Bad Girls Go to Hell

During the mid-60s, there was a slew of these tacky drive-in movies. Most of them were barely indistinguishable from one another. They all had exceptionally pretty, but sleazy female characters, who were always running around nude, or nearly-nude. Most of these flicks also featured plenty of violence (especially of women getting beaten and raped), and excessively bawdy lesbian sex scenes, no-doubt thrown in to titillate male viewers.

This film has quite a bizarre plot premise. When a young wife is raped by the janitor in her apartment building, she flees the scene, after killing him in self defense. As the story unravels, the viewer sees the wife waking-up screaming, relieved that what happened to her seemed to be only a dream. Or was it? The viewer can never quite be sure, because of the convoluted way that the story progresses.

This movie, like others of it's ilk, is little more than soft-core porn. But it, and other films like it, were on the cutting-edge of sensationalistic sex and violence, during the swinging 60s. These films were quite shocking, back when they were made. Now, films like these seem ludicrously melodramatic. If you are nostalgic about seeing seedy 60s B movies, then you may find this film mildly entertaining.

"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.

Sometimes bawdy, sometimes gaudy, definitely mid-60's urban in feeling and then there's gorgeous GiGi Darlene! Perhaps one of the early (only?) B-movies to attempt the "Dream Sequence" thing, where the audience finds out that Meg's shlepping from one serial rapist and sexual deviant to another while on the lam is nothing more than a dream. A dirty, sexually overturned bad-girl dream. Or is it? The acting as well as the sound is laughable at times, being over-emphasized or just plain cheap- but then again that is part of the innocence and charm that now you'd find in this film. Listen closely while she's on the run.. you'll hear the ONE horn from some distant '57 Plymouth over, and over, and over again. (simulating what I guess was supposed to be NYC traffic!) Hylarious!

Meg, apparently frustrated by her hunk-a-luscious husband going to a "meeting" on a Saturday, decides to don her skimpiest sheer house dress & pom-pom slippers and clean the apartment. Little does she know, the janitor(I've decided he's a Russian Immigrant) scopes her out in the hallway , and realizes that he, too has pent up lust and .. well - you'll see.

For the time, the sets,backdrops, and locations are all really cool to see - and you'd have to be half dead not to STILL look at GiGi Darlene and swoon. Even by today's standards, she's a babe! But aside from that this movie has it all.. Alcoholism, Fetishism, lesbianism ( I'm an acrobatic dancer!) and some of the corniest scenes you'll ever witness. Gee, it's GOOD!

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 ****

A sexploitation flick that's risen to cult status based on its lurid title alone, Bad Girls Go To Hell is a time-capsule of sixties' sleaze. Don't expect Doris Wishman to inject any feminist subtext into this misogynist genre. This was Wishman's first roughie, a sub genre focusing on titillating the audience with male violence perpetrated against women. Sadly, this trend of equating sex with violence continues to be prevalent in pornography today. Wishman, like fellow exploitation director Russ Meyer, shows considerable skill as an editor. However, Bad Girls Go To Hell is a technical mess. The threadbare plot focuses on a housewife who flees the police after murdering her rapist. Why she doesn't claim self-defense for the quite justified killing is never explained. The housewife, played by Gigi Darlene, is quite a beautiful woman. She carries herself with grace and poise, seemingly unaffected by Wishman's leering camera. There are numerous salacious shots focusing on Darlene's buxom form, but most of the nudity appears in the first ten minutes. After that, the film relies more on her meager acting talents. The movie ends with an "it was all just a dream" coda, explaining away some of the more bizarre and unrealistic moments. The strongest moments of this film, a lesbian subplot, appears to have been cut to ribbons by outraged censors.