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Movie Reviews
Women in Prison
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Women in Cages (1971) |
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| Pam Grier played the evil prison guard Alabama in Women in Cages. |
A cut above most women in prison movies plotwise, Women in Cages only falls a bit short in the fun quotient, preventing it from breaking into the top ranks of the genre. This is yet another of the Roger Corman-produced women in prison movies filmed in the Philippines (the incomparable Cirio Santiago receives the main producer credits). It thus has much the same feel as the Big Doll House (1971) and Big Bird Cage (1972). Indeed, several of the actresses (Pam Grier, Roberta Collins, and Judy Brown) also starred in the Big Doll House, which I presume was filmed at or around the same time. I think a great book could probably be written (if there isn't one already) about the production of these Roger Corman cheapies in the early 1970s. As I've said before, Grier, Collins, and Brown were not only foxy ladies, but also decent actresses all things considered. I could be wrong, but they all seem to "get it," if you know what I mean. They manage to play things just seriously enough to hold these movies together while at the same time letting the audience sort of know they're in on the joke. I have to imagine that all sorts of fun, interesting, and/or naughty things were going on during production.
What is particularly interesting is the way the roles seem to shift around almost at random. In the Big Doll House Grier is a sort of Queen Bee, but a weak one. In Big Bird Cage she plays a tough girl would infiltrates the work camp. Here she's the evil head matron who likes to love and lash the prisoners. Judy Brown played the New Fish in Big Doll House, while here she's the more seasoned inmate (or more or less the same role Collins played in that Big Doll House). Collins, by contrast now plays the role of the edgy junkie (similar to the Harrad character in BDH). We do have a new player in this one, Jennifer Gan whose only other important credit was as Marlene in the second-tier biker flick, Naked Angels (1969).
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| "He takes me to cockfights, and receives blocks of heroin... he must be Mr. Right." |
Gan plays Carol Jefferies, who goes by Jeff throughout the movie. She's a bimbo, for lack of a better word, running around with gangster Rudy (Charlie Davao). I say she's a bimbo because even though Rudy is apparently some sort of "syndicate" chieftain, Jeff is apparently clueless about how he earns his living. In any case, the two of them are attending a cockfight (pretty romantic, eh?), when he received a brick-sized block of heroin. Unfortunately for Jeff, the cops are watching this transaction take place. Rudy spots the fuzz, and in a pretty obvious maneuver switches the dope from his euro satchel to Jeff's handbag (Warden's rule #621: never trust a man who carries a purse). Although Rudy makes the old switcheroo in public, neither the cops nor Jeff notice it apparently. So when Rudy bolts, Jeff is left twisting in the wind and is arrested for possession of drugs. Rudy visits Jeff in prison, and tries to reassure her: "Keep quiet and my lawyers will get you out..." a line that ranks right up there with "trust me baby," "you can't get pregnant the first time," and "I'm a little short this month, can you help with my rent?" on the list of lines that coming out of a man's mouth should send a woman running. But as I say, Jeff is a bimbo, and one of the key defining characteristics of a bimbo is that a bimbo doesn't run away when she hears such things... which is why bimbos have an unfortunate tendency to end up knocked up and broke.
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| Rudy reassures Jeff in prison. The cigarette in his hand is a nice touch. |
Jeff gets sent off to prison. She immediately runs into Alabama (Grier), the head matron (i.e. guard). Alabama (an American herself) has a grudge against American, particularly white Americans for reasons that we'll discuss later. For now, all we know is that Jeff is in for a tough time. As Alabama notes in the first of her many quotable lines, "This is going to be just like back home, only different!" Jeff is then run through the intake process, which involves being strip searched, hosed down, and sprayed with delousing powder. She's then provided with a women-in-prison standard issue minidress (I'm pretty sure the same outfits reappear in BDH), and tossed into a cell. Her cellmates include a brunette, Sandy (Judy Brown); a blonde, Stoke (Collins); and an ethnic, Theresa (Sofia Moran). As I mentioned earlier, Stoke is a junkie, who has a nasty habit of freaking out all of sudden. In addition to being Jeff's roomie (cellie?), Theresa is also Alabama's current main squeeze, and so she's called away to "the playpen," Alabama's personal boudoir and dungeon. Being Alabama's plaything means walking a fine line. Not enthusiastic enough results in a beating. Being too enthusiastic results in the beating. She's a hard woman to please.
