All Rise...

Judge Bill Gibron likes breasts...just not this much breast.

Editor's Note

Our reviews of Deadly Weapons (published June 27th, 2000) and Double Agent 73 (published June 7th, 2002) are also available.

The Charge

To see them is to disbelieve them.

Opening Statement

One look at her and you automatically think, "porn star." Lower your sex standards a bit, and you get "stripper." Add pragmatism, and the practical application of such ample assets, and you come up with "burlesque queen." Indeed, no matter how you look at her, the artist known as Chesty Morgan (after being born with the far less explanatory name Lillian Wilczkowsky) was made for exploitation—figuratively and literally. Her overlarge breasts, cobbled together and hoisted by a series of elaborate lacy trusses, look uncomfortable in clothes. But once unleashed on an unsuspecting raincoat crowd, their erotic impact cannot be fathomed. You'll either feel "enticed" or eager to flee. Long a staple of the Something Weird label, Chesty's only starring roles (for frank female auteur, Doris Wishman) are now available on Blu-ray, along with a third feature only indirectly linked to her bountiful bosom. No, high definition doesn't add much to these amazing camp classics. Having them together on one disc does indeed double your humongous hooter quotient.

Facts of the Case

By the time the '70s rolled around, Doris Wishman was desperate. Not that she was struggling—she remains one of the iconic artists of the entire Grindhouse era—but she was done doing the whole "lust and violence" thing. Movies like Bad Girls Go to Hell and Another Day, Another Man weren't connecting at the box office, and hardcore was working its way into the industry. When she "discovered" Morgan, Wishman knew she had hit commercial paydirt. Unfortunately, she also hit acting awfulness. Still, her mythology rests mainly on these movies since Morgan guaranteed more than a mere curiosity factors.

For those who care, here are the individual plots involved:

Deadly Weapons
The well-endowed Crystal (Morgan, under her stage name "Zsa Zsa") is a well-placed advertising executive. She is involved with a slick trick named Larry (Richard Towers, The Last House on the Left) who happens to be part of a mob syndicate. When he comes across some incriminating microfilm, he decides to blackmail its owner. Said hood can't stand said tactic and sends his best hitmen—Tony (Harry Reemes, Deep Throat) and Captain Hook (Mitchell Fredericks)—after him. Grief stricken, Crystal vows revenge, utilizing her massive mammaries as a means of slapping, suffocating, and slaying her targets.

Double Agent 73
Jane Tennay (Chesty Morgan, Fellini's Casanova) is a spy for an unnamed US agency. Hoping to break up a ring of heroin pushers, they give their gal a mission. Her job will require her to kill all the members of this mob, and as proof that she committed these crimes (and did so with evidence of their wrongdoing), she has a camera implanted in her left teat. Whenever she wants to take a snap, she lifts and separates her gargantuan gonzangas. FLASH! It's another carnal Kodak moment. Things get a bit dicey when Jane falls for a man (Peter Savage, Raging Bull) who may or may not have a connection to these fiends.

The Immoral Three
When Jane Tennay (Cindy Boudreau) is killed by one of her many lovers, three young ladies—Ginny (Boudreau, again), Sandra (Sandy Key) and Nancy (Michele Marie)—discover several important facts. First off, they are all offspring of the famous spy. Secondly, they are all sisters. Thirdly, they stand to inherit $1 million apiece from the estate. Fourthly, in order to claim their cash, they have to find out who killed their mother. Finally, if they fail, their fortune goes to the family's spurious shyster. As they jet set across the country, it's clear that someone doesn't want them to succeed. While there are many suspects, it will be up these amateur detectives to find the real villain.

The Evidence

In the battle between Chesty Morgan and Doris Wishman, there are/were no winners. Everyone involved—the cast, the crew, the audience, the distributors—had to suffer through a shoot so dispiriting that the final result plays like an unfilled suicide note. Actually, it's a bit funnier than that, and viewed through the right kind of recreational pharmaceuticals, quite compelling. Morgan is one of the most uncomfortable women ever to grace a Grindhouse screen. Her accent was so thick that all her dialogue had to be dubbed, and even then Wishman had to make sure most of the conversations occurred in cutaway because the technology for such exact matching wasn't affordable back then. With limited takes and no budget for reshoots, you basically got a naked anomaly, and scads of silly edits. The end result was a pair of cult classics, films that become landmarks because of how amazingly far outside the mainstream they fall.

