Deadly Weapons

Cheap Mafia movies are a dime a dozen, right? Not when your heroine is Chesty Morgan, the Polish peeler with proportions preposterous enough to give Russ Meyer pause. Billed as Zsa Zsa (as in "The Zsa Zsa Gabor of Burlesk"), she smothers any of the viewer's misconceptions during the title sequence. As the credits roll and the great theme song blasts, we see the jiggling title artillery distorted (okay--more so) in a series of convex mirrors. Please note that this film is not erotic in the least. Rather it is one of the most unintentionally hilarious pieces of dementia ever to hit the screen!

The amazingly ridiculous plot finds Chesty is Crystal, a "Hard Selling Woman" who is deeply in love and wants to get married. Unfortunately, her gangster boyfriend is rubbed out by his associates after a backfired double-cross. Hell hath no fury like a monstrously huge-breasted woman scorned, and Crystal takes it upon herself to dish out retribution. How? With her gargantuan just-over-six-foot bazookas, of course! Clad in pantyhose and girdle, she raises her arms--cue the thunderous crash of bowling pins--and closes in for the kill! As you may guess, sense is not the movie's strong point. But who watches Doris Wishman movie expecting sense?

Chesty comes off as a complete boob, with her clunky, elephantine breasts as her only assets. Sporting a (supposedly self-supplied) platinum shag wig and a hideous ruffled wardrobe, she lumbers around on mile-high platform shoes, staring blankly at her gaudy surroundings. She does two striptease acts, which consist of her walking around a bit, losing her top, and manhandling those frightening things. Throughout the course of the film, she looks and acts like someone just dragged her out of bed.

Still, despite her awesome inability to act, Miss Morgan has an undeniable screen presence and is consistently fascinating to watch. She and Wishman have created a style of what, in other hands, might be considered simple ineptitude. Everything about the film is so delightfully, wonderfully tacky and ridiculous that you can't look away. It's as if Chesty herself is merely the pinnacle of the greater camp aesthetic. The final dollop of Cool Whip is that THIS WAS INTENDED IN ALL SERIOUSNESS! See it now!

When I was a young man out in the work force, I went with a couple of colleagues to see this flick. The theatre was about 15 feet wide, and I think the film must have been a 16 mm print. The floor was sticky. Besides 3 or 4 young fellows (us) the rest of the audience seemed to consist of much older men with rain coats.

When the movie got going, it was so preposterous that we just couldn't keep from laughing our you-know-whats off. Well, that didn't go over too well with the others: We were repeatedly shushed and told to pipe down, so they could enjoy the show. Interrupted their concentrations, no doubt. It was really too preposterous to be sexy.

On the way out after the movie, there was a jar of "Chesty Morgan matchbooks" in a bowl, and I took one. ( No, her picture didn't wrap around to the back.) Many years later, at home, the lights went out in a thunderstorm. But I happened to remember that the Chesty book of matches was nearby, and I was able to find it, light one, and see my way out of the room. Thank you, Chesty!

Out of the two Chesty Morgan features created by Doris Wishman, "Deadly Weapons" is probably the weaker. In this trash epic, Chesty plays a woman who sets out to get revenge on the men who kill her fiancee. The film suffers from too many scenes of seedy violence between the thuggish male characters, and the usual Wishman out-of-focus shots of legs, shoes, wallpaper, curtains, ashtrays and carpets. Chesty can't act to save her life, but she actually does make an attempt, unlike "Double Agent 73" where she resembles a drugged up zombie for the entire running time. She is helped immensely by a lot of her vocal performance being "inner monologues" that we hear without her having to actually try and read lines on camera.

Highlights include Chesty's "sexy" bubble bath near the beginning where she showcases an inability to even sit in a bath like any normal person. The lurid fashion crimes in both clothing and home decor will take your breath away, as will Chesty's hilarious method of dispatching her victims. Oh yeah, and the them tune "Hard Selling Woman" (I think) is great! If anything, "Deadly Weapons" is slightly better made then "DA73", but sadly, a lot of it is still boring. Still, for anyone who appreciates the craziest of cult trash cinema, this is a must see.

Yes, Doris Wishman was an odd director and made strange movies. Yes, Chesty Morgan is a rotten actress and should never have gotten into the business. However, there are two great reasons to watch Deadly Weapons . . . and they are both suspended from Chesty's magnificent torso! In this age of skinny starlets with their flat chests it is refreshing to see a full-figured gal get some coverage (or get uncovered as some of these scenes reveal). Despite the lame acting, the thin plot line and the dreadful music, Deadly Weapons earns two points from me! Two points for Chesty's two trophies! She could not act, sing or dance very well but for at least two films (both with Wishman at the helm) Chesty managed to break into show business. Found an article on the internet that stated she was a concentration camp survivor from WW II, and currently owns and manages some small apartment unit in Florida.

After the mob kill her boyfriend for double-crossing them, Crystal (the jaw-dropping Lillian Wilczkowsky better known as Chesty Morgan) decides to take revenge via mammary suffocation. The flick also has porn legend Harry Reems. It has horrid acting and a weak plot line, but Lillian is a wonder to behold. She's not attractive in many senses of the word, but those over-grown elephantine melons of hers are hopelessly hypnotic. The film has kitsch enough to be one of Doris Wishman's best movies (Not saying that much, I know, but still) Followed by a sequel that was worse in EVERY single way.

My Grade: C+

Eye Candy: Chesty Morgon show's the biggest real breasts I've EVER seen as well as her tush, and Denise Purceli goes for a nude swim