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| Jeff's new cellmates, Stoke (Collins) and Sandy (Brown). |
While Theresa is away, Stoke gets a visitor. It turns out that now that Jeff has been sentenced for possession of heroin, Rudy would just as soon get her out of the way. Stoke was mixed up with Rudy's gang at some point in the past, although the precise relationship is a bit fuzzy, and Rudy's gang got her hooked on smack. Stoke's most recent freak out was foreshadowing her desperation for a fix, and now Rudy's lieutenant offers her a deal. If she kills Jeff, they'll get her out of jail. Plus, just to take the edge off, he fixes her up with a stash of drugs. Although Stoke is a little leery, it's an offer she can't refuse. Her visitor hands her two sandwiches to take back to her cell, one laced with poison for Jeff, and the other containing a packet of H for herself.
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| Stoke returns with a sandwich for Jeff. Check out the dresses. |
Stoke goes back to the cell and offer Jeff the sandwich. We get a couple of shots of poor Roberta Collins overacting to show her eagerness for Jeff to take a bite. But just as she is about to, it is lights out, and a dejected Jeff puts the sandwich down instead of eating it, thus ending murder attempt #1. The next morning, she wakes up to find her sandwich half eaten, and a dead rat nearby. Jeff doesn't quite put two and two together here (remember, she's a bim), but in any case her cogitating is interrupted by Theresa's return to the cell. Now, we get a bit of a weird scene. Although for most of the movie Sandy is the level-headed one, every once in a while, she sort of loses it. Here she teases Theresa mercilessly about her relationship with Alabama, until finally an enraged Theresa pulls a knife out from under her mattress. Undaunted, Sandy stands in against Theresa and taunts her to attack. But just Theresa is about to strike, Stoke shoves Jeff between the two women, hoping to get her stabbed. Murder attempt #2 fails as Theresa's thrust merely slices open the side of Jeff's tunic. Before the fight can continue, Alabama arrives to break it up. Theresa rats out Sandy, and Sandy gets hauled off to Alabama's dungeon.
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| Alabama torments Sandy with the old iron boots and burning coal torture. |
Now, about this dungeon. You might think this is just Alabama's pet project, but actually, this seems to be a well-established part of the prison routine. While Alabama is torturing prisoners she has several guard helpers. I'll get to the torture in a second, but I think this whole premise is oddly intriguing. I mean, Alabama isn't even the warden; she's just the head guard. How did she manage to get a significant portion of the prison staff assigned to her to run her dungeon? Plus, later on she celebrates her fifth year anniversary since leaving the U.S. So, basically, in five years, she's moved to a foreign country, gotten a job at a prison, worked her way to the top, and managed to establish an involved torture/pleasure chamber for her own use. Well, I guess it just goes to show what you can accomplish with a little hard work and dedication to a goal.
Anyway, Sandy acts the hard case when she gets down to the dungeon, basically challenging Alabama to do her worst. Considering the wide variety of torture implements on display, I'd be a little more circumspect. Alabama's torture for Sandy is, um, curious. She first strips Sandy naked (yeah!), and then hangs her from the ceiling by arms... but that's not the torture. Then, she lowers Sandy enough to put her feet into what look like metal boots welded to the dungeon's floor... but that's not the torture either. Then she turns a crank, which moves the floor and spreads Sandy's legs apart... but that's still not the torture. Then, finally, she pushes a hot brazier toward Sandy's spread legs... now that's the torture, although it isn't completely clear to me why Alabama considers this more effective than just using a hot iron for the same effect. Now, while my description of this scene sounds grim, it really isn't. It isn't played for shock effect, and plus from our current vantage point, there is a funny element in this and all of the other torture scenes in the movie, namely that although the women are stripped naked in each one, some object, whether the brazier, or a lamp, or a guard is always between the camera and an X rating. It reminded me of the recurrent bit in the Austin Powers movies where all sorts of different object hide the nudity.
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| A group of Philippino extras... um, bandits. |
Following this session with Alabama (which, btw, most of characters insist on pronouncing A-LA-bam-a rather than the more common A-la-BAM-a), Sandy is sent back to the prison population just in time to go out of work detail. I'm not actually quite sure what they're doing, but they seem to be scattering pieces of sugar cane around. Is that how one seeds a sugar cane field? It probably is, but in the movie it just seems like they're picking up pieces and tossing them around almost at random. During a work-break we get a little more exposition as the girls discuss the difficulty of escape. The problems are familiar: the prison is surrounded by miles of jungle, and no one knows which direction to go. Worse, Alabama keeps a group of bandits on retainer, and calls them in to recapture escapees. Since she pays the same whether the prisoner comes back dead or alive, the bandits assault and murder the women they capture. Foreshadowing? You betcha!
