Written, directed, narrated and dubbed by award-winning female pornographer Doris Wishman, trading on the title of the big studio hit "Perils of Pauline", this super-cheapo one-woman soft-core show otherwise shares nothing in common with that legit project, neither in talent nor in budget, but still manages to amuse as a satirical "cautionary tale" from the sexual revolution of the Swingin' 60's.
Just your typical "boy meets girl, girl becomes prostitute, boy takes girl back anyway because he LOVES her" story, but that's not what's important. What IS is the fresh-faced small-town girl's descent into the depths of degradation on a downward spiral of despair. recounted in "shocking" detail to her ever-understanding boyfriend, played by Tony Lo Bianco in his first movie as opposed to TV role, cast WAY against type relative to the sicko he'd ;later play in the celebrated "Honeymoon Killers",
The rest of the cast's only talent seems to be the ability to take off their OUTER clothes (remember this is 1964) and smooch and writhe around in their undergarments--dig the horrendously bad "drunk girl" sequence, They don't even actually have to speak, the words being put in their mouths by Miss Wishman's (credited as "Mati Hara") narration.
These get-togethers take place in an apartment with decoration heavy on "exotic" oriental art objects. I wonder, did the set designer (again, Ms. Wishman) find Fat Buddha's exposed belly sexy?
To say the script is pedestrian would be to give it too much credit. Crippled is more like it. And "Ms. Hara's" reading of the lines her alter-ego Ms. Wishman (as "Dawn Whitman") herself wrote, well. let's just say Pixar won't be calling her to do voiceovers anytime soon, never mind that she's been gone almost 20 years by now.
Dead in 2002 at 90, her last picture released posthumously, second last the year of her death. first in 1960. 31 shlocky self-produced "features" in a 42 year career (she was inactive during most of the 80's), right up to the very end! Such cheap "efforts" always rely heavily upon stock footage and a recycled soundtrack, and certainly no exceptions here,
New Yorkers will get a laugh out of the few exteriors actually shot at midtown Manhattan locations that, amazingly, haven't changed in all these years...To start, busses from small towns in Ohio don't drop passengers in front of the UN as seen here, that's for diplomats in limos. And after a montage of her trudging around "All day, all over the city,,after which I was exhausted" she says, "Then I had to find someplace to live." (See what i mean bout the script?) Audience members in the know will recognize the montage of her walking "all over the city" consists solely of different angles of her walking around in circles around UN Plaza!
The quick cutting of the trailer promises more sexy than finally actually ends up on screen here,, especially since some shots in it aren't even in this picture, which, at 55 minutes run time, certainly didn't need cutting, and borders on the customer not getting their money's worth, which would've been $2 in 1964, but Ms Wishman was also notorious for recycling her own footage, and probly squirreled those shots away to reveal them in a dreaded "up-coming attraction", which is how she managed to produce 31 "features" with NO MONEY.
Fun .
