Star Slammer

1986 women's prison space adventure

Rating: 5/20

Plot: A scantily-clad woman is arrested and taken to a women's prison on a space ship. She tries to escape.

The other title--Prison Ship--would have given away that this is a women's prison/science fiction mash-up. I thought I was just popping in a Star Wars rip-off, but then there's lesbianism and cat fights with other scantily-clad women. Fred Olen Ray--co-director of Dinosaur Island, a movie that barely looks like it has even one director--created this gem, and a glance at his filmography probably should have at least given away that there would be some sleaze. The heroine, played by Sandy Brooke who reminded me a little of Joanna Kerns, was cute enough and tough-looking enough, and the other women brought just the perfect amount of skank to their roles. The beginning part of the movie takes place on some anonymous planet, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that it was filmed on Earth. There's a bulky vehicle that I'm sure was borrowed from some other B-movie and a variety of alien things that look kind of cool along with a bunch of incoherent action. The majority of the movie takes place on the ship, and it gets a little tiresome and redundant after a while. The sets are cheap, and the thrills are cheaper. No amount of rubber rodents, robot rodents voiced by the director, a handful of goofy-looking alien guys, or over-the-top dialogue of Bantor--a Vader-type character played by the incomparable Ross Hagen--could save this movie. And neither can a five-minute scene where one of the women finds a harmonica and plays it.

My wife saw a few scenes from this and said, "I don't like this movie." But she did miss the sleaziest parts.

Women of Cell Block 9 (aka Tropical Inferno)

1978 women's prison movies

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Three revolutionaries are captured and interrogated at a women's prison run by a sadistic warden. They try to escape.

The second in my trio of Jesus Franco movies is not a good movie at all, even for a women's prison movie. Franco dabbled in that genre, probably because of the pervy potential, and this effort is the kind of movie you kind of feel dirty for watching. The prisoners spend about 95% of the movie naked. When they're clothed at the beginning, they're the kinds of revolutionaries who wear short shorts and high heels. And when they're not being tortured, they're chained side-by-side by the neck so that the camera can pan over their bodies whenever Franco decides he needs another scene like that in the movie. And that's frequently. Folks who like movies that are degrading to women would almost love this. There's virtually no story, just a trio of torture scenes, one including a rhino horn and Howard Vernon saying, "Most men I've done this to are now homosexuals." Oh, yeah. Howard Vernon is in this. He's terrific despite the terrible dubbing--dubbing that includes voices when nobody's mouth is moving at all--and a scene where he watches lesbian action awkwardly. Well, that's also probably made awkward because of the dubbing. That or the leering. Now that I think about it, this movie is pretty much just shots of naked women and close-ups of Howard Vernon. And you know what? That's fine with me. I don't know who plays the warden because I can't figure out the warden's name, but I liked her. There's plenty of cheese amidst the sleaze with some game-show music that is completing distracting when the prisoners try to use lesbianism as a distraction to trick the dumbest prison guard ever, the line "Turn around, you pig!" which leads to the worst blood I think I've ever seen, and plenty of crocodiles or alligators during a scene where the naked women are being chased through the forest. As usual, I can't tell the difference between crocodiles and crocodiles. I don't think Franco can either though, so it doesn't matter. And the movie ends with shades of necrophilia with a nifty closing sound effect. Sweet move there, Jesus Franco. Sweet move. No one is going to mistake Women of Cell Block 9 or Tropical Inferno or whatever this movie wants to call itself (Note: It probably would rather hide than call itself anything.) for art, but. . .no, there is no but. There's nothing I can follow that with.

Chicken Run

2000 animated prison break movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A bunch of chickens, led by feisty Ginger, attempt to bust out of Tweedy farms. They fail many times, and things get more critical when the Tweedy decides to abandon attempts to make it with eggs and purchases a giant chicken-pie-making machine. A performing rooster named Rocky flies in and agrees, reluctantly, to teach the chickens to fly.

I love this little movie from the Aardman folk who bring us the Wallace and Gromit movies and not just because it can technically be described as a women's prison movie. Sure I wish they were a little more prolific, but these are labors of love, and the amount of detail that goes into these things makes them magical for children and adults. The details given to the strange looking characters and their odd expressions (I just love how the chickens have teeth in this thing) give them real personalities. The voice work is great in this, especially Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson as Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy and Benjamin Whitrow as the lone rooster Fowler. "The turnip's bought it!" and "Don't be ridiculous; I can't fly this contraption!" still makes me laugh. Mel Gibson, the only American voice in this thing, gives a terrific and inspired voice performance in something he could have been tempted to phone in so that he could concentrate on his first love--hating the Jews. The little details in the setting are also nice and give this location that you could easily imagine a Steve McQueen or Paul Newman trying to escape from a little of its own personality. There's so much on the screen to see here; it's so complex for a stop-animation feature. There are scenes where you have an impossible number of chickens making all these impossible-to-coordinate movements, and it's just amazing. Amazing, but I guess not impossible since they pull it off. Things get a little goofy at the end with an action sequence that crosses the line into absurdity and completely ignores the laws of physics, and a lot of people will get a little sick to their stomachs with the terrible puns delivered by a pair of questionable rats. Birds of a feather flop together, it's raining hen, "Dough!', poultry in motion, it's like an oven in here. Uggh. Otherwise, this is well written and clever with more than a few fun references to classic films. It's entertaining for the whole family! This is one of those movies that I have seen about a hundred times, by the way.

