The Amazing Transplant

I have a confession to make. Until I sat down to watch THE AMAZING TRANSPLANT, I was a Doris Wishman virgin ! Well, that's not entirely true as I had seen her hardcore/horror hybrid COME WITH ME, MY LOVE back in the day when the lady still vehemently denied any involvement in the explicit side of the sex film industry. Hoping to pop my cherry with her notorious sex change mockumentary LET ME DIE A WOMAN and waffling on the Chesty Morgan duo (Geddit ?), it was TRANSPLANT's outrageous premise that finally reeled me in. Many a starry-eyed genre "critic" (read : devoted fan boy who would defend Doris to his dying breath) has likened Ms. Wishman to Ed Wood as both were blatantly incompetent movie makers whose sheer ineptitude in terms of both narrative coherence and production values somehow translated into a charm of their own. Now I would agree with such assessment as far as Wood's concerned, whose exuberant enthusiasm largely compensated for his glaring lack of talent. Maybe TRANSPLANT was just a poor place to start exploring the works of Wishman, but her listless disinterest as a director is far more shocking than the tabloid-inspired subject matter she can barely be bothered to tackle. Simply put, I never thought a flick about a penis graft turning a nice, all American kid into a demented rapist and accidental assassin could possibly turn out this boring.

The kid in question is swinging single Arthur Barlen (played by future Oscar-winning DoP Joao Fernandez who has surely had one of the strangest careers in the world, encompassing both the mainstream and hardcore pornography, having shot most of Gerard Damiano's classics as "Harry Flecks") who turns up after a long absence at the door of spurned fiancée Mary Thorne (the deliciously named Sandy Eden), only to fall under the spell of her dangling gold earrings and choke her to death ! So much for whodunit. Arthur's widowed mother Ann (Linda Southern) seeks aid from her brother in law, detective Bill Barlen, portrayed by longtime sleaze veteran Larry Hunter. At least both Southern and Hunter attempt an acting performance, though defeated by Doris' trademark out of sync dubbing (with constant cutaways to inanimate objects and…people's shoes ?!), and had both featured in Damiano's prior to penetration TEENIE TULIP. Finding Arthur's little black book, Bill sets out to investigate the missing family member's sordid past through his acquaintances. Soon to become a fornication film mainstay, pretty Kim Pope (from Damiano's MEMORIES WITHIN MISS AGGIE as well as Shaun Costello's wonderful PASSIONS OF CAROL) appears as the new girl in town who made the mistake of putting her trust in the apparently affable Arthur and inviting him in, a vicious violation her sorry reward. Perky one shot wonder Olive Denneccio – you know that must be her real name ! – is Edie Stone, who went to high school with Arthur and has been yearning for him ever since. Their rape turned to romance bit would be offensive if it were invested with even a modicum of dramatic weight. Instead, Wishman treats it as just another skin display. Blowsy upstairs neighbor Bobbie is played by Pat Barrett at the end of an obviously all too long run in sexploitation flicks. You might remember her as the lady flashing her fleshy wares at Sly Stallone at the start of Morton Lewis' incredibly dire PARTY AT KITTY AND STUD'S a/k/a Italian STALLION as the rest of the world now knows it.

But what about that amazing transplant Doris lured us in with ? Well, turns out Artie Boy was jealous of his friend Felix's prowess with the fairer sex, as evidenced by an artily shot flashback involving dvddrive-in.com's estimable Casey Scott's favorite sexploitation sirens Linda Boyce and Uta Erickson. The film's single genuinely erotic encounter, a tiny puddle of style and sensuality in a quagmire of crap, it showcases the talents of cinematographer C. Davis Smith, who until then seemed thwarted by Wishman's ham-fisted approach, bringing to mind that he also photographed – extremely well, I might add – such adult classics like Howard Winters' practically perfect NEON NIGHTS and COED TEASERS, one of the frequently despised Lenny "Leon Gucci" Kirtman's finer films. When Felix took ill with a mystery virus, Arthur blackmailed the family physician (who sidelined as an abortionist) into the titular genital graft. The rapist tendencies are explained away by Felix having a thing for golden earrings, so "naturally" our anti-hero is so mesmerized by the starlets' gaudy costume jewelery he just has to ravish them on the spot ! The film's final shot merely adds insult to injury. Doris devotees will undoubtedly argue that she's an acquired taste and ample print evidence suggests that her legion of fans treasures exactly those same elements that leave her detractors scratching their heads and occasionally screaming in agony. I guess she's just not the girl for me, even if she does manage to build an entire movie around the premise (and promise) of pecker !

No, PERCY (1971) wasn't the first penis transplant movie. The sultana of sleaze, Doris Wishman (one of the only women directing exploitation movies at the time), directed and wrote this oddball softcore horror drama first. Arthur (Juan Fernandez) can't get it up, so he seeks the aid of a doctor who transplants his recently deceased friend's member onto him. Soon the operation goes sour and he finds himself in hiding after he kills his girlfriend. For some reason gold earrings set him off! In flashbacks, he seduces, rapes and/or murders other women. One is played by porn star Kim Pope. Another is a fat lesbian, and she gets sick after they do it and hovers over the toilet as Wishman's never-stable camera tilts down for a nice shot of the ladies zitty rear-end!

