Slammer Girls

 

 (imdb)

GIRLS IN PRISON-1956-Prison pastor Rev. Fulton (Richard Denning) tries to help Ann Carson (Joan Taylor; EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS the same year)), in the slammer for a crime she didn't commit. She's in a cell with no nonsense Jenny (Adele Jurgens, in one of her last movie roles), nutty Dorothy (Phyllis Coates) and lesbian Melanee (Helen Gilbert). The matron (Jane Darwell; Ma Joad in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)) seems pretty ineffectual but Fulton still wants to help. Old time actress Mae Marsh plays Grandma Edwards. Meanwhile, a bank robber (Lance Fuller) threatens Ann's con man father (Raymond Hatton) trying to find some still missing money everyone thinks Ann has. 

Typical 50's moral drama directed by Edward L. Cahn who also made THE SHE CREATURE (also with the acting challenged Fuller) and SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! the same year, both penned by GIRLS screenwriter Lou Rusoff who also wrote IT CONQUERED THE WORLD for Roger Corman in '56. Denning, Jurgens and Hatton had all been in Corman's THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED the year before. Alex Gordon was one of the producers along with Samuel Z. Arkoff and James Nicholsen. Music by Roland Stein.

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Captive Women

 (amazon.com)

WOMEN'S CAMP 119-1977-Sleazy Italian production with Nazis subjecting female prisoners to various torture and experiments. Nude women are whipped, gassed and experimented on. A bald headed male lunatic prisoner feels up two women and another is forced to kiss an officer's boots. Meanwhile the broken Dr. Miesel (Nello Rivie) and his new assistant, a prisoner stand around watching other doctors operate. Women are forced to rub against a soldier who was frozen and he comes back to life. When the bald lunatic attacks a prisoner she's saved by a lesbian doctor who molests her. Women are also used to entice gay soldiers and turn them straight. 

Director Bruno Mattei besides making a few other sleazy exploitative “women in prison” movies also made several horror movies featuring zombies (sometimes under the pseudonym “Vincent Dawn”).

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Corman Hill

 

THE BIG DOLL HOUSE-1971-In a women's prison in "some banana republic" newbie Marni Collier (Judy Brown) shares a cell with Alcott (Roberta Collins; later in CAGED HEAT), Grear (Pam Grier), Bodine (Pat Woodell), Ferina (Gina Stuart) and Harrad (Brooke Mills). The place is run by Ms. Dietrich (Christiane Schmidtmer) but the real boss is the mysterious Col. Mendoza. 

After cockroach races, food suppliers Harry (Sid Haig) and Fred (Jerry Franks) come by and Harry feels up Grear. Bodine has a boyfriend revolutionary in the mountains and is tortured by head guard Lucian (Kathryn Loder) for info. When Alcott is caught having sex with Fred she's tortured too. Bodine and Alcott plan an escape and want Collier to help them. Then Alcott and Grear have a fight in the mud. The women plot their escape but Lucian tortures Collier to find out their plans while Dietrich dines with the prison doctor (Jack Davis). Then Harrad stabs Grear in the neck. Though Harry and Fred came for sex with Grear they wind up hiding the remaining women in their truck with Dietrich and the doc as hostages. Ferina is killed chasing her cat. There's an attempted rape, shoot out and explosion before the ironic ending.

This sleazy crazy entertaining movie was an early production from Roger Corman's New World Pictures and was shot in The Philippines by Jack Hill soon after the race car film PIT STOP and few years after filming Boris Karloff's US scenes for his quartet of Mexican made horror films. It's also the feature film debut of Pam Grier (who sings the title song). Before this she had a bit role in BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and was a receptionist at New World. Corman co-produced it with John Ashley. Hill made THE BIG BIRD CAGE the next year also with Grier and Haig.

