Let Me Die a Woman (1977) User Reviews

Trash and exploitation in one sleazy combo! Spoilers!

[Skeptic459 · 4/10 · 16 December 2003]

First of all, this film does not have anything meaningful to say about gender, sex change or anything remotely serious. This is not a good investigative look at transgendered individuals. This is no 'Boys don't Cry,' which is a heartbreaking and very good look at this kind of issue.

This is actually one of the most sleazy but memorable films that I have ever seen. Doris Wishman is probably one of the worst and most camp directors I have ever encountered. Her career is synonymous with trash. That is not a bad thing as such. Considering that there are mainstream directors out there who are just as bad if not worse. This film stands shoulder to shoulder with those 50's hygiene films that everyone thinks are so camp and hilarious now. John Waters probably likes this film!

Obviously the atmosphere in which you watch a film has a huge effect on how you remember it. I saw this at an 'incredibly strange film festival' when I was 17. I snuck in, I was a year to young. Maybe my youth combined with the explicit material is what has caused it to be etched into my mind. The festival had a strange effect on me and caused a lifelong addiction to bad films. There was a horror horn, which sounded at moments of well...ummm...horror. To male surgeons maybe a sex change is not watering to the eye. But I assure you as a layman male who dearly hopes never to lose that part of his anatomy, it is a moment of tension and anxiety. Although there were some women in the audience who found that moment absolutely hilarious.

This is the crux of the film. The material is handled in such an inept, offhand and exploitative way that the movie becomes a joke. The material does not seem to be serious and the relevant issues are replaced by absurd sex scenes. This film is an incompetently filmed, voyeuristic look at the lives of a largely misunderstood part of the human community. For this reason this film might be deserving of contempt. Perhaps it is. But it is certainly not a film that is to be taken seriously. I saw a short film that was also made in the seventies about sex and the mentally retarded. This film was just as bad and it was made by the American government. So not even health departments get it right.

Therefore this film is an one of those obscure curiosities that is shown at strange film festivals. It is a film that belongs in the cinema dungeons along with 'Pink Flamingo's' or 'Supervixens.' In fact, I cannot imagine someone finding this at their local blockbuster thats for transgender sure! The strangest thing about this film is that there is an actual Doctor and his patients taking part in this film. The film essentially sets them up to be the freaks in a circus side show! Having an actual Doctor seems like an attempt by Wishman to give the film some credulous weight. To elevate what is actually going on here. What truly adds to the horror is that out there...somewhere...maybe some weirdo psychiatrist might be taking this film absolutely seriously!

There is one totally bizarre scene in the film where the Doctor has a individual who has just had a sex change demonstrate their new vagina. This is done with a dildo. This is not done for clinical demonstration reasons. After the director has attempted to show you the lives of these people, she then throws in what is nothing more than an exploitive shock scene to grab attention. For shame! However the whole film is like this...

I recommend this film to those of us who like to watch trash, which this surely is. It will always stick out in my memory. Strange, bizarre but in the way they have chosen to make the film and not just because the subject evades the norm. I'll give it a 4 out of 10.

Rather naive documentary made under the banner of exploitation

[tomgillespie2002 · 5/10 · 5 May 2012]

An extension of the Mondo-style documentary, with their "mission" to illustrate, and exploit unknown or forgotten cultural practises and habits, Doris Wishman's (see Review #298: 'Deadly Weapons' (1974)) Let Me Die a Woman follows the work of sex reassignment surgeon Dr Leo Wollman (who also acted as the films adviser), and his work with both post- and pre-op transsexuals. The film has interviews with the aforementioned doctor, along with several transsexuals in various stages of transformation, and also throws in some re-enactments and dramatisations of some of their experiences.

Whilst this is billed under the exploitation banner, and would have been shown in these types of cinema, the film is not overly exploitative, and presents the stories and their participants in quite a sympathetic manner. However, the film does explore, in a very graphically visual manner the operations required to alter the genitalia. Of course with this being made in the 1970's means that the screen is filled with incredibly hairy, militant-looking pubic areas, whilst these men with tits flash their flaccid c***s for the camera. In one scene the doctor probes a post-op vagina with his fingers - a sexual orifice so hideous that I simply had to avert my eyes.

Aside from the Mondo movies (and of course Faces of Death (1978) et al), I am not really aware of any other exploitation film that used this documentary style to expose new, sometimes weird phenomenon - except for Being Different (1981) that focused on exploiting circus sideshow acts, and included a modern day Elephant Man - so I am unqualified to state whether this film is emblematic of it's kind. What does strike me is the fact that this type of documentary was so new, and also that it was marginalised to the exploitation/grindhouse circuits. The subject matter, and the gratuitousness of the film highlights to me how this kind of "exploitation" is in fact now a fundamental part of prime-time television, with shows such as Embarrassing Bodies or any others of the many, many similar formats that infest our screens, in our homes, whilst we f*****g eat our dinner! Given this parallel, and shift in the ways in which the participants are exploited in the modern-day TV show and the cinematic format, the film is pretty naive.

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Imagine if you can what it is like to be a woman imprisoned in the body of a man.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 3 March 2005]

Let Me Die A Woman opens with a post-op transsexual called Leslie putting make up and nail polish on, thus confirming that he/she is indeed a woman. Then we are introduced to, and I quote "our guide through this strange new world is Dr. Leo Wollman M.D., P.H.D., Doctor, Surgeon, psychologist, minister, medical writer. A man uniquely qualified to help us understand this phenomenon." This guy appears to be a real Doctor but gives one of the most unenthusiastic, dry and flat performance in front of the camera I've ever witnessed, check his eyes out as they dart all over the place almost as if he is reading cue cards and then looking back at the camera again. I'm not 100% sure but he looks and sounds dubbed throughout as well. Dr. Wollman is an ever present throughout the entire film. He discusses all things transsexual! We, the viewer that is, are also treated to various dramatic reconstructions. The first one we are shown is a 'woman' walking through Central Park in New York (that path looks familiar!). He/she picks up a bloke off a bench and they both go back to her/his apartment. Once there they have sex. As the man leaves the pre-op transsexual turns around and even though he/she has the upper body appearance of a woman, face and breasts, he/she has a dick. He/she then takes a long shower which we, the lucky viewer, get to watch for a couple of minutes as he/she soaps themselves up and washing it off. You know the sort of shower scene I'm talking about, the sort that focuses on the genitals in a totally exploitative way. There are more reconstructions, Dr. Wollman says that a post op transsexual formerly known as Ronald, now Rhonda was "extremely impatient to try out her new vagina" and had sex too soon after his/her operation and his/her vagina started to bleed, the man who just had sex with him/her just laughs and walks out as he thinks he/she was a virgin! A sequence where a man in denial hangs himself and an alarming scene where a desperate guy tries to do the job himself by taking a hammer and chisel to his penis, ouch! Dr. Wollman pops up every so often to give his opinion and some dry medical facts. But not wanting to be upstaged Dr. Wollman does appear in two of the films more memorable sequences. The first is when he talks about various different dildo's! As Dr. Wollman picks each one up and talks about it he tries to make out their for purely medical reasons, yeah right! This part is supposed to inform us about the facts of how transsexual's keep their newly created vagina's dilated and of course how some even like to pleasure themselves! Dr. Wollman picks up the 'Dildo gun', which is basically a water pistol with a dildo on the end. Dr. Wollman explains that the gun is filled with "warm soapy water" and is for transsexual's who want to experience "hot fluid emission's into the vagina"! The other memorable bit with Dr. Wollman is footage of the operation itself. Any males may want to look away for a few minutes during this section as a surgeon gets to work and takes his scalpel to some guys penis, ouch. Although this surgery scene is actually very short and in total is probably less than three minutes long. There is also a part when Dr. Wollman indicates the direction of the vaginal passageway by inserting his lubricated finger into it! No doubt the volunteer 'Debbie' was pleased to assist Dr. Wollman.......... At this point Dr. Wollman also explains that 'Debbie's' hairy bum is normal. Finally after just over 70 odd minutes of this sort of thing Let Me Die A Woman ends and that's about it. Directed by Doris Wishman this is part exploitation and part documentary. I'm not sure which Wishman was concentrating on the most, in the end it's probably 50/50 between smutty sleaze and hard medical facts & interviews with those involved. I'm not sure that I really learnt anything from this film about transsexual's or their feelings that I couldn't guess. The actors in this film are also very unattractive and in one sex scene the guy has the hairiest bum I've ever seen! There is also a sequence where Dr. Wollman holds a discussion with various transsexual's, these are some of the ugliest people I've ever seen and their dress sense is also horrendous, one guy/gal wears what looks like a bright multi-coloured tea cosy on his/her head! It's very poorly filmed and that too distracts from what is in reality a weighty issue for some. The film either comes across as cheap and smutty or dry and boring. At the end of the day I'm not too sure what to make of it, it certainly kept me watching right through to the end but I not sure I would call Let Me Die A Woman entertaining. I will sit on the fence a little bit and give it a 5 out of 10, an incredibly curious film that I don't quite know what to make of.

Unbelievable

[XXX-man · 30 December 2002]

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

A bizarre, amazing documentary about transsexuals. If you watch this, you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about sex-change operations. This movie is a classic example of Too Much Information. You've got a doctor who soberly informs us about the psychology and physiology of sex-change candidates. He stands next to them with a classroom pointer and indicates various regions of their anatomies. There are a LOT of "reenactments" of episodes from the lives of transsexuals--this means quite a few sex scenes. You also get a few silly episodes where a "woman" takes off her clothes--and we see that (gasp!) she's not entirely a woman. One especially memorable scene features an unlucky transsexual who has sex too soon after his/her operation. There's also brief but horrifyingly graphic footage of a (real?) sex-change operation. Maybe I took this movie in the wrong spirit, but I was laughing all the way through it. The narration is priceless.

Pseudo Documentary

[Hammett · 2/10 · 18 April 1999]

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. All pretense this has of being a real documentary falls apart quickly when it becomes a string of softcore porn scenes. Apart from that, several of the people being interviewed are obviously either homosexuals or women and while talking about dildos as medical aides for operatives, Dr. Wollman makes a bold statement by telling us that "not all dildos are used for medical purposes" (!) A tremendous amount of the impact of this film has been taken away by the so-called talk shows that feature these people as guests every week so that now, they seem routine rather than shocking. Though not Doris Wishman's best film, it is an interesting time capsule and on a camp level, Let Me Die a Woman is an entertaining film.

Take My Penis...PLEASE!!!

[EVOL666 · 7/10 · 11 April 2006]

Wow...this one's a weirdy...

Doris Wishman's schlock-umentary LET ME DIE A WOMAN is definitely one of the strangest things I've seen - and I've seen a lot. Appearing to be a somewhat "serious" documentary on the plight of the trans-sexual - it really comes off more as a sleazy exploit film piece-mealed together with some "scientific" elements.

The "story" is narrated by a Dr. Wollman, who is apparently an expert in all things trans-gendered. He basically pokes and prods these individuals with a metal probe, and recounts their "horrifying" trials and tribulations as trans-sexual individuals. Interspersed are oftentimes hilarious "re-enactments", and one pretty nasty portion of a male-to-female sex-change operation. There is also a repulsive scene where the good doctor probes a patients newly formed vagina (which looks more like it was made by a shotgun-blast then a scalpel...) with his finger. I only hope for the sake of the trans-sexual population that the medical community has made some MAJOR strides in terms of vaginal reconstruction since this film's creation...

In some ways, LET ME DIE A WOMAN seems as though it's truly sympathetic to the hardships of the trans-sexual community - and other times it seems as though the goal is simply to exploit them. To be honest, I couldn't care less as this is a subject I neither understand nor have any real interest in - this is another film that I watched strictly for curiosity's sake. For fans of uber-weirdo cinema, I'd say this one's a must-see, as they don't come much stranger than this - and it's honestly not even because of the subject matter. It's more because of how ineptly it's handled. I give the film a relatively decent rating because it's just so damned strange - most "mainstream" viewers won't care to watch this type of material...and honestly, I wouldn't blame 'em. 7/10

The Wrong Kind Of Film

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 2 August 2011]

I did not know what to expect when I saw Let Me Die A Woman. Trangender friends told me that Leo Wollman was a noted medical authority, maybe THE medical authority on transgender issues and sexual reassignment surgery back in the Seventies when it was a topic that got very little public airing. The only thing I can say is that the film was done the way it was done was to get the widest possible audience for the subject. Even if said audience was only wanting a few pornographic titillating moments.

This film deals with male to female transitioning, the infinitely more complex subject of female to male transgender folks is for the most part left alone. It certainly is true the criticism that Wollman is no actor. He's a doctor and this is purportedly a documentary.

But a few porn stars like Harry Reems apparently offered their services to generate a little box office. In one of a few porn interludes Wollman notes that you can have problems if you don't sufficiently rest and recover after the surgery is done. Then by way of a demonstration Reems does his thing with a newly transitioned woman who then experiences vaginal bleeding. There's a few scenes like this in Let Me Die A Woman.

Talking about reassignment surgery though, the topic that is left untouched is the attitude of the insurance companies who still treat all of this as cosmetic surgery. That is to me mind blowing. All the transgender people I know both pre and post op have never approached sexual reassignment with the same attitude as one say getting a nose job which insurance companies have this on the level of. Some can never transition because the cost is so prohibitive they can't conceive of it in their lifetimes. This film shows the attitudes of 1977 and even with what we now know and the changing attitudes in public opinion, the medical insurance industry remains unaffected.

I suppose Wollman thought this was the way to get the message out, but wow did he pick the wrong kind of film to do it.

"Last Year I Was a Man"

[alanmora · 7/10 · 27 December 2006]

First of all, anyone who watches ANYTHING directed by Doris Wishman has to expect to see bizarre camera angles, choppy film making, and bad acting...it comes with the territory and this film is no exception. That not with standing, this is probably one of the more superior Wishman films and it concerns a subject that, at the time, was considered taboo...transsexualism. Anyone who knows Wishman also knows that she is an exploitationeer so you have to expect a bit of sensationalism in Wishman's work as well. This film has that too as it is chock full of scenes and sexual anecdotes about the sexual lives of this "third sex". Yes, at the time of this film's release, transsexuals were actually considered to be a "third sex". The scene where the man gives himself his own sex change operation is exceptionally disturbing as is the scene where the transsexual has her vagina cave in on her. Yes, this film leaves no stone unturned as it explores every aspect of transsexualism including the female to male transsexuals. All in all it should be taken as an exceptionally classy exploitation film but NOT an educational tool.

Shania Twain said it best when she sung: "Man! I feel like a Woman!"

