A latter day offering by the late great Doris Wishman and the first of 2 cinematic outings for 'Chesty Morgan', a woman regarded for the longest time as having the biggest bust in cinema. Indeed, Morgans 73 inch bust and day job stripping seemed almost to be the perfect fit for Wishmans…'interesting' revenge movie.
The plot follows Morgan as 'Crystal' a loving fiance to Larry. Larry is in with a bad crowd, and has put himself at great personal risk running jobs for 'the boss'. But Larrys getting tired of constantly risking life behind bars, or worse. So he's decided to screw over 'The Boss', take a big slice of the pie, stick the theft on another guy and flee to Hawaii with Crystal for a romantic wedding and life where palm trees sway…
Unfotunately; The Boss catches up with Larry, and; while on the phone with Crystal, he gets whacked. Crystal however hears everything over the phone, including the names of the guys who've whacked her future husband AND where they're heading next. So! With no time to spare and nothing left to lose, Crystal packs a bag, flies out to vegas and gets a job as an 'exotic dancer' The goal? to find the men who killed her lover and smother them to death with her colossal Honganonganonologongas!
The films 85 minutes long, keeps a gentle, but moving pace and feels about as long as it times out to. The plot is very simple and straightforward, its a good background movie and one absolutely best enjoyed 'under the influence'. The plots light on character and character development with most lines being exposition driven or overly simplistic descriptions of whats happening on screen.
Where I end up with complex feelings towards this production, is that the setup, characters and scenarios are absolute pure cut camp, but Wishman and the cast play it a lot more serious than I feel it should be. This is a film in which a woman with incredibly large breasts smothers several men who killed her partner to death with her gigantic breasts…but they play a decent chunk of this film sincerely…and the end result is a somewhat maudlin and seedy affair in places, and while the campiness does shine through and offer a contrast. The end result feels a bit lumpy, like a clown driven pie fight in the middle of 'midnight cowboy'. The two elements dont mix well, and I wonder whether the film playing more straight cut, or leaning more into camp would have endeared me to it more.
Other than that, the directions actually remarkably good given the budget and timing constraints, it feels like a lower/mid budget production of the time. theres some nice 'big' location sequences. decent choreography on the handful of fight scenes across the runtime and Wishman guides the cast well across the runtime. In fact, i'd go as far as to say that Wishmans direction of the cast in this production is the strongest attribute and reason to check this film outside of Morgan herself.
The cine is maybe a touch on the basic side, composition of sequences are fine and theres a few 'arty' and playful shots thrown into the mix which I appreciated. But they're few and far between, I feel this production lacks a kind of zeal to really help prop up whats happening. At times, it feels a bit rough. Particularly on the edit front.
The performances range from stiffer than a cadaver in a meat truck freezer. to…if anything; overly eccentric. At its worst, its SUPER dry and hard to keep attention on the cast. At its best, its a riot of EPIC proportions (in every sense of the word) Only helped by a soundtrack that comprises largely 'liberated' instrumental of 60s and 70s psychedelia and soul, intercut with library tracks. It fits the bill perfectly and is used well across the runtime.
Ultimately; 'Deadly Weapons' is worth catching at least once. If only for the absurdity of the premise. Its not the best made film, tonally its a bit all over the place. But it undenyably has a lot of charm and warmth behind it, Chesty Morgan is a bit stiff, but endearing and I could see myself revisiting this one in future, if only while in a haze of cheap whisky
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/deadly-weapons/
