ReFocus

Offers the first book length contribution to Doris Wishman

• Covers Wishman’s vast filmography inclusive of her less discussed later films, hardcore films and nudist films
• Situates Wishman within larger contexts and movements in American film history including women’s filmmaking, avant-garde and experimental cinema and genre film
• Considers the cultural, historical, and industrial significance of Wishman with focuses on gender studies, genre studies, film narrative, feminist history, queer history and adult film history

Producer, distributor, and director Doris Wishman (1912–2002) was a pioneering woman in the film industry, leaving a body of work almost 30 films strong. Largely overlooked by critical and cultural analysis, Wishman worked in the normatively neglected film genre of sexploitation and adult film, but works like Hideout in the Sun (1960), Bad Girls Go To Hell (1965), Double Agent 73 (1974) and Each Time I Kill (2007) demonstrate an interest in complicated, ideological and often troubling social performances of the contemporary human condition.

ReFocus: The Films of Doris Wishman positions Wishman as a significant and overlooked force in American independent film, with an impact on how we currently understand the categories of cult, exploitation, horror, experimental and avant-garde cinema.