[Coventry · 3/10 · 29 November 2007]

Some of her previous accomplishments (like "Deadly Weapons" and "Diary of a Nudist") already taught us that Doris Wishman isn't ranked very high on the list of filmmakers with good taste and moral values, but I never thought she would even dare to exploit people that struggled with sex and identity crises all their lives. "Let me die a Woman" is supposed to be a documentary (better say schlockumentary or even smutumentary), but it has very little educational or informative value. The film is a compilation of interviews with a Puerto Rican transsexual – "Last year, I was a man" – and allegedly scientific feedback from a sleazy guy I wouldn't allow near my body. Dr. Leo Wollman may perhaps be an authority in the field of sex-change operations, but he clearly doesn't feel comfortable when there's a camera aimed at him. His eyes turn towards everywhere except straight into the lens and his lines sound a little too much like they're being read from a large billboard in front of him. Still, his acting capacities are Oscar-worthy compared to some of the courageous patients that come to tell about their agonizing lives. There's one guy/lady, I think her name's Debbie, whose voice and facial expressions are truly unendurable. "Let me die a Woman" is a rancid and utterly shameless exploitation flick, and cult collectors should only watch it for the sake of morbid curiosity. It's really jaw-dropping how Dr. Wollman unscrupulously treats the transsexuals as study objects, like motionless life-sized dummies, and moves his filthy fingers over their genitals in order to point out how he turned their penises into vaginas. I don't know anything about this type of surgery, and I reckon it must be complicated undertakings, but most of the results looked truly hideous and even quite gross. Actually, they didn't look like vaginas but gateways into hell. The film is fairly short (80min.) but the last half hour feels annoyingly stretched, as Wollman repeats the same old things over and over again and even inserts a totally ridicule story about a guy who committed suicide because he didn't talk about his transsexual desires with anyone. Oh puh-lease!

An Interesting Exploitative Artifact.

[akoaytao1234 · 7/10 · 18 March 2024]

Let Me Die a Woman is a pseudo-documentary about how it is to be transgendered in the 70s. For the most part, it centers around a Puerto Rican woman, who tells her story of hardship with doctors, peers, and life in general. Otherwise, it is almost falls into a PSA Category in describing the Transgender experience of the era.

Not as a bad as people might suggest BUT I think its exploitative elements does put certain section in a bad light.

The choice to make suspenseful music for showing some explicit area is surely something that will divide audiences for years to come. It almost show-and-tell disposition can be uncomfortable, especially to its subject that is equally uncomfortable. It has has the most graphic description of sex change, pre-op vagina and transgendered bodies you would see in any film, which might sometimes feels too much to be honest. Though, it is offset by the films love to show sex (even using some famous straight porn stars).

I think its biggest strength is its matter of fact. I do not know any documentary that tackles this subject matter of any era. Its actually nice that they tackle transgenderism experience - even though some of it is fake. And while some of the ideas can be a bit dated, it can be a nice reference point in how the experience have moved away from.

I personally would not recommended it as I feel there are more subtle dramas about the transgender experience in film. This is too on your face AND exploitative that some viewers might not be ready handle or should not have been there (see the sex scenes). I think Wishman meant well for this film BUT the movement had moved too far from it.

It is a dated testament that you could watch but on your own risk.

Not even trying to make a decent movie...

[jpilkonis · 1/10 · 31 March 2006]

We can thank the DVD revolution for helping preserve not only cinematic masterpieces but also the lowest dreck the industry has ever produced. There is, in fact, a thriving market for such material, the cinematic equivalent of releasing footage of train wrecks: there are enough folks out there who won't be able to look away (or, in this case, plop down their twenty bucks for the experience).

Exploitation cinema offers the richest vein of such material - understandably - and video distribution companies like Something Weird, Blue Underground, and Synapse Films continue to show just how much of it was created throughout the years. To watch some of these bottom of the barrel creations, however, a question comes to mind: In spite of what they are, why do they have to be so consistently awful.

