Customer Reviews

Bad Girls Go To Hell/Another Day Another Man

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow! Not only do you get two of Doris Wishman's craziest b&w exploitation movies, you also get tons of drive-in supplemental material from the vaults of Something Weird. I have a lot of their drive-in stuff on tape, and it's nice to finally see some of it come to DVD. Intermission shorts, over a half-dozen trailers, an adult "book pitch" and more - I love it! You can even play back the whole thing in sequence and see a hidden trailer at the very end. ... Viva Doris!

The DVD by SOMETHING WEIRD contains a lot: The two feature films "Bad Girls go to Hell" and "Another Day, another Man", a lot of Doris Wishman Trailers and a interactive "Drive-In" Experience that links the films and trailers together with intermissions to present the complete DVD as a 3-hour drive-in extravaganza. Very nice. Films and trailers are looking sharp and clear, sound is ok (mono dolby) and at least no more "SWV"-signs on the screen (as it was with the SOMETHING WEIRD VHS tapes".
So technically, this DVD is perfect, the only thing one misses is an audio commentary by Doris or Gigi. But then, that might be too much to ask. On to the films themselves:

"Bad Girls go to Hell" is a classic, starring the bautiful Gigi Darlene who experiences a nightmarish never-ending sequence of rape, beating, sexual harrasment. The picture is dream-like with very little conversation, nearly with no story-line to follow. All in all a surreal experience, like Vampyr or Dementia but adding a lot of sexiness (not really nudity).

"Another Day, another Man" is far inferior. Even less nudity, a standard plot of two girls (one being a hooker, but wants to become an ordinary girl - one ordinary girl who does it vice versa) much more talky and showing less confidence. Gigi Darlene,not so vulnerable and wide-eyed as in Bad Girls, plays the hooker but has put on some pounds (or has become pregnant?) making her look less attractive and the role does not suit her.

I purchased this DVD as a replacement of my VHS of Bad Girls and therefor am not at all disappointed by the second feature's failure to entertain.

Amazon's description, and the accompanying customer reviews, pretty much hit the mark: Both "Bad Girls Go To Hell" and "Another Day, Another Man" sport amateurish production values, frequent lapses in visual and thematic coherence, and a strange fascination with inanimate objects such as potted plants and third-rate framed artwork. Yet, as most of the comments here also point out, there is also an undeniable power and attraction at work here, a kind of compelling, dreamlike quality that keeps one's attention. Of course, the numerous women lounging around in lingerie and body stockings in both films might have something to do with the movies' hold over viewers. Both movies feature surprisingly clean, sharp prints, and like most other Something Weird releases, this DVD also has numerous bonus features including trailers, short subjects, and promotional artwork.

Doris Wishman (1912-2002) stands out in the history of sexploitation films because she had the distinction of being a successful woman director in a genre dominated by men. Wishman started making films set at nudist camps and probably enjoyed her most success making "nudie cuties" such as "Nudes on the Moon." But the two Wishman films on this Something Weird Video double-feature represent prime examples of the "Roughies" that defined the middle of her film career before she moved on to the "Ghoulies" (e.g., "A Night to Dismember") and soft core (e.g., "Double Agent 73"). This is a SWV "Special Edition" DVD, which means that in terms of the extras you are talking wall-to-wall Doris Wishman. Plus, if you just hit play when you get to the main menu you are treated to a complete Drive-In Theater experience.

"Bad Girls Go To Hell" (1965) is the story of Meg Kelton (Gigi Darlene), whose husband Ted (Alan Yorke) goes off to work one day. Meg is then sexually assaulted by the owner of the building, who warns her not to let her husband know what has happened. When Ted goes off to work again, the sleaze ball leaves Meg a message to come visit him or else her husband will find out what has happened (I guess Meg believes Ted will think it was her fault she was raped). Meg tries to buy off the guy, but when he attacks her again she kills him. Fleeing Boston for New York City, Meg now says she is Ellen Green from Chicago. What happens next is that she ends up in a series of encounters with people who are apparently trying to help her, but who get her into just more sleazy encounters. Then we get something of a "Twilight Zone" twist at the end.

"Another Day, Another Man" (1966) starts with Ann (Barbi Kemp) getting married and moving out of the apartment she shares with Tess (Mary O'Hara), who happens to be a prostitute. Ann is happy for a while, but then hubby falls sick and since she cannot go back to her old job (her boss does not want married women in the office) she turns to hooking instead for Tess's pimp, Bert (Sam Stewart), who provides a film noir voice over when he explains how he put together his stable of prostitutes (including twins). Her husband does not really understand why she has to go out to work for a few hours at night in different places each night but he eventually sees the light and that is not a good thing.