There's plenty here to entertain cult movie and Wishman fans (including lots of her trademark bizarre camera placements and tracking shots) and at times hints of (gasp!) substance rear their ugly head before being immediately trampled over by the next ridiculous or implausible plot move, terrible performance or laughable line of dialogue.

The version I saw was unrated, but could get a soft X rating for all of the soft core sex scenes and nudity.

Score (only if you're a sleazehound or Doris fan): 5 out of 10

Of all the excessively nonsensical, rancid and imbecilic Sexploitation movies ever made during the decade of the 1970's (and genre buffs know there are a LOT of them), Doris Wishman's "The Amazing Transplant" definitely takes the cake when talking in terms of pure senselessness and sheer incoherence. This doesn't even qualify as a movie; this is just some crazy lady (Wishman was the only female smut-director at that time) showcasing her most lurid and morally incorrect sexual fantasies. The premise appealed to me, since it sounded like a deviant and exploitative variation on the "Mad Love" and "Hands of Orlac" concept. In those classic films the hands of an executed killer become transplanted onto a pianist who lost his in an accident, but the hands gradually turn their new owner into an unstoppable killing machine. "The Amazing Transplant" basically features the exact same plot, but of course we're dealing with a raping penis here instead of a murdering pair of hands. It's a curious and interesting concept for a sleazy and gritty 70's exploitation flick, but the sad truth is that Wishman wasn't the least bit interested in telling a story, as the (not so) amazing penis transplant only gets mentioned ten minutes prior to the ending. The rest of film merely exists of sleazy and soft-core padding with atrocious acting performances, painful dialogs and unattractive women. In the opening sequences, Arthur Barlen strangles his fiancée – and what a fight she puts up – and flees. His uncle, who's also a police detective, goes after him using Arthur's address book as the only lead. Whilst the sleazy fat copper checks out the young girls' legs and breasts, they explain through flashbacks how Arthur changed from a quiet and introvert boy into a perverted and mad-raving sex machine. At those points, we're not supposed to know anything about the penis transplant, but obviously the title and every possible synopsis description on the internet already revealed everything. The film only lasts a mere 70 minutes, yet it's insufferably boring and contains over 75% of redundant footage. There's an inexplicably large amount of images showing people's legs and feet as they simply stroll over sidewalks. Larry Hunter's character of Bill Barlen the detective is unintentionally hilarious. He displays the weirdest facial expressions when astonished, makes offensive remarks towards lesbians and simply walks away when women clearly need emotional support. This was my fourth movie directed by Doris "Sultana-of-Sleaze" Wishman (after "Deadly Weapons", "Double Agent 73" and "Let Me Die a Woman") and she never ceases to "amaze" me. Not necessarily in a positive way, but you have to admit she dared to exploit pretty much every controversial topic.

This ridiculous, trashy thriller was helmed by the notorious Doris Wishman - here directing under a male pseudonym, Louis Silverman. A quarter of the shots are out-of-focus; the acting is wooden; she lensed it in such a way that most of the actors speak off-camera, so voices could be dubbed in post; when we do see lips moving, the dialogue is often out of synch. There are visual non-sequiturs and jump shots galore. At one point a woman falls dead when a strangler just barely touches her throat. The movie, in other words, is comically inept. There are half-a-dozen pretty nude bodies on display, but otherwise this is a real snoozer, from the Ed Wood school of directing. The ugly guy who is playing the detective investigator looks like a Muppet. Oddest feature for me is an poorly-chosen female chorus on the soundtrack, atop one of the rape scenes, that reminded me of Mia Farrow's title theme in Rosemary's Baby, also a little bit of one of the Country Joe McDonald pieces over a consensual love scene in Jens Jorgen Thorsen's Quiet Days in Clichy. The Amazing Transplant is strictly for connoisseurs of barrel-bottom cinematic trash - and even they may find this dull.

Amazing Transplant, The (1971)

** (out of 4)

Just imagine THE HANDS OF ORLAC or MAD LOVE but made into a sexploitation movie by the cult item Wishman. In the film, the kind Arthur (Juan Fernandez) gets a penis transplant but it turns out this penis belongs to a serial rapist. Soon the oh-so-sweet Arthur is attacking any woman he sees wearing gold earrings. It goes without saying but this movie is going to have a very limited appeal and the ones who rent (or buy) this title are going to be fans of trash and those exact fans might find this movie rather tame. Yes, the storyline is rather outrageous but I was rather shocked to see how tame the movie really is. You'd expect something wild and crazy but for the most part it's just your typical softcore feature that doesn't even feature too much nudity or sex. Yes, it's a lot more than your typical Hollywood movie but I've seen dirtier sexploitation flicks. The film (thankfully) only runs 71-minutes but even at this short time it starts to wear out its welcome because we just see one attack after another while a detective tries to figure out what's going on. The movie features bad acting, rather sloppy direction and various other bad items that will make this appeal to fans of bad cinema. The movie is worth watching if you like trash but if you want to go extremely hardcore then you should check out Wishman's even more notorious LET ME DIE A WOMAN, which to date is perhaps the most disgusting movie I've seen.