World Premier Of Doris Wishman's Satan Was A Lady March 9th, 2001

So, when I last visited with Doris, she was working on a film called Satan Was A Lady. She had entered into a partnership with a producer named Beau Gillespie. This is the first time that Doris has ever worked with a producer. She has always been a one-woman show. Having a producer can lift a lot of responsibilities off your shoulders, but a producer can sometimes try to have a hand in the artistic control department. It was going to be interesting to see what Doris ended up with.

The world premiere of Satan Was A Lady took place on March 9th, 2001 at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City as part of the New York Underground Film Festival. My friend David, who is the web master at www.doriswishman.com, invited me to the premier and I accepted the invitation. When I met David in New York City, the first thing we did was take the subway to where Doris was staying. We found Doris in night clothing, in bed. She wasn't feeling too well. She ate something that didn't agree with her. Also present was Michael Bowen, Doris' biographer and the gentleman who is kind enough to accompany Doris when she attends these kinds of things. Also present was a friend named Sylvia who helps these guys navigate NYC when they're in town.

I sat on the bed at Doris' feet. I was bursting with excitement about seeing this world premier, and I asked Doris "Aren't you excited?!" After all, the last time she premiered a movie was in 1983. Well, she was none too excited. She went on to warn us of how bad it was and how it didn't turn out to her expectations and so on. She also said she may not attend the premier, maybe due to illness, and admittedly wondered out loud if the illness wasn't psychosomatic. Could it be true that we were going to be disappointed? Well, Doris doesn't like much of anything she has done, so why should this be any different? It didn't necessarily mean anything.

Now, it could have been the two pints of Bass that I had just before I met David, but I suddenly thought this was the perfect moment to ask a burning question that I had. There are two porno movies in existence that many trash scholars have analyzed and attributed to Ms. Wishman. There is nothing quite like a Doris Wishman movie. To say she is unique is an understatement. So, it seemed unlikely that these scholars would be mistaken. Doris has historically denied any involvement with these movies whatsoever. The name of one of these movies is...Satan Was A Lady. Hmmmm. So my question was, are you aware that there are two porno movies widely attributed to you and that one of them is called Satan Was A Lady? It was then that it occurred to me that I might have just asked a very touchy question. However, Doris jumped right in and said she was involved with the one movie, but she got scared and didn't feel right about the hard-core sex. So she handed the movie over to someone else and washed her hands of it. Uh, but this happened twice. She stated that she had to tell the producer of the new Satan Was A Lady about the porno of the same name to be fair to him. So, let the record show that Doris is now admitting some involvement with these two movies. The other movie is called Come With Me My Love.

Doris and me in the lobby before the world premier.

Well, more chitchat about things Wishman and eventually it was time to take off for the premier. We hung out in the lobby of the theatre for a while and the producer, Beau, and the star of the movie, Honey Lauren showed up. A New York movie critic/fan, and Barry, a gentlemen making a film about Doris' life joined the group. Doris' mood seemed to be improving and I decided it was a good time to snap some pictures. I did this the last time I met her. She insists on being photographed in sunglasses, which she keeps in her purse. Well, this doesn't make for photographing spontaneous moments. So, occasionally, I'll accidentally forget and take a picture of her without her glasses. She immediately shakes her finger at me and attacks me like a wildcat. I beg forgiveness. The next moment she has her glasses on and is mugging for the camera. God I love that woman.

It's showtime and our little entourage gets to go into the theatre first and pick out our seats. We take seats in the first and second row. The audience starts to pile in. After most of the theatre is full, I turn around and John Waters is taking a seat a few rows behind me. Rudely, I grab my camera and snap a photo of him sitting down. I believe Doris went back and talked to him for a moment before the premier. Honey went back and said hello at some point, too. Before the show began, I asked Honey if she was excited, and she wasn't very excited either. She admitted, however, that how people involved in a movie feel about it has very little to do with how a movie is received by the population at large.

"I hope you have as much fun watching the movie as we did making it."

