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Deadly Weapons
[Something Weird]
1973; color
Directed by Doris Wishman
Starring: Chesty Morgan, Harry Reems, Greg Reynolds, Saul Meth & Phillip Stahl
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Four out of five exploitation filmmakers agree - and this column's subject certainly seems to subscribe to this philosophy - having a "hook," aka something scandalous or lascivious you can exploit on a poster or advertisement to attract viewers, is an important factor to a film's success. Obviously Wishman must have known she had an ideal example of this type of publicity tool in the form of scandalously endowed stripper turned actress, Chesty Morgan. (And I use both phrases loosely; if this film is any indication she wasn't particularly skilled at either trade.) No doubt the image of a nude and aptly nicknamed Chesty demurely glancing skyward with her hands placed on her knees and her unbelievably huge breasts hanging well below her elbows, as seen at left on the box cover, was hook-y enough to inspire many people (read: horny men with a preference for large breasts) to queue up. Truth be told, Morgan is kind of lacking in the sex appeal department though and I think most male viewers would agree, her boobs are more a curiosity—in the freak show sense—than they are hot. Seriously, they're all veiny and saggy and she does not do anywhere near as good of a job tarting herself up for the film camera as she did for the stills. Or maybe someone airbrushed the stills later, who knows. Nonetheless, this is a classic so let's move on to the film itself. Miss Morgan plays Crystal, a woman who apparently has a job as an advertising executive but spends most, if not all of her time, focused on her somewhat dysfunctional relationship with her lover, Larry. Larry's got a job too, he's a low-level thug working for some sorta crime boss who decides to make the all too common attempt to double-cross the bossman and score a little something something for himself on the side. Of course what Larry really winds up with is a bullet in the gut for his troubles, delivered by eye-patched assassin Captain Hook under the watchful eye of Larry's ex-partner Tony, played by Harry Reems. (Didn't Larry ever watch the soaps? You can't outsmart a mob boss. That shit totally never works on General Hospital and it won't work for you either.) In a strange twist of fate, Crystal has the misfortune of hearing her man's whacking over the telephone. Poor girl, as if carrying those things around 24 hours a day isn't bad enough! This does, however, allow her to gather all the information necessary to exact some good old fashioned revenge in her dead homie / ex-lover's honor and that's just what she sets out to do. First she's off to Vegas where she gets a job exposing and fondling herself at a "house of burlesque" (OK, it's a strip club) in order to trap and kill Captain Hook. What is her medium of murderousness you might ask; a gun? A knife? A deadly cocktail? Oh no. Well, actually, yes to the last one - sort of. She does drug her victim, but only enough to paralyze him so she can finish him off with her natural (ahem) deadly weapons. That's right, she smothers him with her horrific bosom. What a way to go. Then it's off to Miami to repeat the process, minus the strip club part, on Tony. You'd think that the successful killing of each man would bring closure to our anticdote but believe it or not, there's yet more to the story. By the end of the film the mob boss' identity is revealed and the whole story wraps up in one somewhat shocking and somewhat nonsensical ending that you'll just need to see for yourself. Deadly Weapons is arguably one of Wishman's most known films, and is a little different in tone from her starker black & white roughies. I find her color stuff to have a more "psychedelic" vibe which may be an outgrowth of the crazy coloring, caused by use of many various and assorted film stocks. This is also the first of two Doris / Chesty collaborations; the second, Double Agent 73, was either filmed at the same time as Deadly Weapons or right after it's release. (Like many stories about her life and career, there are conflicting reports.) Wishman also made a "sequel" to Double Agent 73 that does not feature Ms. Morgan, The Immoral Three.
—Bunny
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