"Movie buffs" are an odd lot. The attention to certain small things and obscure minutiae is amazing considering they (we) notice things the average filmgoer pays little mind to. Your typical viewer looks at film as disposable entertainment, something to be consumed and forgotten. We film fans tend to hang onto things, obsess about things, constantly try tooutdo one another with details, facts, finding something new, rediscovering something lost. And I freely admit to being a part of this crowd.

We can thank the French for the auteur theory. They viewed, in hindsight, that the body of work from certain directors showed specific through-lines in style, substance and appearances. The French film geeks at Cahiers du Cinéma felt some directors had enough of an influence on a film (until then, not only was filmmaking a group effort, but at the time the director was nothing more than a hired hand) that they assigned primary authorship to that director.

What did the auteur theory bring us? Well, among other things, it helped us to recognize some directors as a "brand name." For instance, you knew what you were getting with an Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, or Frank Capra film. Eventually, that theory became part of the general discourse in film-speak. Film fans found that not only could the auteur theory apply to the studio greats of old, but also to the exploitation hacks that ground out films in near obscurity during the pre-home-video days. Now we were rediscovering the lost or dismissed works of "crap" filmmakers.

Like I said, movie buffs are an odd lot. We love to go on and on about seeing genius where others see incompetence, finding success in utter failure, and mining little gems out of huge piles of shit. Websites are set up to honor these forgotten folks, books are written, retrospectives set up, and debates had. Many of these names are familiar to those of us who have been in these trenches: Roger Corman, Ed Wood, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and so many more.

Pick any loser, failure, unrecognized "genius" – hell, any castoff who managed to make a film – and you'll find a surprisingly large and fanatical fan base. In some cases, I agree. There are times when you can find real art and a true artistic expression in these so-called "B movies". Other times, the sheer incompetence of the film is so laughably bad that it becomes enjoyable on a wholly different level than that intended.

But are there any of these people who you so despise that you can't even bear to watch their work ever again? This question came to me as I was searching for more of those sleazy "exploitation" movies that I love so much. You see, I can't stand director Doris Wishman. For the life of me, I'll never understand how anyone can watch her films and enjoy them. Not in the least. These movies are not "so bad, they're good," they're just simply bad.

Doris was a pioneer; I'll give her that. She was the lone woman in the man's world of early drive-in exploitation, making her name in "roughies" and "nudie cuties". The best way to explain her films is to take your average Russ Meyer film, strip it of any pretense of "art", remove all filmmaking skill and technical know-how, lower the attractiveness of the cast by a good 50 percent, and lose the script on the way to the set.

Honestly, Wishman's films are just plain awful.

If you wander over to the Internet Movie Database listing for Wishman, you’ll find she had worked under quite a few noms de plumes. My guess is that, before our world of post-ironic hipsterism, people actually recognized her films as the crap they were and she had to keep tossing out new identities to keep working. The only problem with that theory is, why was she still being hired?

I first stumbled upon the auteur theory for hacks and sleaze merchants by way of the book, Incredibly Strange Films: A Guide To Deviant Films (by the excellent publisher RE/Search). While this book led me into a wonderful world of film's dirty little secrets, there were also some films I discovered that were best left forgotten. Among them were Wishman’s. My distaste for her really didn't kick in until I saw the BBC miniseries based on the book, The Incredibly Strange Film Show. In it, I was horrified to see interviews with Ms.Wishman, and even worse, see her continuing to badly direct well into her golden years. I was fresh out of film school at this point, and I knew enough to recognize that this woman had no business being within 50 feet of anything possessing a lens.

To give you a taste of how bad her stuff was, consider Double Agent 73. For the days before hardcore pornography, the folks at the grindhouse and the drive-in had seen more milk jugs than Elsie, the Borden cow. It took a real freak tosell a ticket, and Wishman found that freak in the aptly named Chesty Morgan. (*rimshot*)

So why the name Chesty? She had a 73-inch bustline. Apparently, that’s all it took to be a Wishman star. This middle-aged hausfrau wouldn’t get past the first day of casting for legendary boob fan Russ Meyer; but for Wishman, one man’s trash is her leading lady. In Double Agent 73, Chesty was a secret agent with a spy camera implanted in her big ‘ol, messy floppers. The hook of the film was watching Chesty whip out one of her zeppelins, tug on it (with the appropriate shutter snap sound effect) and stuff it back in that engineering marvel she called a bra. That’s about it.

There you have it… what some consider one of Wishman’s best.

Now, before you read more into it than what I wrote and think that this film sounds hilarious, think twice. Don’t kid yourselves. There is no hilarity to be found here. Double Agent 73 is a tedious marathon that never seems to end featuring another Wishman trademark beyond her inadequate skills: No sync sound. Everything was post-dubbed … badly. So if you think you need to see Double Agent 73, keep in mind that you’ll get poorly acted, badly written dialogue that doesn’t fit the mouths of the cast, even though they are speaking the same words. Godzilla movies got it better.

Unfortunately, as I said before, every old hack has a band of loyalists who have "rediscovered" their lost "masterpieces." Well, I for one wish they stayed lost and forgotten. Wishman finally died in 2002 at 82 years young.

And what was the last cinematic turd she left us before she departed our Earthly plane? Dildo Heaven. I rest my case.

Doris Wishman is the cult movie hero that I despise. Who is yours? Join the community in the discussion at the Holla! link below.

Be sure to check out our review of Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman.