Audience Member
Let Me Die a Woman is a film most people didn't know existed. Only Doris Wishman could have brought together elements of high school health class and soft core pornography in a semi-documentary about transsexualism (the preferred term of the time). Hosted by Dr. Leo Wollman and shot sometime in the early 1970's, the movie uses a combination of actors and real members of the transgender community to expose the public to a then relatively unknown topic. However because it is a Doris Wishman film, her trademark overdubbing, kitschy music, and somewhat campy tone can obscure the extremely relevant subject matter. Provided as instruction or titillation (or both) the audience is shown in clinical detail the anatomy of various transgender subjects, as well as dramatic depictions of their sex acts. Let Me Die a Woman features several interviews with transgender persons revealing intimate details of their lives, highlighting the individual struggles each one has been through. Despite the unmistakably exploitive elements of her film, Wishman seems to truly empathize with her subjects and shows compassion for the difficulties they face. Let Me Die a Woman is an important milestone in transgender cinema that should still interest a modern audience.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie was informative, but the soft core porn scenes, frightening music, and bad acting took away from the overall message that transsexuals are not human rejects but people who want to live as normally as possible, but can't always make that normality a reality. I wish someone would make a more sparkling follow up documentary to this one. I did gain a new perspective from watching it.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/31/23
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Audience Member
Quasi documentary directed by "the female Ed Wood" Doris Wishman dealing with Transexualism. Surprisingly sympathetic to their subjects for what is basically an exploitative Mondo film at heart. Features interviews with various transexuals and cross dressers, a real life sex change surgery (difficult to watch. especially if your a dude), the infamous chisel scene (a breasted dude attempts to remove his own penis using a chisel and a hammer with predictbly disastrous results), and a brief early performance from Harry Reems of Deep Throat fame, amongst other Porn chic films of the 70's. Not really sure if I would recommend this to anyone. The material covered isn't really of much interest to me, but is worth seeing for people interested in Mondo as a style, which I am. Definently features some scenes that are not easily forgotten though.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
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Audience Member
This movie is an insult to the Transgender community. The acting is atrocious; most of the movie is just a "doctor" blatantly reading from queue cards, while much of the rest is composed dialogue free scenes with tense, scary music designed to accentuate the freakishness of transsexuals. I did lol at the penis gun part tho!
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
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Audience Member
AKA "Chicks with Dicks: The Documentary" (not really, it was actually originally known as "Adam or Eve"). Filmed in 1971, but not released in the US until 1978, this intriguing film features interviews with pre-, mid-, and post-op trannys and a prominant doctor who has performed many of these surgeries. The doctor pleads for a day when there will no longer be any gender distinction, in his view there is no actual male and female and that we all are just people (sounds like this indoctrination will not be far off now that there have been so many "educated" people who claim to not believe in racial/ethnic classifications in the last few years - a generation of useful imbeciles). Graphic surgery footage as well as gratuitous softcore shots of every combination of body parts and people you could think of. It could be educational, but came across as being done for shock. Fits squarely in the Mondo-type films genre, though I do not see it mentioned much. Still, its very interesting to learn why these people chose to go through this and the interviews seemed genuine despite the dramatized scenes.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Let Me Die a Woman was a semi-serious attempt in 1978 by underground director Doris Wishman to film the attitudes and lifestyles of sexually confused individuals who want to change their gender. The film also enlisted the aid of Dr. Leo Wollman M.D. (surprise, surprise, he's actually a legitimate doctor), who relates case histories of individuals who have had sex changes and the problems they face. We do get to see an actual sex change take place (although most of it's covered with a surgical sponge) and witness numerous probes of newly constructed sex organs.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
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