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| Alabama makes a pass at Stoke in her boudoir, but Stoke turns her down... |
As you may have noticed, not much has happened plotwise yet, and before it can we have a few more exploitation scenes. First, Alabama goes on a rant about the white American prisoners, and a one point calls them a group of "racious bitches." (Was "racious" ever a word?) In fact, throughout this movie Grier seems to be auditioning for her later move into the blaxploitation genre. Second, we get a lesbian love scene between Alabama and Theresa, which ends with Alabama beating Theresa. Third, we a get a catfight between Theresa and Stoke which Alabama provokes by making a pass at Stoke in front of Theresa. When Stoke later rejects Alabama's approaches, she ends up in the dungeon as well. Her torture consists of being strapped naked to a giant upright wheel and spun around over and over. After a while, Alabama stops the torment for a few minutes to taunt Stoke, who replies by spitting in Alabama's face. Alabama responds by jabbing Stoke with a four-pronged trident (!), which looks like it might have been salvaged from a cheesy gladiator movie. It is sort of funny because two years hence, Grier did star in a cheesy gladiator movie, The Arena (1973) (a.k.a. Naked Warriors), another Roger Corman classic. Well, when Stoke gets back to her cell, she tries to talk the others into trying to escape. At first, the girls are discouraged because of the difficulty of getting through the jungle, but now Theresa pipes in with the convenient fact that she lived in the area before prison and knows the jungle well. Not only that, but she has friends in a nearby village who would help them if they made it that far. You'd think she'd have mentioned this before, wouldn't you? Now, a lesser women in prison movie would quickly shift into escape mode, but in this one we still have a few more plots twists.
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| ... and faces the trident instead. |
Most interestingly, Sandy now gets a visit from a cop. She's in prison for killing her abusive husband, and he offers her a chance at a new trial. There is a catch however (isn't there always?). Before he'll help her, she has to befriend Jeff and convince her to testify against Rudy. Clever eh? Stoke has agreed to kill Jeff to win her freedom, and now Sandy has to keep her alive to win hers. I'm sure they stole this from some classic prison movie, but I don't know which, so it seemed original to me. This creates an interesting back story. Stoke's murder attempts are pretty incompetent, but she is persistent. Remember, she first tried to poison Jeff. Then she pushed her towards an on-coming knife. Before the movie is over, she also tries to crush Jeff under a falling barrel, puts a snake in her bed, and throws acid on her face... all without Jeff noticing that Stoke is trying to kill her! In the meantime, Sandy tries to cozy up to Jeff in a sort of half-hearted way. I don't think she even broaches the testifying question... which is probably just as good because as I mentioned before, Jeff doesn't even knows what Rudy does, much less in enough detail to put him away.
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| Visiting dignitaries... amazingly for a women in prison movie, they're just visiting rather than looking for sex. |
Well, anyway, one day a group of visiting dignitaries arrive at the prison. When I heard that, I immediately suspected that the girls would be forced to prostitute themselves, but amazingly enough, that doesn't happen. The dignitaries are just visiting. Still, they stop in front of Jeff and ask her what conditions are like. Jeff, continuing to demonstrate her incredibly low IQ, answers honestly about the terrible food, bad working conditions, and abusive guards. Needless to say, the dignitaries don't really care, and now Jeff finds herself at the mercy of an angry Alabama. Alabama has her thrown in "the hole," an underground pit attached to the prison sewers. Jeff suffers through the stench and leeches living in the stagnant water by singing nursery rhymes to herself. She also notices that the bars on the grate leading to the sewers are corroded. Before she's able to escape however, Alabama gets her out and brings her to her dungeon, where she wraps her in electrical wires and lights her up like a Christmas tree. In a pause between jolts, Jeff asks: "What kind of hell did you crawl out of?" Alabama replies, "It was called Harlem, baby. I learned to survive, never have pity. This game is called survival. Let's see how well you can play it. I was strung-out behind smack at ten and worked the streets when I was twelve. You've got a long way to go." Jeff wisely drops this line of questioning.