Wishman certainly has a distinctive visual style and since she does all of her sound back in the studio there is sense of dislocation because characters have conversations without their lips moving. However, what makes these two films stand out from most of Wishman's other work is that there is relatively little nudity, consisting mostly of bare backsides. Otherwise you are talking about women who buy bras a couple of sizes too small and men who would rather slap a woman while taking what they want rather than providing even a pretense of affection. Wishman's camera never fully shows what is going on, not just because that would bring on ratings concerns, but also because showing everything would be tantamount to endorsing it, and that is not her goal. If there is a common moral to the two films, which were made consecutively, it would be that once a woman falls, she falls hard and she falls often. Even when Meg/Ellen finds someone to be safe with, it turns out to be another woman, and it is the story as much as any idea of character motivation that leads her to leave and move on to the next act of degradation. The question then becomes what Meg and Ann could have done to avoid their fates, or are they simply doomed because they are women a.k.a. the weaker sex?

Can we put these films in some larger sociological context, specifically the argument that the Roughies are a reaction to the sexual politics of the 1960s the way the nudist camp films were a response to the relative complacency of the Eisenhower years? Sure. But then the undercurrent of violence towards women goes back cinematically to the entire film noir genre where a tough guy is as likely to shoot a dame or at least belt her around as kiss her. For most people these are not erotic films, but depressing tales of a sexual dynamic that belongs back in the Stone Age and not in the great metropolitan area of New York City when the Sexual Revolution was in full swing.

One of the strengths of the Something Weird Video series is that when they focus on an auteur, they go the whole way. All of the trailers are for Doris Wishman films: "Bad Girls Go to Hell," "Indecent Desires," "A Taste of Flesh," "Another Day, Another Man" (which is where we get the theme music for Something Weird Video), "My Brothers Wife," "Too Much, Too Often," and "The Amazing Transplant." There is also a Book Pitch for "Man and Male" and "Woman and Female," a set of books you can get by turning on the parking lights of your car. Besides the Book Pitch and the trio of Intermission Countdowns, there is a Doris Wishman Gallery of Exploitation Art,which covers all phases of her career. You even get some exit bits to complete your drive-in experience ("Please Replace Speaker When You Leave...If Torn From the Stand, Please Leave in Box at Exit").

Something Weird Video does it again with this fantastic double feature of two of Doris Wishman's greatest "roughies".

BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL is an interesting little curio starring Gigi Darlene as a young wife who is attacked by her dentally-challenged janitor and accidentally kills him. Fearing the worst the girl flees to New York but ends up living with weirdo after weirdo, including Darlene Bennett who plays a shapely lesbian who does nothing but swan around in body-stockings!

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER MAN stars Barbie Kemp as a beehived newlywed whose husband suddenly takes ill and has to stay in bed for about half a year (as you do), and has no option but to follow her friend (Darlene Bennett) and become a sex worker. Interestingly, Kemp wears the same black-lace bodysuit worn by Bennett in the earlier film!

Of course, the big advantage is the "Let's Go To The Drive-In" feature which couples the two films together along with various concession stand ads and intermission shorts. There are also some great trailers for other Wishman films in addition to the films presented here.

Be sure to check out the other Something Weird Video double-features which include GIRL GANG/THE VIOLENT YEARS and THE NOTORIOUS DAUGHTER OF FANNY HILL/THE HEAD MISTRESS.

If you like sleazy films with low budgets, horrible acting (the voices were added after filming), visual innuendo, tease after tease, this will do. These black and white films from 1965 and '66 ran in run-down theatres in decaying parts of town. They aren't stimulating and would barely garner a PG-13 today but their melodramatic scripts that seem to have been written in an hour and their over the top scenarios (I was especially amused by the scene where the previously very nice man who lets the down-on-her-luck woman room with him turns into a sadistic maniac who whips her with his belt just a few seconds after taking a couple of swigs of scotch) can entertain those who like things that are badly done for the wrong reasons (like this movie). All of the women are passive and never defend themselves or stick up or speak up for themselves. It is funny that people once thought this was lurid stuff and that they actually would drive out of their way to see this schlock.

Hi everybody! I really trashed this movie when I first viewed and reviewed it. After leaving it on the shelf for over a year I decided to try again and I admit that I may have been a little too harsh in my criticism the first time. I'm still disappointed that it failed to live up to the hype but this movie DVD does have some redeeming qualities, especially if you start it at the beginning and watch it all the way through as if you were at a drive in theater. I didn't do that the first time, I just watched the two featured movies and skipped the "extras". The trailers from other Doris Wishman movies were very good and I plan to buy some of them when they finally come out on DVD. Now that I've seen Gigi Darlene and Darlene Bennett in the "Olga" movies and other movies I can better appreciate them in these movies. I decided to write a second review rather than "edit" my previous one so that you can still use it. Good luck and thanks!

I paid $25.00 plus shipping for this DVD based upon the great reviews and general internet buzz and I have to say it is one of only two out of approximately 85 DVDs that I own that I sincerely wish that I could get my money back. I was very disappointed! I didn't find these two features, Bad Girls and Another Day, entertaining at all. They played like a couple of features from somebody's film class with minimal plot, minimal acting, minimal nudity, minimal atmosphere, well, you get the idea. I don't get the hype at all. I expected a kinky movie from the sixties. This is not like that at all and I personally found it to be BORING! Thank you very much.