Double Agent 73 (1974)

Excellent but underrated film

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Underworld drug king Toplar is flooding the market with low-grade heroin. Agent 99 gets a bit too close to the truth, but manages to gasp out a clue as to the identity of Toplar: he has a scar.This film was made back to back with "Deadly Weapons", so it must be compared to that film. Has Chesty Morgan done better here? Maybe. Has Doris Wishman? I would say yes. While still a bad movie and full of cheese, this is probably a slight improvement on "Weapons"... although the story is a tad confusing for the first half.The premise is also a bit hard to believe. They make no effort to explain how the camera is inserted, or where the lens is. We are not given adequate explanation on how Agent 73 finds the documents so fast or why the bad guys insist on catching her the moment she does...

I had heard this was an unbelievable movie before I actually watched it, but even that didn't prepare me for what I witnessed when I sat down to watch it. Where should I start? Well, I'll start with star Chesty Morgan. She is an extremely unlikely movie heroine. She's not very attractive, for one thing. Although she was in her 30s when she appeared in this movie, her face looks about 15 years older than her actual age. Then there are those gigantic... well, you know. I did not find the constant revealing of them to be erotic in any way. They look grotesque and unnatural.The way that the movie was filmed just makes the experience even worse. It was obviously shot silently, and director Doris Wishman tries in vain to hide this by long periods of time with no talking. And when people do talk, most of the time it's shot in a way where you don't see the speaker's face and moving lips. Wishman also brings in next to no production values to the movie, resulting in such things as a hospital sequence shot in someone's house. But the biggest sin Wishman makes is that the movie is so boring. There's almost no plot, and even with just a 73 minute running time it goes on and on past the breaking point. This movie is a chore to sit through

Doris Wishman followed up the immensely successful Deadly Weapons with this all-you-can-eat lunatic buffet. Ivan Toplar and his gang are flooding the market with bad smack. Who is the only secret agent with the stuff to bring down these slimebags? Burlesque grotesque Chesty Morgan, the girl who makes Candy Samples look like an ironing board! As Jane Genet, Agent 73, Chesty has her vacation at the nudist camp (!)--dig the hilarious cuts between literary-minded Chesty and a puppy--interrupted by this little assignment. So she puts on her red-and-black rhinestone-studded platforms and hits the streets, eliminating the bad guys and taking photos with a tiny spy camera (complete with flash) implanted in her humongous left breast. The deaths are violent, and the victim's last sights are shaky, blurred shots of Chesty's mountainous mammaries. What a way to go.This violent, uproariously crazed excuse for Chesty to unsnap her bra and maul those monsters (FLASH-CLICK!) is like Deadly Weapons ratcheted to new heights of inanity (if such a thing could be possible). Who better to carry out a top-secret mission than the most conspicuous person in the world? And if her physical appearance weren't eliciting enough looks, the peroxide-wigged Miss Morgan's wardrobe is even frillier and sillier than before--the prime offender being a white-on-red polka-dotted number straight from Clarabelle's closet. Chesty's dubbed voice has a slightly harder edge this time around, but her acting has, thankfully, not improved. Her face is expressionless for ninety percent of the running time; occasionally she smiles, as if being ordered to at gunpoint, and Band-Aid removal brings a grimace of vague bewilderment that must be seen to be disbelieved. Though the dialogue is mostly in sync, Doris Wishman still indulges in her trademark cut-aways and obsessive close-ups of feet (giving us great views of the star's endless arsenal of platforms and spike heels). Then, in an unexpected "poetic" shot, backlit Chesty holds her ruffled robe aloft and whirls for no discernible reason. And of course, the car chase, where Chesty and her pursuer drive the legal limit as the film is sped up.A third Chesty epic was planned but never made, since Wishman found the star unbearably difficult to work with. Even more unfortunate is the fact that, after working with Fellini, the Polish sight gag--I mean, STAR--never made another film, and has since completely disappeared (how could she hide?). Some say that Chesty (Lillian) is now living in Florida, but...who knows? O Chesty, where art thou?

Super spy Jane, sporting a 73 inch bust, a blonde wig, and some of the most outrageous outfits(outfits that would make Cher cringe), is hot on the trail of exposing a drug ring and capturing its drug czar. To do this, she must go undercover as a regular gal out for guys to buy her drinks and the like. That's right...she is suppose to be a normal girl just out at the club, zoo, or any old place. Not quite. She sticks out like a sore thumb!...well, okay, two sore thumbs! This film carries on the tradition of sleazy exploitation captured so nicely in Doris Wishman's and Chesty Morgan's first collaboration, Deadly Weapons. Actually, this film is a lot better. It has a bigger budget, some better acting(not much better), and a better story. Chesty still can't act. Her acting range goes from quietly disinterested to disinterested. She has no facial expression at all except for one scene where she pulls tape off of one of her breasts. Maybe Wishman wanted realism and used a real adhesive. This time around Chesty has to remove her blouse and bra to take secret pictures with the camera that has been implanted in one of her breasts. She takes many pictures. Big surprise. The big difference in this film, however, is that Wishman has some fairly brutal killings and shows a good bit of gore. She pays an obvious homage to Alfred Hitchcock and the Psycho shower scene. Also, for my money, the second best thing after Morgan(alright, the third best thing) is the music used in the film. What a great soundtrack...it was lively and funny. It was an action-type score played over and over that really made the action on the screen seem all the more farcial. Kudos to Ms. Wishman, Ms. Morgan, and company. Thanks for the mammaries...I mean memories!