Bad Girls Go to Hell

Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965)

** (out of 4)

Doris Wishman directed this sexploitation cult classic, which is one of the better known films out there. A married but bored housewife gets raped by the apartment janitor and eventually kills him. She flees from the scene hoping to start a new life in NYC but everyone she meets either physically or sexually abuses her. Like many other sexploitation flicks, this one here was shot in grainy B&W without sound, which was later dubbed in. The best thing about this film is the pretty good, if rough, editing, which cuts to various scenes very well. This film was still early in the sex genre so there isn't too much nudity but Wishman plays with the viewer with her fast cuts and quit edits. There's not much that really goes on but I was still caught up in the film.

An ex-girlfriend of mine used to drive around with a bumper sticker that said: "Good girls go to heaven… Bad girls go everywhere!" I always found that hilarious and the title of this little 60's exploitation film instantly reminded me of it. "Bad Girls Go To Hell" is another glamorous and ultimately sophisticated accomplishment of the great writer/director Doris Wishman; the woman who pretty much single-handedly popularized the so-called "roughie" exploitation movies during the sixties. The films of Mrs. Wishman may perhaps not be very good (in fact, she was quite often referred to as the female Ed Wood) but she definitely had … well … balls! This film is boring, poorly acted, ineptly directed and desperately stuffed with padding footage to reach a half-decent running time, but still I can't bring myself to harshly criticize it. The year was 1965 and here she was – Doris Wishman - showing girls' bare bottoms, attempted rape and even quick nipple flashes. The plot of this film sounds acceptable enough, but in fact it's really silly and laughable. When the Meg Kelton is taking the trash out in her see-through nightgown on a Saturday morning, her sleazy janitor attempts to sexually assault her. You can tell this man is really sinister because he has a Slavic accent, ha! When Meg goes to his apartment later on - I haven't got the slightest idea why she does that, though – he tries to rape her again and she kills him with a glass bowl. The poor girl panics, obviously, and impulsively decides to leave her house and husband and flee to New "Hell" York. Once there, Meg's life only gets worse and worse. She successively ends up with a friendly man who turns into an abusive monster when he drinks, a lesbian stripper, a married couple of whom the husband is yet another rapist pig and an elderly lady with a creepy police officer for a son. Poor, poor Meg! If she wasn't such a bad actress, I might have felt really sorry for her. And then Gigi Darlene, the girl who plays Meg, is still the most talented one in the whole cast by far. "Bad Girls to Hell" has a stupid ending, but then again, it was still okay in the sixties, I guess. If you're familiar with this type of cheap and raunchy Z-grade cinema, you know what else to expect, right? We're talking dialogs clearing added during the post-production phase, inexplicably large amounts of filming people's feet, monotonous go-go- dancing music, etc, etc

"Meg Kelton" (Gigi Darlene) is a housewife in Boston who wakes up a little frisky one morning but cannot seem to get her husband to stay with her rather than going to work. So after he leaves she commences to clean the apartment and upon taking the trash out gets viciously raped by the janitor. Afterwards, she gets back to her apartment and while still in a state of disbelief sees a note put under her apartment door ordering her to come to the rapist's apartment. Fearful that he might tell her husband she does as she is told but when she gets there the janitor attempts to rape her again. She then kills the janitor but in a state of panic decides she has to leave town before the police catch up to her. So she heads to New York where she thinks she can blend in and leave all of her problems behind. Unfortunately, she has no idea what awaits her there. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that this is an exploitation film from the mid-60's which suffers from its low budget, bad script and less than adequate acting. Not only that, but what was even worse was the constant music which played from start to finish. Even so, the aforementioned Gigi Darlene was quite attractive and the ending contained a nice double-twist which certainly helped this film to a certain degree. Be that as it may, I rate it as just slightly below average.

My first Doris Wishman film, which a friend told me was supposedly one of her best (if so, then I'd hate to see her worst)! This thing concerns a young woman who first gets attacked by her janitor and so flees away into the big city where she incomprehensibly manages to become involved with all sorts of sick and abusive strangers along her path, yet naively and inexplicably keeps moving in with them! Kind of perversely funny watching her shack up with each guy only to soon be carrying her same suitcase away with her in the middle of the night again and again.

* out of ****

Filming in glorious and gritty black and white, Ms Wishman offers us the beautiful and talented Gigi Darlene as an everywoman in 1960's urban America suffering the birth-pangs of the sexual revolution. Take a peek at this, if you ever get the opportunity, to see an example of the art that influenced pulp film-makers of the 1960's and 1970's, John Waters, and many musicians and artists active in the Punk scene.