Today's director for our Female Filmmakers series is no stranger to sex on camera. In fact, it's her whole thing. This director took on the male-dominated work of sexploitation films and she made a racket as one of the few female directors in that industry for decades. Let's celebrate the amazing and skintastic career of Doris Wishman.
The tiny director, editor, producer, and actress stood at only 4'11". It's amazing to think how much this little lady was able to do at the time that she was doing it. Doris was born in New York City in 1912 as an only child and studied at Hunter College.
She worked as a film booker for her cousin who happened to work in film distribution in the 40s and 50s. They handled mostly B-movies and exploitation flicks which opened up Wishman's world to exploitation cinema - a territory that she would soon become queen of. She sort of fell into film after her husband of only five months passed away suddenly. Unsure of how to fill her grief and her time, the middle-aged Wishman decided to make movies. Thank goodness she did!
I love that Doris Wishman was sort of a wanderer for half of her life and that it took her a long time to step into her role as a legendary smut director. I'm also pleased to think that she didn't make her first sexploitation film until she was nearly 45. That means that she was working for decades behind sexy flicks as a little old lady (and we mean little). That's adorable! And hot!
She was first interested in nudist colonies and nature, so she combined those two for a lot of her films in the 1960s. What a great combination of themes! She made Diary of a Nudist, several other nature nudist films, and even a sci-fi nudity movie called Nude on the Moon which holds a special place in my B-movie loving heart.
She officially began her filmmaking career in 1960 when she directed the film Hideout in the Sun. In this campy 1960 film shot in Nuderama (that's a B-movie joke), a bunch of nudists at a country club show off everything. Two criminals hide out at the nudity colony before they plan to run away to Cuba, but the boys have so much fun there that they never want to leave!
How could anyone blame those two for wanting to stick around with these naughty nude nymphs? Dolores Carlos starred and showed off her exquisite figure, but she was surrounded by a bevy of naked babes - many of whom are uncredited.
Because she was starting out in the early 60s, censorship was still in effect in a lot of films. As a result, early nudie films - called "roughies" at the time - used cheeky tactics to skirt the law with their nude scenes and sexually suggestive jokes. Wishman incorporated a style in which she would cut away to things that were not in the scene. Some film critics have wondered if this was a way that she could subvert the male gaze, but most agree that it was a necessary and creative way for her to keep out of censorship trouble.
She also told Conan O'Brien in this hilarious interview in 2002, that some of her additional footage was literally because she didn't have enough film footage nor did she have money to shoot more so she would do these creative things to fill the time in her movies. I don't think that she needed to do too much - just keep the clothes off of these ladies!
That being said, her early films were filled with nudity! I don't entirely know how she did it because her early work certainly featured bare boobage. For example, fiery redheaded adult film actress Blaze Starr bore her blimps in 1960 for Doris! What a huge and hot get!
Doris Whitman's first official softcore film was made in 1970 when she released Love Toy. She followed that up with the sex comedy Keyholes are for Peeping. The 70s saw a surge in softcore porn and sex comedies, so Doris Wishman fit right in. In fact, she thrived!
She did venture into more traditional porn in the 70s and 80s. She directed some hardcore work that starred actresses, Annie Sprinkle and Chesty Morgan. She's behind two of Chesty Morgan's most popular films from the 1970s, namely Deadly Weapons in which her huge hooters are definitely deadly weapons! No longer needing to trick the censors, Wishman experimented with explicit nudity. Not only did she experiment with it, but her audience demanded it.
Doris has been credited under a lot of names like Doris Silverman, L. Silverman, Dee Ess, Anthony Brooks, Kenyon Wintel, Luigi Manicottale, and Louis Silverman (which was her husband's name). Despite all of her many aliases, people now know her best by her real name and credit her films to Doris Wishman. As we should! She deserves so much credit for her work.
In 1983, Doris Wishman made her first and only horror feature film about a woman who is accused of a double homicide. Did she do it? Does it matter when she is played by porn star Samantha Fox? A Night to Dismember is Sam's only mainstream role, but neither Wishman nor Fox could help themselves when it came to showing a little bit of skin on screen.
After that stint in horror, Doris Wishman thought that she ought to retire. She moved down to Florida and spent time working at a sex shop. However, the rise of video stores and VHS tapes renewed interest in Doris Wishman's work.
A brand new cult following grew to appreciate her films in the 90s and she even appeared at the New York Underground Film Festival and on two episodes of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Jon Waters even featured part of Deadly Weapons in his movie Serial Mom! Towards the end of her life, her work as a director became better known and she finally earned acclaim for being such a prolific female director in sexploitation.
Her last film was released in 2001, just a year before she died. It was Satan Was a Lady, a remake of her own 1975 film. This version starred curly-haired hottie Honey Lauren who is a Skin favorite. You can read an interview we did with Honey Lauren here. Dildo Heaven and Each Time I Kill were both released after her death. Each Time I Kill had a ton of campy cameos like Linnea Quigley and John Waters.
She died in 2002 at the age of 90 in Miami, Florida. She had been working on two new projects, as we said above, which proves that age couldn't stop Doris Wishman from making sexy films. Wishman was once quoted as saying, "After I die I will be making movies in hell!" I certainly hope that's true!