Of the three here, Double Agent 73 is perhaps the most well known. It's also the most surreal. Morgan must massage her breast about 50 times during this silly spy "thriller," the camera click sound effect adding insult to already established insanity. Every costume change brings another example of polyester psychedelia and her bras defy description. One can imagine the jugged Miss making her way to Fredrick's of Hollywood (think Victoria's Secret with less self esteem) and asking for something from the "Industrial" section. When forced to "make love" in order to trap her prey, Chesty has one patented move: the shoulder rub. Like a BBQ pitmaster getting his seasoning deep into the meat muscle, she works her co-stars upper arms like a Food Network host. There is very little flesh and flesh in this film. Chesty can barely manage to make her way to the bed, let alone explore its erotic delights. Instead, she stumbles around, makes inappropriate facial gestures, and winds up winning us over with her complete lack of competence.

Deadly Weapons is even more miserable, but in a demented, drinking game kind of way. That Crystal is an established business executive is funny enough, but her office, which appears to be the living room of some lower Manhattan walk-up, is hilarious. Once she turns assassin, things get a bit…bungled. We never experience the real joy of seeing a certified physical oddity laying waste to worthless men with her teats. Instead, Chesty acts like her costars have mange and looks like she'd rather scream than allow them near her pendulous moneymakers. It all plays out within a wild domain of bad interior design, shots of shoes, and fluttering flash eyelashes. All of which makes The Immoral Three such a huge letdown. The actress hired to "replace" Morgan (this ginger dame is no Agent 73) is inert, the other babes are equally dull, and the story often makes no sense. At any given moment, unnamed characters are introduced, sloppy sex scenes are initiated, and then a gloved hand steps in and out comes the fake blood.

Even worse, the visual aspect of the actresses leaves a lot to be desired. While Ms. Boudreau gets the most screen time, she's also saddled with a sad excuse for a tan (probably spray on, though her modeled skin suggests too much time in the South Florida sun) and the personality of a dead shrimp. Her cohorts aren't much better. The brunette basically plays the biz-nitch…and that's it. As for the other red head, her enormous forehead does most of the heavy lifting. Unlike Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73, which can rely on Morgan to motivate a quantum of caring, these gals are groan-worthy. They make both The Pom Pom Girls and The Naughty Stewardesses look like XXX superstars. With Wishman behind the scenes doing the same skillful shuffle between competency and craziness, the results remind us of why we fell in love with this legitimate filmmaking legend in the first place. Throughout the '60s, she showed us a world filled with horny broads, haggard he-men, and no full frontal. Chesty changed all that. The Immoral Three whizzes it away.

When it was announced that Something Weird Video was going to reissue some of its titles in the Blu-ray format, there was a certain skepticism from the fanbase. After all, could these considered cheapies really stand up to the scrutiny of the HD format? Well, the answer is an unqualified "yes." From the moment we see the Juri Productions logo at the front of each film with its cartoon tiara, we recognize the fun in the upgrade. Offered in 1.78:1, 1080p widescreen, the films look really good. Deadly Weapons is the best, if only because Double Agent 73 contains several sequences that were clearly shot out of focus and then saved to secure a longer running time. Immoral isn't bad, but it's too sunny and soft. Still, the colors pop and the details (OMG! Look at Chesty's veins!) are prevalent. Sound is another issue all together. Because these movies were dubbed afterward, the dialogue is direct and in your face. The urban jazz scoring sounds good, but you can tell this was a post-production process. The DTS-HD Master Audio mono does a good job with it all. As for added content, Something Weird gives us a collection of Wishman trailers and some poster art. That's all. Nothing new for Blu.

Closing Statement

It's a shame that Ms. Morgan has decided to shun the limelight of 2012. While it's clear why she would want to (how many time can you answer the same breast-oriented inquiries), she deserves to know how beloved and, in some cases, worshiped she is. Yes, it's an unusual kind of fame, one forged out of her freakish figure, but it's nothing to be embarrassed about. It fact, Chesty Morgan may be the greatest example of a film fluke ever. She had no discernible skill set, she didn't have an Uschi Digard level of eroticism, and her short tenure in celluloid argues for the first two flaws. Yet for many, she's the cover girl for carnality, an illustration of what a 73" chest will get you in America. Deadly Weapons, Double Agent 73, and their awkward offshoot The Immortal Three may be nothing more than tease and sleaze, but with Chesty Morgan in the lead, they become legitimate curiosities.

The Verdict

Not guilty. Not good, but definitely worth a leer…sorry, look.

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