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Doris WishmanDoris Wishman, born July 23, 1912, was an American film director who was involved with making approximately 30 different feature films from 1960 to her death in 2002. At the time of her death, she was the most prolific female director in the history of American cinema. 1960-1964 nudist films Wishman's first works all revolved around the central theme of nudism (of the sort today more popularly known as naturism). This was not due to any personal fascination on Wishman's part, but because in the moral climate of the day, nudism was the only way nudity could be depicted in a film without it being considered particularly pornographic. Not that these films were considered family entertainment by any standards, but it filled the gap between mainsteam Hollywood fare and crude short sex loops shown primarily for masturbatory purposes--in the early 1960s, softcore porn movies in the modern sense effectively didn't exist yet. Among the eight nudist films Wishman made in these four years are the 1960 Blaze Starr Goes Wild, also known as Blaze Starr Goes Nudist featuring legendary 1950s stripper Blaze Starr. It was also notable as one of only a few films in which Wishman herself made a cameo appearance. By far the most unusual of Wishman's nudist pictures was 1962's Nude on the Moon, an attempt to combine traditional nudist material with a science fiction story. The plot involves an all-female nudist civilization and two male astronauts who discover them. Other Wishman films of the era included Hideout in the Sun (1960), Diary of a Nudist (1961), Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls (1962), Playgirls International (1963), Behind the Nudist Curtain (1963), The Prince and the Nature Girl (1964). 1965-1978 exploitation For the next decade, Wishman directed primarily exploitation films, the work for which she was to become best known. Several films of this period were directed under the pseudonym "Louis Silverman", which was actually her husband's name. The 1965 effort Bad Girls Go to Hell is regarded as Wishman's best-known film, and includes many elements common to sex exploitation movies of the era. The main character is a young woman who accidentally kills a man in the course of an attempted rape, and flees to New York to escape capture. There, she succumbs to various sleazy situations while starting over under an assumed identity. Deadly Weapons (1973) Double Agent 73 (1974) and The Immoral Three (1975) all form a trilogy of sorts. The three films were intended to star stripper Chesty Morgan, known for her 73-inch bust size. Morgan and Wishman had creative differences during filming, however. The first two films both feature Morgan, but in Double Agent 73, all her lines are dubbed in by another actress. Morgan did not appear in the final film, The Immortal Three. Instead, her character Agent 73 from the previous film is played by a different actress, who dies shortly after the opening credits. The two films Wishman directed with Chesty Morgan have become minor cult movies, due to their highly unconventional plots. In Double Agent 73, for example, Morgan plays a secret agent who has both a camera and a bomb installed in her breasts. Such a thing might not seem wholly out of place in a sex comedy, but these films are played straight--the tone is more serious than a James Bond movie. Other Wishman films of the era included The Sex Perils of Paulette (1965), Another Day, Another Man (1966), My Brother's Wife (1966), A Taste of Her Flesh (1967), Indecent Desires (1967), Too Much Too Often! (1968), Love Toy (1968), The Amazing Transplant (1970), Keyholes Are for Peeping (1972), Satan Was a Lady (1975), Come with Me, My Love (1976), and Let Me Die a Woman (1978). 1978-2002 the final films A five-year dormant period followed Let Me Die a Woman. At the time, sex exploitation movies were experiencing a retreat in the face of competition from hardcore pornography and the budding home video industry. Noticing the trend toward slasher movies such as Friday the 13th, Wishman filmed the gory horror picture A Night to Dismember in 1983. A post-production problem led to much of the completed film being distroyed, and Wishman attempted to cobble together a full-length film out of the remaining footage, plus outtakes and unfinished sequences. The resulting film was not successful, and Wishman retired from the movie business for more than a decade to live in Florida. In the mid-1990s, with the growing cult status of her earlier work, she set to filming another feature, a sex comedy called Dildo Heaven, which would see a release after seven years of production in 2002. During the same period she released a film noir called Satan Was a Lady (2001). Wishman's last film, 2002's Each Time I Kill, was another attempt at horror. She completed almost all of the film herself, and left detailed instructions on how to finish the remainder. She died on August 10, 2002 of lymphoma.
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