Prison Flicks

Rating: (3.5 out of 5)

Starring: Erica Gavin, Donald Heitzer, Mike Shack, Gary Goetzman, Cheryl Smith, John Aprea, Ginna Martine, Ella Reid, Roberta Collins, and Juanita Brown.

Directed By: Jonathan Demme

Man, I would love to meet Jonathan Demme. What a career this guy has had. He directed the brilliant Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense (1984). Won a Best Director Oscar for the then-overrated, now-underrated Silence of the Lambs (1991). Made the off-beat, cult-favorite Something Wild (1986); directed Spaulding Gray’s talk-u-mentary, Swimming to Cambodia (1987); and also was behind the camera for the dreadful, but well-respected, Philadelphia (1993). But before all that, Jonathan Demme wrote and directed Caged Heat (1974). There may be better American directors working today, but I don’t think any have anything like Demme’s range on their resume.

Caged Heat certainly shows some of Demme’s potential. Although it sticks relatively close to convention, this movie is not a low-grade women in prison movie. It is oddly imaginative and almost experimental at times. Half of the first half-dozen scenes are dream sequences, which Demme uses to give a certain underdeveloped depth to the characters. But let’s not get carried away. This is a low-budget exploitation, but it does have a certain weird appeal beyond the standard women-in-prison attractions of boobs and catfights (which it has plenty of too).

Prison yard or junk yard?

The movie begins with an inept police raid on a group of thieves. Three cops approach what looks like a motel, two through the back and one guarding the front. The criminals–two men and a woman–however, manage to run out the front door right past a waiting cop. A chase follows, with the cops firing wildly at the crooks, and the crooks firing back and wounding a cop in the process. After a while, one of the men is shot. The woman tries to help him, but gets herself captured in the process. She is Jacqueline (Jackie) Wilson (Erica Gavin in what was apparently her last movie; you may remember her from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)), and, of course, she gets sentenced to prison for her multiple crimes: possession of drugs, assault on a police officer, etc.

She is brought to the prison is what looks like a delivery truck. The prison itself is never shown in an establishing shot. Instead we’re given vistas of a winding desert road, the fence surrounding what is either an empty lot or a junk yard, and finally a big building that looks like it might be a warehouse. None of these is ever shown at the same time, so it is hard to get a sense of what the prison looks like, but on a low-budget, they couldn’t necessarily film at an actual prison so we’ll cut them some slack on that one. We then cut to a tracking shot across a group of women in the exercise yard. The first noticeable thing about the prisoners is that they are all wearing street clothes. And not just any street clothes, but early 1970s garish street clothes at that. The prison is interracial, and apparently race relations are good enough that most of the groups are mixed black and white. There are a few satirical touches here, including a “No Laughing” notice posted on the wall of the exercise yard.

Now you know why most prisons require uniforms for convicts.

Jackie’s first experience in prison is to be strip searched by the prison doctor who informs them that this is their last chance to turn over any “drugs or narcotics.” (Aren’t drugs and narcotics the same thing?) We get brief nudity here, but the scene ends before anything too nasty happens. Jackie is then sent off to her cell, where she meets her cellmate, Lavelle (Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith, who you may remember from Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976)). Lavelle is none-too-friendly at first, although they later become buddies. Prison will do that to you. We also meet Maggie (Juanita Brown) at this point. Maggie is basically head bitch in the cellblock.

That night, we get a prison “talent” show. Pandora (Ella Reid) and Belle Tyson (Roberta Collins from Deathrace 2000 (1975)) perform an absolutely dreadful vaudeville-style show, complete with awful songs and off-color jokes. The wheelchair-bound warden (Barbara Steele, who must have been desperate for money to take this gig after having acted in such films as Fellini’s 8 1/2 (1963)) is horribly offended by the show. She walks out (well, wheels out) half-way through. At the time, I thought it was just her good sense, but then it turned out, the problem was her delicate sensibilities. (Which, by the way, seems a little odd. I mean, if you are so sensitive that you get offended by pretty tame jokes, maybe the penal industry isn’t right for you.) The next day, Pandora and Belle are called on the carpet, and when the warden figures out that Pandora was the mastermind behind the sketch, she has her thrown into solitary confinement on limited rations. This may seem excessive, but then you might not have seen the skit.

