge of the screen and there's flailing and cackling and and and and-

-it was all a dream. Yep, just like Woman in the Window but even more disappointing. It almost lets Wishman off the hook for her forty incomprehensible choices per frame, but ever so slightly diminishes the 'fun' of the previous sixty minutes. That is until Meg's husband leaves for work after waking her. We see the same actions, the same shots in fact from the beginning of the film. Meg cleans, gathers the garbage and takes it outside. Waiting is the janitor, who assaults her once again through recycled footage. The final shot is a still frame of Meg's horrified face accompanied by a dire scream.

So, it was all in her head. An exploration of misogyny's effects on the female psyche? The transformative power of abuse on the brain? By the dreams becoming reality, are we being lectured about how this indeed CAN happen in real life, that there is always a man waiting for prey? Is this Doris Wishman's immortal screed?
  
Why do I keep asking questions to which I already know the answers?