Oh dear, this won't end well, and you could argue that it didn't begin well either, as this was one of female auteur Doris Wishman's directorial outings, after some years making nudist movies. Although there was some nakedness courtesy of Darlene here (in one of the last films she made before apparently disappearing off the face of the Earth), it was of a coy, cutting away before we saw too much variety, in contrast to those other movies Wishman made where it was all - or mostly all - hanging out. She was an almost unique figure in the exploitation flick scene, being a woman who pretty much took care of the whole production of her efforts herself.
Always modest but proud about her achievements, Wishman got into directing after her husband died, and spent the last decades of her life (she lived to be ninety) continuing her on and off love affair with the cinema. Some would have it that she was one of the worst ever to helm a movie, and it's hard to argue that her oeuvre is not an acquired taste, full of quirks that made her films so obviously hers and much in evidence on the terrifically-titled Bad Girls Go To Hell. There were of course the multitude of closeups on the cast's feet, something of a Wishman trademark, along with the poorly dubbed dialogue and location shooting grabbed whenever possible.
And along with that a plot that was banal enough to be odd, perhaps it was the manner in which it was put across, but the way it travelled from each exploitational point of interest to its audience made for viewing that could just as easily bore as it did intrigue. What happens to Meg (who we hear in voiceover) during the course of this is that she is raped twice in the first ten minutes of the just over an hour long movie by that janitor, the second time because she answers his note to come to his room (why didn't she refuse?), but in the second attack she kills him with a heavy ashtray. Consumed with guilt, she proceeds to go on the run from Boston to New York.
Changing her name to Ellen Green, Meg hopes to start afresh in the Big Apple, but this being what they used to call a "roughie", means that before long she is getting treated, well, roughly again, at first courtesy of a man who picks her up in the park (lots of easy to shoot footage of New York is included, along with the citizens' feet, naturally) and seems kind enough until she makes the mistake of mentioning alcohol, whereupon he gets very angry. Not taking the hint, Meg serves him some booze and is whipped with his belt for her trouble, which sends her into the arms of a lesbian: we know she's a lesbian because the woman dubbing her puts on a deep and loud voice. After being seduced by her, Meg moves on, but you get the idea, that is up to the twist ending that makes it clear Doris, who claimed to be no movie buff, had at least seen Dead of Night. Non-essential for the casual filmgoer, then, but worth seeing for the highly individual talent behind the camera.
American writer-producer-director regarded by many as one of the worst directors of all time, her idiosyncratic, low budget, often sexually-themed films include Nude on the Moon, Bad Girls Go To Hell, The Amazing Transplant, Let Me Die A Woman and the two "Chesty Morgan" films: Double Agent 73 and Deadly Weapons. Watch for her highly individual use of the closeup and dubbed dialogue, not to mention all those feet.