The theatre was completely full now. The MC addressed the audience and introduced Doris. Doris went up on-stage and said something she worked out with Honey: "I hope you have as much fun watching the movie as we did making it." Now, this would seem like just the most gracious thing to say possible. However, given the conversation I overheard between Honey and Doris, I wondered if Doris wasn't trying to communicate some other feelings regarding the movie. My suspicions would take on more validity later, after the film showed.

Doris shot the movie on 35 mm, which is great. Unfortunately, they only provided a Beta copy of the movie to the theatre. Still, the picture quality was not bad.

Satan starts off with a bang. It has a very impressive opening title sequence with fireballs and everything. And, there are shots of Honey, whipping the bloody back of some poor submissive. Now that's the way to say hello. The story begins. Honey lives with a musician who is a young lounge lizard extraordinaire. He provides the live music for the strip bar where Honey is employed. The bartender at said bar is a butch lesbian who occasionally propositions the strippers. The bar owner is always trying to get into Honey's pants, but she's faithful to her no good musician live-in, even though all they do is fight. Well, faithful if you don't count the bar patrons she takes to hotel rooms for a bit of sex-for-hire. The musician, real life musician Glyn Styler, provided the music for this movie. Quite a few sequences of the movie take place while Glyn is singing some hilarious lounge song. The audience was howling. Who can really explain a Doris Wishman movie in writing? Honey blackmails a rich white guy, played by Edge. She has an incriminating picture of him. I think it might have been this guy that Honey was whipping in the opening sequence. She extorts $25,000 from the guy and quits her job. But her loser live-in finds the money in a drawer and gambles it away by stopping in somewhere where they throw dice up against the wall. Honey starts showing a dark side when she stabs a fellow stripper to death after hearing her former boss extoll the virtues of the other stripper. The owner to Honey: "You ain't so pretty anymore." Honey to the other stripper after she stabs her in the face: "You ain't so pretty anymore." The body count starts there and increases throughout the movie. Honey later tries to blackmail another $50,000 out of the rich white guy, but she also starts up a covert relationship with the rich white guy's son. The plot thickens. And perhaps the greatest thing about the movie is that someone is killed with an ashtray, again (this is a Wishman trademark).

This movie was engrossing from beginning to end. It was, indeed, a Wishman movie. Some of the actors were really good, and some of the actors were not so good. It was a bizarre mix of characters. The best way that I can describe this movie is to say that it seemed to me to be a Jim Jarmusch sort of film. The production is minimalist and the interaction between the characters is the focus. However, this all takes place in another world. It takes place in a Doris Wishman world frozen in time, where strippers try to make better lives for themselves, men are no good and abusive, the women are no good and can be evil, and lounge music provides the soundtrack to your life. It's a crazy world for the next 90 minutes. People will say things to each other that you would never expect them to. You will stare in amazement as someone sincerely says the most inappropriate and unexpected thing that you could ever imagine that person saying in that moment. There were many outbursts of heavy laughter by the audience throughout the movie.

What about those famous Wishman cutaways to inanimate objects during the heat of discourse? Present and accounted for. These provided a lot of laughs from the audience, which led me to believe that there were many devoted Wishman fans in the audience who were familiar with this hallmark. The audience cheered and laughed during these cutaways. And then there were the hysterical lyrics to the lounge songs. All in all, the audience had a lot to enjoy. The rich white guy's son got laughs every time he opened his mouth. I think the intent was for this character to be fairly normal, but his mild demeanor, a constant deer-trapped-in-headlights look, and his insanely inappropriate dialog with Honey had everybody howling. Maybe this is a good point to say that I don't think that Doris understands why people appreciate her films. A lot of what is humorous in this movie was done intentionally. However, Doris is not trying to make a complete comedy here, even though it played that way. I heard her saying, "Now why are they laughing at that?", for instance, after the rich guy's son uttered some line. In Doris' mind, the characters in her movies are interacting in a way that she thinks is normal. These interactions don't always seem normal to other people. There's a disconnect there. And what is even more bizarre, and this is difficult to explain, but, the dialog sometimes comes full circle where you realize that a character has just said something that someone in real life might actually say, rather than the kind of thing that would be written into a movie script. Doris is puzzled by some of the reactions she gets to her movies.