The modern-day independent cinema community, for instance, is crawling with talent, brilliant filmmakers who, for want of that one big break, could easily usurp the Spielbergs and Scorceses of the world. Even given the lurid, by the numbers requirements of exploitation films, it's almost certain that these unsung geniuses could turn out compelling, interesting work. Why then, did exploitation distributors of the 60s and 70s put their films in the hands of such incredibly untalented hacks as Doris Wishman, the director of "Let Me Die A Woman," undoubtedly one of the worst pieces of cinematic garbage that's ever been committed to celluloid? The transsexual phenomenon is an easy subject to exploit. Right from the beginnings of sex reassignment surgery, the details have been lurid enough to hold fascination even in mainstream media. One would have to be utterly inept to make a film on the subject which would be boring, uncompelling, and insulting to the viewer, which is exactly what Wishman created with this film. Sitting through this monstrosity, we get the impression that Wishman had a list of bullet points she knew she had to touch upon, and plowed through each and every one of them with only the slightest thought about weaving them into a cohesive package. In a sadly appropriate way, the film's inept structuring almost compliments the consistently awful performances of the actors. If this film works at all, even as exploitation, it does so in spite of every effort of the director.

"Let Me Die A Woman" doesn't even warrant a viewing as the nadir of exploitation cinema. It is one train wreck even the die hard enthusiasts might want to avoid.

Debbie Down There

[NoDakTatum · 1/10 · 1 November 2023]

Doris Wishman, who makes Ed Wood look like Steven Spielberg, directs this pseudo-documentary about sex change operations. The film switches back and forth between Dr. Leo Wollman, who guides transgendered people to surgery; Leslie, a male-to-female postoperative who musters all of her seventh grade education to hope none of the children she adopts in the future turn out to be homosexual; and a bunch of softcore scenes involving transexual persons recreating different experiences from Wollman's patients' pasts.

Wishman's film is a technical nightmare. Footage shot from 1971 through 1977 is used, causing jarring discrepancies in Wollman's appearance. The camera often drifts from its subject (a Doris Wishman specialty), and the editing is atrocious. When Wollman isn't onscreen obviously reading off cue cards, he is heard on voiceover, obviously reading a script. The "cast" of transgender subjects do not screen well. Reenactments of "problem patients" use both real and fake transexuals. Porn star Harry Reems is here as a Moroccan cab driver- you don't want to know. One depressing sequence has real transsexual Debbie, thirty-eight years old but looking fifty, talking about her proud and understanding teenage daughter, her appearance on a David Susskind show, and her stint in the U. S. Navy when she was a man. Debbie is then poked and prodded by Dr. Wollman before he inserts a large metal device into her still-developing female cavity. Don't pluck your eyes out yet, or you will miss Debbie awkwardly cavorting on a bed with an unnamed actor, generating the unsexiest sex scene in film history. "Let Me Die a Woman" is a nightmare of a film. Doris Wishman was a sweet old lady who used to make exploitation films. Too bad all those films stunk.

A classic 1970's exercise in bad taste and exploitation

[blackriverfalls · 26 August 2003]

This really is a thoroughly offensive film. While purporting to be a documentary, it is in actually little more than an excuse for cheap tittilation at the expense of a number of transgender characters. Has some graphic scenes of a sexual nature which are not only unnecessary but to my mind degrading, I really hope the TG women got paid well for appearing in this drivel but I rather doubt it somehow. The only particularly memorable moment is a really sick reconstruction of a man cutting his penis off with a hammer and chisel. If you haven't seen this movie already then don't bother, you don't want to put yourself through this. If you want to learn more about transgender people, go and watch a really good film like Boys Don't Cry or Different For Girls.

Lives Up to its Reputation

[Michael_Elliott · 28 February 2008]

Let Me Die a Woman (1978)

BOMB (out of 4)

Infamous Doris Wishman "documentary" that deals with men who want to be women and women who want to be men. Wishman is very well known in the exploitation field and I had heard this was her best movie so I decided to watch this one as my first. I got the exploitation but I also got real footage, which I really didn't want to see. I personally find the subject matter gross so having to watch all of this stuff made me wanna puke. The actual operation was insane and downright disgusting as well. While this presents itself as a documentary it's crazy enough to insult anyone who watches it. This is the one film that I wish I never bothered watching.