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Caged Heat

 

CAGED HEAT-1974-Jackie Wilson (Erica Gavin) is arrested in a drug bust and sent to a woman's prison where she meets Belle (Roberta Collins) and Pandora (Ella Reid). The place is run by a hung up wheelchair bound warden McQueen (Barbara Steele) and a pipe smoking doctor (Warren Miller). She puts Pandora in solitary because she had a picture of her boyfriend in her cell. They pick fruit, have fights in the showers and walk around topless. Jackie's cellmate is lifer Levelle (Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith). 

When one inmate Maggie (Juanita Brown) tries to rebel, Jackie is also blamed. They are sent for CPT where the sadistic pipe smoking doctor gives them shock treatments as punishment. Later Jackie and Maggie revolt, steal a truck and then a police car. They almost get arrested for prostitution when they meet up with Maggie's friend Crazy Alice (Lynda Gold). Meanwhile the ⁰doc rapes the comatose Belle (and cries about it). Maggie and Jackie go back for revenge and a bloody shootout caps the finale.

This was screenwriter (and future Oscar winner) Jonathan Demme's debut as a director and also features a soundtrack written and performed by John Cale. I've read Michael Bloomfield plays guitar buon it but I'm not so sure...

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8 or 10...Who's Counting?

10 VIOLENT WOMAN-1982-Ted V. Mikels, the creator of THE DOLL SQUAD and ASTRO-ZOMBIES, returns with his “woman in prison tale”. 

8 women are tired of working for a living so they rob a jewelry store of a million dollars in diamonds. They go to Las Vegas to sell the loot to Leo The Fence (director Mikels). He offers them cocaine in exchange for the diamonds but they don't accept it. One of the woman gets shot (and later dies) and another stomps Leo to death with her high heel. 

After running around in the dark and stealing a guy's clothes they go to a club to sell the coke. The heel stomping woman deals to two narcs and is shot dead. The others are arrested and sent to prison where their section is run by Miss Terry, sadistic lesbian and her hench-woman Madge (“a hypocritical religious old creep”) with a limp, wart and mustache. Once in a while Terry clashes with a social worker but usually abuses the inmates especially one woman (who refused her carnal come-ons) who she tortures with a riding crop and a wet towel while Madge prays loudly. Only the lone African American attendant seems to care. 

After a shower cat fight, the remaining girls escape and some of them become belly dancers for a Sheik (it was his diamonds they stole). 

This a goofy violent movie with some nudity and comedy (intentional and unintentional). The acting isn't the greatest (Mikels himself gives a good performance) but the worst part is most of the night scenes are too dark to see! 

Co-screenwriter James Gordon 

White wrote both THE INCREDIBLE TWO HEADED TRANSPLANT and THE THING WITH TWO BRAINS! It starts out with only eight women. By the time they get to jail they are only 6 but they meet 2 prisoners who help in their escape so I suppose in reality there were 10 women! Ted V. Mikels, probably the last of the old time '60's-'70's low budget filmmakers (contemporaries like Ray Dennis Steckler, Al Adamson and  Larry Buchanan are all gone) is still going strong at 84 and recently released ASTRO-ZOMBIES:M4.    

This was filmed in 1979 but only released in 1987 (I saw it in the now defunct Drake movie theater on Woodhaven Blvd in Queens, NY!)

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Go Directly To Jail

GIRLS IN CHAINS-1943-Arline Judge (with a weird too big hair-do) is the sister in law of gangster Johnny Moon (Allen Byron) who has a hard time keeping a job because of this connection. She winds up being a psychologist at a girls reform school. A policeman (Roger Clark) investigates the corruption at the school and tries to nail Moon.

This movie is badly made despite being helmed by the great Edgar Ulmer who usually managed to inject surprising scenes into his low budget output (he made DETOUR in ‘45). I think he must have edited it on his lunch hour from another film! There’s a real surprising lapse of continuity involving Sid Melton (as Moon’s henchman). Emmett Lynn portrays a timid guy who becomes a drunk and helps out in the end. Barbara Pepper (later Mrs. Ziffel on TV's GREEN ACRES) plays an inmate.

Star Judge spend most of her career in low budget films and was more well known for having been married 8 times! Her last film appearance was in the horror quickie THE CRAWLING HAND. She died in 1974.

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