Touched By A Janitor

Thanks to Doris Wishman and the peculiarities of American censorship in the early sixties, there’s probably a whole generation of men out there who are secretly turned on by rape.
In other words, welcome to the “Roughies”, a twisted little genre that existed for a few short years in the mid to late sixties, and was almost exclusively populated by directors Doris Wishman and The Findlays (Michael and Roberta), and a dedicated cast of washed up New York actors and, um… performers.
Using the well worn “Reefer Madness” technique (getting taboo subjects on the screen by wrapping them in a cautionary tale), Wishman inflicted Bad Girls Go To Hell on art house audiences in 1965, a sadistic (but also kind of ridiculous) skin flick about an ordinary housewife with abysmally bad luck.
The film gets to it quickly, when poor Meg Kelton, left alone in the big empty apartment she shares with her husband, takes out the trash. But as she turns the corner into the hallway, who should appear but The Creepy Janitor, leering at her from the stairway. Suffice it to say, he attempts to rape her in the hallway, then inexplicably coerces her to his apartment, where he indeed does rape her. Excercising her first (and last) bout of sensible decision-making in the course of the film, she kills him with an ashtray.

From this point, any remaining shred of plausibility is tossed directly out the window, as Meg runs to New York, and her troubles pile every deeper around her. She is raped once more (see, this is what I’m talking about), beaten by a confused alcoholic, and reluctantly dragged into a lesbian affair (complete with half naked gymnastics, and the stunning exit line: “I love you too. That is why I must go.”)
The entire movie is overdubbed and almost consumed by an admittedly outstanding jazz score, and every line is delivered with sullen indifference by Gigi Darlene, who pouts and vamps her way through the sleaze.
Gigi, incidentally, went on to act in one more Doris Wishman film, the vastly more entertaining Another Day, Another Man (also included on this disc), before abruptly disappearing from the scene (and the face of the earth) in 1967.
What’s worth contemplating while watching Bad Girls Go To Hell is not the filmmaking itself (although Wishman’s much discussed jump cuts to inanimate objects during inappropriate moments is kind of befuddling), but just how expertly the limits of censorship were pushed. After all, the moral of the story is flimsy at best. As nearly as I can tell, it amounts to: Don’t Take Out the Garbage. As much (nipple-free) nudity as possible is on display, and yet the film got a decent amount of promotion and a wide distribution. A marked achievement, and one that paved the way for the world that would follow.
Wishman continued peddling her sleaze masterpieces long after they were shocking, achieving her greatest fame with Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73 (both starring the legendary Chesty Morgan), until her death in 2002. She was 90 years old.
“After I die,” she once said, “I”ll be making films in hell.”
Kind of sums it up, really.



Available from Something Weird Video (of course).



Next week: Hey kids! What time is it? It’s Monster Nudie Time!!!!
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