The Amazing Transplant (1971)

Simply Perfect

Powerful

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a movie about a man's penis, however that penis is never shown (what would Lacan say?). It falls into the category of "roughie," which is to say that the plot makes it sound nastier than what we actually see on the screen. Essentially, Arthur, a young virginal man who envies his friend's sexual prowess arranges to have the friend's penis transplanted to his own body when the friend conveniently dies of a rare virus. Having heard that his friend was really into women with gold earrings, Arthur finds that he can no longer control himself when any woman wears gold earrings, and he assaults them, rapes them, and sometimes kills them (it's not clear why he kills some and not others, except that some of them have to survive to tell the tale or the plot doesn't work). Of course, this being a smut film, all the women Arthur encounters wearing gold earrings are of course young and pretty. The rapes are also fairly tame, even by roughie standards, which I tend to attribute to the director, Doris Wishman (an actual woman as opposed to the many pseudonymous women in the business at the time). She also uses the movie as a means of exploring the many ways women respond to rape – some of them blame themselves, some of them are angry at the world, some of them decide they actually liked it after the fact, etc. She also touches on some interesting questions of the then-illegal status of abortion, as the doctor who performs this mad operation is an illegal abortion-doctor. Of course, Doris was no feminist, and this film is today mostly a goofy example of smut from a pre-penetration era, but there isn't another like it, even in the oeuvre of Edward D Wood.

Perhaps a trained psychiatrist could help me understand why three of the films I have recently rented have had to do with what I can only call homicidal genitalia. First there was "One Eyed Monster," in which the alien-possessed wiener of Ron Jeremy goes on a murderous spree. Then there was "Teeth," about a teenage woman with the condition known as "vagina dentata." And now...1970's "The Amazing Transplant"! The director's credit in this film is given as "Louis Silverman," but the picture's use of unsynchronized dialogue, meaningless shots of inanimate objects, horrendous acting, bad fashions, garish decor, sloppy editing and an oftentimes non sequitur jazz score all demonstrate that the real "auteur" here must be none other than "the female Ed Wood," Doris Wishman. During the course of this truly sui generis experience, the viewer meets Arthur Barlen, a young man with an unfortunate tendency to attack and rape any woman he encounters who is wearing gold earrings. The cause, as his detective uncle soon discovers by doing a little sleuthing (and I really don't think I'm spoiling too much for potential viewers at this late date), is the penis transplant that Arthur had had three months earlier. During this bloodless procedure, Arthur remains fully conscious and even carries on a running conversation with the operating surgeon! Anyway, having previously suffered through five other Wishman epics--"Nude on the Moon," "Bad Girls Go to Hell," "Another Day, Another Man," and the Chesty Morgan abominations "Deadly Weapons" and "Double Agent 73"--I suppose I should've known what to expect here. Just call me a glutton for punishment. This DVD, by the way, from those maniacs at Something Weird, looks surprisingly fine--better than it deserves to--and, typical for this outfit, comes with some pretty wacky extras. The naval scare film on sex hygiene might just turn you away from intercourse for good!

Of all the excessively nonsensical, rancid and imbecilic Sexploitation movies ever made during the decade of the 1970's (and genre buffs know there are a LOT of them), Doris Wishman's "The Amazing Transplant" definitely takes the cake when talking in terms of pure senselessness and sheer incoherence. This doesn't even qualify as a movie; this is just some crazy lady (Wishman was the only female smut-director at that time) showcasing her most lurid and morally incorrect sexual fantasies. The premise appealed to me, since it sounded like a deviant and exploitative variation on the "Mad Love" and "Hands of Orlac" concept. In those classic films the hands of an executed killer become transplanted onto a pianist who lost his in an accident, but the hands gradually turn their new owner into an unstoppable killing machine. "The Amazing Transplant" basically features the exact same plot, but of course we're dealing with a raping penis here instead of a murdering pair of hands. It's a curious and interesting concept for a sleazy and gritty 70's exploitation flick, but the sad truth is that Wishman wasn't the least bit interested in telling a story, as the (not so) amazing penis transplant only gets mentioned ten minutes prior to the ending. The rest of film merely exists of sleazy and soft-core padding with atrocious acting performances, painful dialogs and unattractive women. In the opening sequences, Arthur Barlen strangles his fiancée – and what a fight she puts up – and flees. His uncle, who's also a police detective, goes after him using Arthur's address book as the only lead. Whilst the sleazy fat copper checks out the young girls' legs and breasts, they explain through flashbacks how Arthur changed from a quiet and introvert boy into a perverted and mad-raving sex machine. At those points, we're not supposed to know anything about the penis transplant, but obviously the title and every possible synopsis description on the internet already revealed everything. The film only lasts a mere 70 minutes, yet it's insufferably boring and contains over 75% of redundant footage. There's an inexplicably large amount of images showing people's legs and feet as they simply stroll over sidewalks. Larry Hunter's character of Bill Barlen the detective is unintentionally hilarious. He displays the weirdest facial expressions when astonished, makes offensive remarks towards lesbians and simply walks away when women clearly need emotional support. This was my fourth movie directed by Doris "Sultana-of-Sleaze" Wishman (after "Deadly Weapons", "Double Agent 73" and "Let Me Die a Woman") and she never ceases to "amaze" me. Not necessarily in a positive way, but you have to admit she dared to exploit pretty much every controversial topic.

No, PERCY (1971) wasn't the first penis transplant movie. The sultana of sleaze, Doris Wishman (one of the only women directing exploitation movies at the time), directed and wrote this oddball softcore horror drama first. Arthur (Juan Fernandez) can't get it up, so he seeks the aid of a doctor who transplants his recently deceased friend's member onto him. Soon the operation goes sour and he finds himself in hiding after he kills his girlfriend. For some reason gold earrings set him off! In flashbacks, he seduces, rapes and/or murders other women. One is played by porn star Kim Pope. Another is a fat lesbian, and she gets sick after they do it and hovers over the toilet as Wishman's never-stable camera tilts down for a nice shot of the ladies zitty rear-end!There's plenty here to entertain cult movie and Wishman fans (including lots of her trademark bizarre camera placements and tracking shots) and at times hints of (gasp!) substance rear their ugly head before being immediately trampled over by the next ridiculous or implausible plot move, terrible performance or laughable line of dialogue.The version I saw was unrated, but could get a soft X rating for all of the soft core sex scenes and nudity.Score (only if you're a sleazehound or Doris fan): 5 out of 10