Satan Was A Lady is a Doris Wishman film. It has sex and violence. We get to see a whole lot of Honey and the other female costars. Even if you are not a Wishman fan, I could see people who like offbeat, independent cinema enjoying this a lot. There's nothing else quite like a visit to Wishman world. Everything is surreal.

The film is over and there's thunderous applause. Doris, Honey the star, and Beau the producer are welcomed to the stage to field questions. The three hold hands. Then, Doris, being Doris, stated how much she and Beau fought, and how she threatened to take her name off the movie. I think Honey mentioned that she walked off the set three times. Doris goes on to portray a Vietnam type situation. I would think that that would probably not be the kind of thing that Honey and Beau expected Doris to tell the public at the premier! Still, they remained holding hands and Beau continued to smile. After spending time with Doris, I don't think anything surprises these guys about her, and they handled it well. Sometimes what Doris says and does is not unlike something one of her characters would say or do; something completely unexpected.

Honey, Doris and Beau take questions.

Doris fielded a few questions from the audience. The first question was, can you buy the soundtrack on CD? Well, the answer is no. Beau told me later that the artist doesn't really want to make this music available. Big mistake. I can't see anybody seeing the movie and not wanting the soundtrack. It's great. She fielded a question about whether she was working on another movie and she said yes. She was reluctant to share the title. Well, Doris did not want to reveal the name of her next movie (the title is great) so she decided to give the name of the shot-on-video feature she completed before Satan Was A Lady. But she acted shy about saying the name out loud. Eventually she whispered it in Honey's ear, and Honey announced it: Dildo Heaven. On my previous trip to Florida to meet Doris, she mentioned the title again and again as if it meant nothing. So go figure the sudden modesty. I think Dildo Heaven is being prepared as a video release as I write this.

Me and the Prince Of Puke.

Show's over and some fans lined up to get an autograph. John Waters sauntered down the aisle and told Doris that he enjoyed the movie just as much as the first Wishman movie he ever saw. John got next to Doris for a few pictures and then he just hung back while activity swirled around Doris. So, I found myself standing within a few feet of John. He was just hanging out there silently. Nobody was talking to him or bothering him. So, I just struck up a conversation with him. He seemed to really have enjoyed himself. We talked about Doris and some other things. He was very funny, sprinkling the conversation with his witty quips. At one point he referred to Doris as Goddard in drag. It was a real pleasure to talk to him. He treated me like we were long time friends. Before he left, I asked for a photo op with him, and he graciously complied. And then John just left by himself. No fanfare with his arrival or departure. He just showed up as a fan and quietly left as a fan.

The audience filed out and Doris and the entourage mingled in the lobby areas for a while with some industry types. More pictures were taken. Then, the entourage walked a couple of blocks to eat Japanese.

Me and the very beautiful Honey Lauren. I wish you could have seen the pants she was wearing.

I got to talk to both Honey and Beau about the movie during dinner. Beau seemed happy at the way the movie was received. I asked him if in his mind it was a comedy and he assured me that it was. In talking to him, he seems to be a Doris fan and has a handle on what it is he's involved in. As for Doris, she maintained her indifference to the movie. I would think, though, that deep down inside she had to be happy that at least the film was so well received by the audience. That would have to be a relief, I would think. Well, Beau doesn't have a distributor for the movie yet. It's a tough racket, and it's tough to get someone to distribute your movie. If Beau can recoup the money he put into the movie, perhaps there will be more movies to premier. If the movie would garner some level of success, perhaps there would be other backers willing to step up to the plate to finance Doris' vision. All we can do is hope for the best.

If you would like to view a few more pictures from that evening, click here.

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