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Double Agent 73 (1974)

Dir: Doris Wishman

They're back!! Doris and Chesty...They're back!!

Following the success of the cult mini gem "Deadly Weapons", the first lady of Exploitation Doris Wishman again teamed up with her star Chesty Morgan (though supposedly tensions were forever strained between them) to bring the joy of mammary madness to the salivating masses once more.

Chesty, everyone's favourite Polish export (birth name Lillian Wilczkowsky), stars as Jane Genet, a ruthless Secret Agent. Agent 73 that is…supposedly like her chest measurements (though Ms Morgan's breast size was forever changing in the publicity to her films).
She is called in off her vacation by her Boss, the exotically named Bill, following the death of Agent 99 (what measurements his code number were taken off I dare not think) who was murdered while on a dangerous mission. Luckily, before he croaked, 99 whispered the name 'Ivan Toplar' a criminal mastermind who is flooding America with low-grade heroin
All they know about Toplar is that he has a scar somewhere on the side of his face!

So Jane is sent out to track down, and take pictures of, the mysterious Mr Toplar's goons in hopes of discovering who this evil genius is. But mysteriously she has to be back by 10pm on March 11th (the hysterical reasoning behind this is revealed later on…and it's a classic!).

She is armed with stock Secret Agent gadgets like exploding lipstick and a sparking ring (no jokes please!) and above all….a secret camera hidden in her huge left breast!
Plus, she is also kitted out in some of the most eye straining and in fact just plain awful, outfits ever seen by mortal Man. Her green check flares have the power to take the sight of those unprepared for their appearance…Consider yourself warned!

As she meets and promptly bumps off the goons (snapping away with her XL17 titty-cam of course) she falls for the dashing (*chuckle*) Agent 'Atlanta 7', otherwise known as Tim…..

From the very start Doris signposts the level of sophistication we will be sticking with by having shots of Chesty lifting up her mighty left breast (which omits a loud camera shutter noise) edited into the garish credits all accompanied by some funky 'Secret Agent Jazz'.

Fans of Wishman will be pleased to see her trademark camera angles in full force during the ill-fated Agent 99's search of a house, an overly extended sequence consisting mostly of close-ups of feet, where we suddenly zoom, shakily pan and go out of focus with wild abandon. Full marks to Cinematographer Yuri Haviv for this visual masterclass in how not to operate a camera (though he did improve mightily four years later when he shot the Grindhouse classic "I Spit on your Grave").

Doris also fills the film with her other trademark technical trick, that of homing in on table lamps, walls and Chesty's cleavage as often as possible whenever people are talking. A less than subtle way of covering up the fact the dialogue was all added later and this avoided too many lip synch hassles. Let us count the ways that we love Doris!

Given the fact this is a Secret Agent adventure Doris would indeed by amiss if she did not deliver the high-octane action! And in a certain kind of cheap 'n' cheerful way, she does. Sort of.
Pulling out all the stops we have a crudely speeded up and decidedly ragged car chase, speeded up fist fights (that play like they should have those 60's TV "Batman" 'BASH' and 'KAPOW' sound effect graphics on them) a thrilling sequence where a man decides to escape a car by jogging very slowly down the middle of the street and many scenes of bad guys with hysterically slow reflexes being despatched by Chesty's plodding 'lethal moves'.
All these action/technical highs come together in the sequence where a goon suddenly attacks Jane and she has to defend herself by snapping away at the man's face with her 'camera' breast! All filmed in the slowest of slow motion and scored with mind twistingly distorted wailing sounds. This is what 'Trash' cinema is all about people. Rejoice!

Secret Agent films all need exotic locations of course. Switzerland, Africa, Brazil…Paris, London, Rome. Or, in this case, some rather run-down American streets and a few garish rooms that look like they were rented from the local '2 Dollars A Night' fire traps then quickly decorated in a style that can only be described as '70's design hell'!
As always money on complex sets and location filming is kept to a minimum via crafty use of bare bones/2 people set-ups and stock footage. A classic example is a scene where Jane is supposedly in a crowded disco but all she is doing is chatting to one actor in front of a truly bizarre flapping sheet of gold, with disco lights shining on it, mixed with stock footage of some "Saturday Night Fever" type dancing fools.
And fans of "Deadly Weapons" will be happy to see the same plane stock footage used in that resurfacing here to convey Jane's jet-setting way of life.

Knowing she has to cram in as many close-ups of Chesty's pendulous, blue veined boobies as possible, Wishman spends as little time as possible on connecting scenes and plot background.
A classic example of this is a female friend of Jane's who for some reason comes around to have a shower. She is introduced in one scene and given 2 words of dialogue before being knifed two dialogue free scenes later! The killer then leaves the bathroom only for Chesty (who proceeds to pour on the emotions of seeing her dead friend by looking like she has a mild case of indigestion) to appear in the room from the same door the very next second, otherwise oblivious to what just happened!
Yet despite this almost total absence of 'padding' the film still seems to move at the pace of a lame, blind, old man with a heart condition and really bad fitting shoes.

"Double Agent 73" is slightly more violent than "Deadly Weapons" with the cheaply executed but bloody shower murder (with brief full frontal nudity) being the highlight. Other deaths include a broken bottle attack (though that is let down by the total absence of a single wound on the man's face afterwards) and the first and last death by ice cube ingestion!

Acting wise it's of course a stinker all round (with one particularly awful actress during a love scene pouting directly into the camera not once, but twice!), but as with nearly all of these cinematic 'Trash' triumphs the 'school play' performances somehow enhance the viewing pleasure. And anyway, even De Niro would be blown off the screen by Chesty's bountiful bouncers so the point is a pointless one.
And talking of Morgan's mountains, look out for the worlds most unobservant man who fails to notice (despite kissing her gargantuan glands) that Jane has crept into his bed in place of his rather more normally endowed lover!

All this fun is wrapped up in a script packed with cheesy lines and unintentional laughs.
When a wistful Tim 'thinks' about Jane the soundtrack is filled with his deep thoughts…
"I can't get Agent 73...er….Jane, out of my mind. She's a beautiful woman but then I've had a hundred beautiful women, as beautiful as she….But there is something different about her". The cry of "no shit Sherlock" would seem appropriate here as those breasts are most certainly NOT a subtle mystery difference between Jane any other woman he has rubbed his porn star moustache against!
And one line of dialogue, when Jane appears in a skin-tight black silk outfit with lacy openings up the side, is perfectly attuned to what the audience is thinking as Chesty looms into view with Tim declaring "Why are you dressed like this"! Indeed!

So what we have here is yet another mini gem of shoe-string budget Exploitation from late, great Doris Wishman that does all that is expected of it. True those expectations may not have been that big in the first place…but give me this kind of 'Trash' passion to a soulless Hollywood money eating creation any day! The final image of a plane coming into land super-imposed over Chesty's chest and as such seemingly doomed to vanish into the dark crevice of her bosom is something to be savoured…Just like these films.