Oh, and it reminds me that I have a pirate movie to watch!

Women in Cages

1971 women's prison movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Pretty much the same as all the other women's prison movies.

So here's the deal: The most popular blog post of all time here at shane-movies is my write-up for The Little Mermaid. And it's not even close. So I tried to figure out why that's the case in order to figure out ways to generate more blog traffic.

At first I thought it was just an angry reader who just couldn't stay away and kept reading the The Little Mermaid post because he is worried his blood pressure might be too low. Then, I investigated further.

The words "horny teenage mermaid" appear right near the beginning of the post. And I could picture bloated sweathogs drooling in front of their computer monitors as they Googled "horny teenage mermaid" with their pants half-unzipped. It was easy for me to picture because I'm one of those guys. The words "sexual awakening of a young girl," "hot sea witch," and "Buddy Hackett" probably brought people to that post, too. And any combination of the words mermaid, vagina, sex, and saucy. Or, for the ladies, "nondescript prince."

Naturally, I started thinking about how I could, like a Pied Piper of movie bloggers, lead unsuspecting perverts to my little blog since it's been a dream of mine to hit the 10 1/2 reader mark. I don't discriminate, ladies and gentlemen. I'm a lot like the Christian church or the Statue of Liberty and will take anybody I can get with open arms. Maybe some bloggers out there don't want poor, tired, or huddled masses dirtying up their comments, but I'll gladly take 'em! And I don't want to limit that just to perverts either though I suspect three of my readers probably could safely be labeled "perverts" or at the very least derelicts.

So here it is. Here's the flute this Pied Piper is using to trick the masses into finding my blog. It's been 4 1/2 years, people, and I just can't be happy with 4 1/2 readers anymore. The Hunger Games + women's prison movies + nudity + "horny teenage mermaid" + Buddy Hackett? I don't see how this plan can fail. I thought about throwing in words like "naughty nurse action," "juicy sorority party," "throbbing," "waxy nips," spandex jumping jacks," "Duchess of Spain sunbathing," "MILF drinking a milkshake," "polka-dotted panties," "hot pudding wrestlers," "x-rated aquarium," "Kim Kardashian," "studly fireman," "naked shuffleboard," "salami treat," or "elderly spanking," but I figured that would be considered cheap.

And new readers? You can bet that all of the entries are just as good as this one!

Oh, Women in Cages. It's not very good, a lesser entry in the women's prison genre. Pam Grier plays a sadistic guard this time, and she doesn't wear the uniform as well as the prisoner garb she did in The Big Bird Cage. We get into blaxploitation motifs when she starts mentioning her life in Harlem. Smack at age 10 and working the streets at 12. It explains why she enjoys strapping half-naked women to large wheels or employing crotch burning though. "Crotch burning" is probably a word combination that will draw a certain crowd here, right? The story's not all that engaging, but you do get your obligatory shower scene, your obligatory catfights, and your obligatory torture sequences. Andres Centenara makes a very brief appearance but isn't on the screen enough to matter. This is a hastily-put-together production that is way too serious to be much fun. Corman produced. And here's the real poster which, as much as it might surprise you, isn't really a very honest depiction:

The Big Bird Cage

1972 women's prison movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Horny Terry is arrested for a crime she did not commit and sent to a prison labor camp for women. Meanwhile, some people who want to raise money to start a revolution get the idea to bust out a bunch of the women at the camp for their cause. The result? Mud wrestling!

How about that tagline--"Women so hot with desire they melt the chains that enslave them!"

So what are you really looking for in a women's prison movie? Sexy women? This has a few of those--Pam Grier at her toughest and the stunning Anitra Ford, a future Price Is Right gal. Nudity? It's got that, too, and not just with the aforementioned blaxploitation superstar or a woman Bob Barker would probably later sleep with. You get a shower scene or two, a genre favorite. You also get a really tall woman covering herself in lard and attacking another woman in a river with floating coconuts. Gritty and brutal prison life depictions? The titular bird cage is a giant rickety mill that gives the producers of this (yes, Corman's involved) an excuse to show sweaty and scantily-clad women climbing stairs and engaging in hard work. Perverse torture scenes? Check, including a great scene where Ford is chained and hung from her hair. How about action? Hell, yes! One only needs to point to the handful of scenes featuring mud wrestling, but there's also a terrific scene where Pam Grier and her boyfriend Django have a chicken vs. knife fight. And does this have the great acting you would expect from a feature like this? Why, yes it does. Sid Haig shows comic versatility as a revolutionary although it's not one of the most politically correct performances you're likely to see. Grier's just a presence. My favorite performance of them all is Andres Centenara as the cruel Warden Zappa. Love how he screams all of his lines with a chunky accent and kicks small animals. The best thing about this movie, other than all the nudity, is its tone. This isn't a movie that the actors or director Jack Hill is taking too seriously. I think it's hilarious how the amateur revoluntaries talk:

Guy: Me and the boys have been talking about the revolution.
Other guy: Yeah, like how to get it started and stuff.

The comic tone, the cool setting, and the gals-in-chains thrills make this a near masterpiece of the genre.