The Sex Perils of Paulette

In this perverse picaresque and cautionary tale, showing signs of Wishman’s mid-‘60s turn to “roughies” which accompanied her move from making films in Florida to New York, pretty Paulette (Anna Karol) leaves her Ohio home behind for Manhattan following dreams of fame, only to be hornswoggled into swingers’ parties, sex work, and sadistic slapdowns, victimized by a lineup of regular Wishman weirdoes that includes Darlene Bennett, Sam Stewart, and Bob Oran. In her first film with cinematographer C. Davis Smith, who would go on to be her closest collaborator, Wishman has fully developed a style as outlandish as her movie’s subject matter, generously employing jagged jump cuts and, on the soundtrack, laying down her own inimitable narration.

Restoration courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive and Jimmy Maslon