Pandora and Belle

You may be wondering why I’m spending so much time on Pandora and Belle; well actually it is because this little confrontation with the warden sets one part of the plot in motion. Every day during shower time, Belle sneaks off into one of the bathroom stalls, slips into the ventilation ducts, drops into the staff kitchen, steals food, and gives it to Pandora. Now that is a friend… although, if it is so easy to get into the ventilations ducts and roam around the prison at will, you’d think Belle would use this knowledge to plan an escape rather than take that sort of risk to go on food raids.

Well, while Belle is off on her mission of mercy, Jackie and Maggie come to blows in the prison shower (they’re dressed at this point, d’oh!). It’s not really obvious what sets them off. But before you can say “catfight” the two are punching, kicking, screeching, pulling hair, and rolling around. Let me just note that this is probably the most inconvenient group shower room one could imagine. The showers themselves are arranged in a row in a room no wider than a hallway, so when one prisoner finishes she has to elbow her way past the ones still washing to get out. This probably contributes to a lot of fights, wouldn’t you think?

Jackie and Maggie shower together

Jackie and Maggie get called before the warden and warned about fighting. But the real problem occurs when one of the guards decides to push Maggie’s buttons in the kitchen. The guard basically tries to ruin Maggie’s cooking by adding salt and then a roach to her stew (I hate when that happens), and when Maggie objects, the two get into a shoving match. The guard pulls a gun and is about to shoot Maggie, when Jackie beans her in the back of the head with a can. Maggie grabs the gun, sets fire to the kitchen, and makes a run for it. Jackie stays with the guard and tries to drag her out of the burning kitchen. Well, to make a long story short, Maggie get captured before she gets too far, and Jackie is apprehended grappling with the guard. Both Jackie and Maggie get turned over to the prison doctor for some “corrective physical therapy,” (or CPT as they call it in the movie) which in this case involved electroshock “therapy.” The doctor is a nasty, little sadist. He is also apparently immune to electricity because he repeatedly touches the women as they’re being shocked with no ill-effects. Apparently torture is a bonding experience because after this occurs, Jackie and Maggie find a grudging respect for each other, and indeed end up becoming friends and partners.

Now plot twists came fast and furious. Belle is surprised by one of the lunchroom matrons on one of her raids, and their brief scuffle ends with the matron dead on the floor, and Belle is sent off for CPT.

Belle’s fatal assault on the lunch lady. Who’d have thought they were so fragile?

In the meantime, Maggie, Jackie, and the others are off on their work detail (picking citrus fruit! I know people who actually pay for the privilege of picking their own fruit). One of Maggie’s cronies fakes a seizure, and before you say “oldest trick in the book,” Maggie and her friend have overwhelmed a guard and stolen his gun. We are then treated to a running fire fight through the orchard which is notable primarily for the incredibly bad aim of all the participants. Finally, though, Maggie manages to get into the prison’s truck. As she is pulling away, Jackie flags her down. Maggie picks her up, and the two make their escape. Well, actually, they begin their escape…. We next see them stopped at a gas station, still in the truck, while a mechanic works under the hood. Maggie is incredibly short-tempered and demanding, and every few seconds she honks the horn and yells at the mechanic… which seems like a weird thing to do considering their situation. I mean, they’re escaped convicts driving a prison truck. In that situation, the last thing I’d want to do is call any more attention to myself. Luckily, a police car pulls into the station. The cop doesn’t notice the truck or the women — apparently his radio doesn’t work because otherwise you’d think that a prison break would have been pretty well broadcast, no? He heads off to the john, and the gals take the opportunity to steal his car. Now, I guess being in a stolen police car is marginally better than being in a stolen prison truck, but I don’t think this is really a well-conceived jail break. Maggie and Jackie next use the police car’s siren to stop a family on the road and steal their car. Finally, they reach safety in the form of Maggie’s friend Crazy Alice (Lynda Gold). When they catch up with Crazy, as everyone calls her, she’s wrestling men for money (she was apparently laid off from a factory, so this seems like a natural career move, I guess. You think this is where Andy Kaufman’s motivation came from?).