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| The girls plot their escape. |
Jeff's little encounter with Alabama convinces her to make an escape attempt, and the other girls go along. Now, this is a little curious because remember that both Stoke and Sandy have deals to get out if they can just either kill Jeff or get her to testify respectively. Ultimately, it would have been in both their interests to talk her out of escaping instead of joining in. But join they do. As the girls are in the yard, a couple of escaped prisoners are brought back dead. Their bloody, battered bodies are a testament to the brutality of the barbaric bandits Alabama hires to track escapees (like my use of alliteration?) But Jeff and the others see an opportunity here. That night, they ask one of the guards who they've seen kissing a crucifix if they can light prayer candles for the dead girls. The guard reluctantly agrees, and brings them to the prison chapel, where the girls quickly overpower her. While Jeff and Sandy head toward the hole, Theresa and Stoke tie the unconscious guard to a cross. Why? Who knows. I guess to send a message to someone. Anyway, Jeff and Sandy go down into the hole, and they start working on the bars Jeff loosened when she was imprisoned down there. Unfortunately, Alabama hears some commotion and surprises them. But before Alabama can bring them back into custody, Theresa and Stoke show up and get the drop on her. Now, with Alabama as a hostage, the prisoners burst through the bars and escape into the sewers.
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| Theresa returns to settle the score with Alabama... |
As they're escaping, Stoke is getting shakier and shakier. She tries to stop to shoot up, but is distracted (probably by the disorientating day for night shots throughout) and her stash falls in the river. Still, she soldiers on. At one point, Alabama makes a run for it, but Stoke shoots her in the leg. As the girls cluster around the wounded Alabama deciding on her fate, Alabama challenges them to kill her: "A white man raped me. A white bitch can kill me." Classic early-1970s fare. You don't see much of that anymore in the movies. I wonder if that is a reflection of better race relations in the United States or worse. Well, anyway, Stoke is inclined to do it, but Sandy steps in and says she doesn't want another murder on her conscience. So instead, they leave Alabama behind, tied up to a tree.
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| ... but Alabama's real punishment comes at the hand of the bandits. |
By this time, everyone knows the girls have escaped. The bandits are in pursuit, and so are the cops. At one point, the girls pause, and Theresa leaves the group. She returns to where Alabama is tied up, and confronts her. Still angry that Alabama spurned her earlier, Theresa gets her revenge by whipping the bound Alabama. Unfortunately for Theresa, this gives the bandits enough time to catch up with her. They haul her away and assault her. Then when they're done with Theresa, they turn their attention to their previous employer Alabama. In a classic retribution scene, Alabama is attacked and killed by the very outlaws she herself employed to recapture escaped prisoners. Oh the irony! (The scene would be darker if it Grier weren't obviously laughing through half of it.)
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| Stoke realizes Rudy isn't going to honor their deal... |
Sandy, Stoke, and Jeff manage to make it to a coastal town. Stoke tells them she knows someone in the town, and she goes off to find help. But really, she just makes contact with a member of Rudy's gang and sells out the other two girls in return for money and smack. The girls are taken prisoner, and a boat arrives to take them to the floating brothel which also serves as Rudy's HQ. Just as they are being forced onto the boat, Sandy makes a run for it, and luckily runs right into the arms of the police who exchange shots with Rudy's men as the boat pull away. Jeff and Stoke arrive on the Zulu Queen, each expecting decent treatment. Stoke is still hoping for a reward for delivering Jeff, and Jeff thinks that she is about to be reunited with her lover Rudy. But Rudy has no more interest in her, and he breaks his deal with Stoke. Both girls are forced into prostitution on board.
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| ...Jeff managed to get rescued after a chase and a fight... |
Just as the two girls are about to give up hope, the police captain who tried to get Jeff to testify decides to rescue her and finally get her into court. He masquerades as a drunken sailor looking for a good time. He finally finds Jeff, and they begin their escape. Unfortunately, Rudy's men realize what is happening. We then get an extended chase/fight sequence as the police captain and Jeff try to make it up on deck so they can escape to a waiting police boat. This isn't actually all that terrible, but it isn't going to make anyone forget Bruce Lee either. Finally, after lots of kicks, punches, gunshots, the cops and Jeff manage to escape. The movie ends however, with a shot of poor Stoke stripping in a little cubical and having sex with a greasy older man, which seems to be her punishment for trying to kill Jeff and then selling Jeff and Sandy out.
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| ...but Stoke ends up in a new kind of prison. I guess that'll teach her to be a junkie and attempted murderer. |
As I said at the beginning, this is a surprisingly well-plotted movie. They do a nice job setting up the conflict between Sandy and Stoke over Jeff's future (although they don't get as much bang for the buck as they might have), and they do a surprisingly good job foreshadowing so that nothing really comes off as contrived. Still, the basic setup of the movie fundamentally undermines attempts at narrative coherence. I mean, the raison d'etre of these films is more accurately captured by shower and abuse scenes than by thoughtful plotting. Still, Women in Cages is quite a credible movie. Not as fun as The Big Doll House or as satirical as Caged Heat (1974), it holds its own among the Roger Corman 1970s women in prison movies.
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