Doris Wishman’s ‘Hideout in the Sun’

Damn but the late Doris Wishman was a cinematic saint. She can entertain with a random shot of feet, or whisk us away on clouds of craziness with just a moment of badly processed post-production dubbing. In a motion-picture oeuvre that contained such breathless exploitation classics as Bad Girls Go to Hell, Another Day, Another Man, Gentleman Prefer Nature Girls, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, Nude on the Moon, Double Agent 73, and Deadly Weapons, she never once established a single shred of celluloid logic. Her efforts frequently felt like fever dreams produced by too many Rob Roys, an excess of butt steaks, and untold hours sniffing sweat-accented Jean Nate. With stories centering around taboos and their imminent busting together with copious amounts of carnality, Wishman forged a name for herself in a realm where gals were typically given nothing more than a chauvinistic smack on the can. Later on, she would explore the outer reaches of the risqué, dominating the violence-tinged “Roughie” before heading into full-blown hardcore porno mode. But there was always an innocence in what this grindhouse pioneer proposed, a subtext that suggested that, no matter the circumstances, our heroines were genuinely good girls corrupted by the pasty, paternalistic forces of the male-dominated universe. In many ways, Wishman wasn’t just the first feminist—she was Bella Abzug with a Bolex.

It’s a typical sunny day in a pre-’60s Miami. Duke, a dastardly criminal with robbery on his mind, cons his less than felonious brother Steve into holding up a local banking institution. They argue about it a lot while on the way. The heist goes off without a hitch, but their planned rendezvous to retrieve another getaway car ends in engine trouble. Desperate, they carjack dishy dame Dorothy. Duke wants a ride to somewhere safe while he works out travel arrangement to Cuba with a bewildered boat captain. Steve is more interested in something soft and sensual. When they arrive at Dorothy’s Country Club, it turns out to be a nudist colony. The thugs are initially horrified. Crime is one thing, but bare bodies??? While Duke stays in the room and frets like a ferret, Steve is invited to become one of the many sun-worshippers enjoying the clean living and healthy lifestyle. As numerous naked people frolic and gad about, our potential paramours become much, much closer. Of course, big brother just wants his trip to pre-Castro country, and is brandishing a gun to get it. But when love blooms, especially in a place where wholesomeness and natural beauty thrive, evil cannot win. This is one Hideout in the Sun that may end one goon’s larcenous career – and save another one’s soul.

The lawless on the lam narrative, however, is less than successful. Duke is so highly and tightly wound he gives off metaphysical five o’clock shadow sparks. Steve, on the other hand, is like a rump roast reanimated with Brylcream. Even in a watery setting, his slicked-back barber hair is an Exxon Valdez waiting to happen. When actor Earl Bauer turns on his heartlight, however, he’s about as suave as a kidney stone. He should be playing a strip-club owner, not a wussed-out armed robbery wannabe with a penchant to acquiesce to his brother’s every wish. The laughable Cuban subplot, featuring non-Hispanic actors in full Jose Jimenez mode, will prickle your PC penchants, and the general lack of looks among the performers and local color will have you wondering what granddad saw in such shoddy sexuality. Of course, it’s important to remember the role exploitation played in cinema’s coming of age. Without films like Hideout in the Sun, movies made to challenge the status quo when it came to potential subject matter, we wouldn’t have had the ’70s post-modern explosion in film. They took the lumps while Hollywood and its independent cousins reaped the lax rules rewards. Doris Wishman was doubly important in that she proved a woman’s commercial viability among a very male-eccentric marketplace. While Hideout in the Sun may seem docile by today’s standard, it was positively shocking in 1960, for reasons both in front of and behind the camera.

Oddly enough, this title is not released by longtime Wishman supporters, Something Weird Video. Instead, Retro Seduction Cinema, apart of Pop Cinema, is handling the release, and they do a damn fine job. Offered up in a two disc Deluxe edition, we get two different versions of the film (1.33:1 full screen – the proper OAR – and a newly cropped 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen edition), and it looks very good, even if there are abundant age defects and edit issues. One has to remember that a limited number of prints were struck of these demographically specific movies, and to find one in pristine shape is next to impossible. After traveling around the country for years, suffering the snips and clips of various community standards, that a copy exists÷period – is pretty amazing. Thanks to a digital revamp, the colors are bright, the details deliberate, and the skin tones nice and pasty. It definitely recalls flesh peddling of the early exploitation era.

Sadly, the sonic situation is the same as well. The Dolby Digital Mono is maintained expertly, the title song a hilarious mishmash of jerkwad jazz and lounge lizarding. As for bonus features, we get a commentary with Wishman biographer Michael Bowen (good, if a tad to centered on the man himself), an audio-only interview with the director herself (classic!) and a talk with grindhouse producer extraordinaire David F. Friedman (too short, but sensational nonetheless). Along with postcards from a nudist colony, a 1960 newsreel, a Retro-Seduction Cinema trailer vault, and a wonderful booklet containing articles and Q&A, this is an excellent digital package.

One day, Doris Wishman will be celebrated as the evocative, experimental, avant-garde directorial diva she clearly was. Until then, those of us already in the know can settle in with a selection of her notorious No Wave classics. Thanks to DVD, we can now add Hideout in the Sun to her legacy’s list. It’s a solid sunbathing enchantment.