My Brother's Wife (1966) and Indecent Desires (1967) from Brainscan

The righteous folks down at Something Weird Video put together two of Doris Wishman's strange ones into a nice neat package.  They are My Brother's Wife and Indecent Desires.  I am nothing resembling an expert on the subject, but from what I can gather these are a couple of movies made in the mid-60's as part of a collection of cheap nudies to come out of New York.  A small group of actresses appeared in them.  Some have entered cult status and, by what is shown in these two movies, I can see why.  The three who show up and show off in this couple of movies are June Roberts in My Brother's Wife, and Sharon Kent and Jackie Richards in Indecent Desires.  The incomparable Darlene Bennett (BTW, the name of a website and a Yahoo group) and her sister, Dawn, also appear in MBW.  They keep their clothes on, even though Darlene gives up major cleavage.

 
My Brother's Wife
 

My Brother's Wife is oddly made...jump cuts to objects and scatter pans that leave you wondering who the hell edited this thing ... whereas indecent Desires is just plain odd.  MBW is a sordid tale of greed and lust that does not end very well at all.  You could see it happening down at the trailer park with people who look very much like the ones in the movie.  The only exposure is from the perky June Roberts in a scene that goes from her undressing in front of a mirror (Ms Wishman loved to shoot scenes with mirrors) to her standing 'round in a black see-through nightie (Ms Wishman loved black see-through nighties) berating her chubby old hubby about his lack of interest in her. 

Indecent Desires

Indecent Desires is a quasi-voodoo story about a mega-loser who a) finds a doll, plastic variety; b) imagines a comely lass played by Sharon Kent is said doll; c) finds a ring that for reasons left to the viewer has the magic power to make whatever the loser does to the doll happen to Sharon's character.  Sharon spends the first couple of minutes and several others showing off a kick-ass body.  Part of the reason she gets nekkid a time or two is that as the loser feels up the doll, she feels him feeling up.  Or something like that.  So she strips to investigate.  She also lolls around in black nighties (see above, regarding Ms. Wishman's tastes in such things).  There is a decided roughness to this movie...it is popularly known as a roughie ... because the loser beats and burns and finally breaks the head off the doll and Sharon's character feels it all.  Not at all attractive to my eyes.  But you FF through those and get to the goodies and all is well.

Jackie Richards plays a character named Babbs.  She is an older brunette with a face that is plain and a body from her rumpus on up that ain't half bad ... but those legs are a tragedy.  Short and stubby and riddled with cellulite.  She spends a couple minutes nekkid exercising in front of a mirror (ibid) and you can bet it is the only exercise those legs of her saw all year. 

One more thing about Indecent Desires: Doris Wishman seemed to have a good idea about the audience for her movies.  In one of the Sharon Kent scenes, the mega-loser guy imagines a tryst with her, during which she looks straight at the camera.  Doris must have known a fair proportion of those watching this opus magnum imagined the same scenario.  And then the Jackie Richards exercise scene has her look into the camera as she does a couple of toe-touching bend-forward routines.  There is a peeping-Tom edge to
the scene that is unmistakeable.  Kind of a genius, that Doris. 

One of the chuckles in watching these two movies together is to notice they were both shot in the same apartment.  Uh huh.  Just about every scene that involves an apartment or an office is shot from the very space place.  Notice, in particular, that the mirror in front of which June Roberts strips is the same as that in front of which Jackie Richards strips.  Gotta love it. 

So the stories are stupid.  But who cares?  At this time in the history of American cinema, the New York group was about the only source of nudity in film. And some of the gals these movies made famous, June Roberts and Sharon Kent for example, are more than sorta okay looking.  We should be thankful the movies were made in the first place and we should thank the boys down at Something Weird for getting them out on DVD.