Um, is that sterile?

In the meantime, back at the prison, the doctor is busy abusing Belle. He keeps her drugged up and takes naked pictures of her. It’s not clear how far he goes with her, but clearly the guy’s got a screw loose. He manages to convince the warden to allow him to perform surgery on her, some form of primitive lobotomy involving drilling a hole in her forehead. The movie actually shows him prepping for surgery with a regular household drill with a red cross taped to the side. The warden here isn’t really a bad person. It’s the doctor who convinces her to allow the procedure, and she actually seems concerned about Belle’s well-being until the doctor convinces her this is for the best.

Of course, the doctor does not get to carry through on his devilish plot. On the outside, Jackie, Maggie, and Crazy decide they need money, so they plan a robbery. The robbery goes hilariously wrong when it turns out that the place they’re robbing is already being robbed when they walk in. This all turns out for the best though, because the women basically rob the robbers, and when the original robbers run away, the cops pursue them rather than the women who now have the money. Confused? Yeah, well the movie is even worse. The first time I saw this scene, I thought that maybe the whole two robbers scenario was planned from the beginning. But when I watched it again, it seems to me that the whole thing is just a coincidence.

Maggie rips off Mickey

Well, anyway, the girls are now flush with cash. But Jackie’s conscience is bothering her, and she insists that they go back to the prison to bust out Lavelle, Pandora, and Belle. Maggie is less keen on the whole idea, but she goes along with it anyway. The gals ambush the prison truck now carrying another group of convicts to the prison. They drive right through the main gate, and arrive just in time to interrupt Belle’s operation. Pandora also happens to be in the clinic at the same time, having deliberately sliced her hand to try her own half-assed rescue of Belle. Oh, and Lavelle is also working in the clinic, as a sort of spy for the warden, I think. Although spying on what isn’t clear. Quite a coincidence, eh? All the main participants are in the right place at the right time. Plus, amazingly enough, the warden also shows up at the clinic at the same time.

Jackie and Crazy take the doc and warden hostage

Well, Maggie and Crazy burst in. They force the doctor to wake Belle up, and then take both the doctor and the warden hostage. You’d think that hostages would allow them to get out of the prison unscathed… but you’d be wrong. The warden’s assistant pulls the old double-cross and as the girls try to make their escape a group of guards opens fire. As before, the guards, despite being armed with rifles and sniper scopes(!), are terrible shots. In fact, the only people they manage to hit are the warden and the doctor! All six of the women manage to get out of the truck and into the getaway car, which then pulls away leaving the doctor, warden, and several guards dead or dying. And then… that’s it. Cue closing credits.

Alright, so what do we have here? Well, this is a standard women-in-prison movie. It does not really conform to any of the subgenres that have developed. All of the women are pretty much guilty as charged. The guards are not particularly abusive, although the one who provokes the kitchen brouhaha is a bit of a nudge. The doctor is the one nut, because even the warden is more misguided than anything else. Caged Heat does have most of the elements of a good women in prison movie though. We have several shower scenes, a couple of cat fights, lots of gunplay, and a climactic break out. Demme delivers on the goods. But he’s also having fun. The plot itself is ludicrous enough that it constitutes a wink at the audience, and throughout, Demme gives us little touches to remind us he isn’t take this too seriously. Although not recognized as a classic, I think it compares favorably with Russ Meyer’s newly rehabilitated Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). If FPKK can be rediscovered as a classic, can Caged Heat be far behind?