Chain Gang Women

This is a classic example of the worst sort of stuff used to hook in the grind-house crowd back in the 70's. Its title, poster and trailer would have been used to sell it but of course the movie itself bears no relevance to what could reasonably be expected from a film entitled Chain Gang Women. It's an escape convict movie with two women in minor roles in the latter half of the film. And not a very interesting escape convict movie at that. The acting is of course awful and the sexploitation element negligible. There are a couple of rape scenes where the women seem virtually disinterested in being sexually assaulted; which makes it less grimy but overall pretty ridiculous. The film totters on from scene to scene with very little dynamism until it ends with an ending that is, to say the least, underwhelming. So there's not a lot to recommend here to be perfectly honest. The most interesting element of the film is the quad-screen segments, and the soundtrack was pretty appropriate I guess. Other than that, it's strictly limited thrills and spills in this one I'm afraid.

Sometimes I wish there were truth-in-advertising laws when it comes to movies. With a title like "Chain Gang Women", you might think you know what the movie is about. Guess again. This is not a women-in-prison movie. In fact, there are no women to be seen in the movie until around the halfway point of the movie! Had the movie found other ways to be entertaining, I might have forgiven the person who titled this movie. But this is a slow and endless exercise. It takes half an hour before the jailbreak, then the movie slows down again with the escaped prisoners not doing much more than sit on their tails while hiding. I guess the production values are okay for a cheapie - there is some decent location shooting in what seems to be actual prisons, the movie is decently shot, and they even sprung for some filming from helicopters. But the movie is often so boring that you'll be thinking of things from why the rapes come across as so matter-of-fact, to why the filmmakers thought that southern California could pass as locations in Georgia.

This is a truly dreadful film. Despite its name, it is not a WIP outing. Nor indeed is it a convincing road movie (which I think is what it is trying to be).

It takes two guys half an hour to escape their unexciting prison confines, finding their couple of girls- and then that's basically it. Acting is dreadful and unredeemed by any of the usual sexploitation compensations. If you want nudity and violence, then go elsewhere. In fact go elsewhere anyway. On any basis you are wasting your time with this trash.

In typical Grindhouse style, Chain Gang Women uses a suggestive title to mislead audiences into thinking they are in for 90 minutes of sweaty, sassy women smashing rocks and taking showers together. What we get instead, is two women, who only make their appearance 40 minutes in, and while they bare their flesh for all to see as per drive-in rules, they sadly wield no machine guns and lack anything resembling the charisma of a, say, Pam Grier. This is a Women in Prison (WiP) movie with no women in prison, and spends most of the time being a lame convicts-on-the-run story.

Harris (Robert Lott) has six months to go on his stint for possessing marijuana when he is moved to a chain gang and linked up to burly murderer Weed (Michael Stearns). When one of the other prisoners knocks out the prison guard with his pick-axe, the prisoners flee on foot. We see via montage the gang being gradually wound up/killed, while Harris and Weed reach the safety of Harris's wife Ann (Linda York). While Harris is out getting Weed some clothes, Weed rapes Ann, and the two hit the road again reaching the farm of an old farmer and his sexy young wife (Barbara Mills). Turned on by the prospect of danger, and leaving her dull life with the cruel old man, she takes off with the two criminals.

If all this sounds incredibly dull and methodical, well it's because it is. I would forgive the blatant lie of the title if the film managed to be interesting in its own right, but director Lee Frost has so few ideas as to how to progress the film, that is becomes reduced to a series of repetitive shots of prisoners working and fist fights, and then later a series of bland exchanges and car chases. A least they made a bit of an effort with Porter Jordan's score, as although I wouldn't exactly put it onto my iPod, it's not half bad by grindhouse standards (which is usually some twangy disco score played over and over throughout the movie).

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Billy Harris has only 6 months left to serve for grass. He gets transfered out of the easy library job into hard chain-gang Georgia State Labor Farm. He is chained up with Mike Weed who supposedly killed a girl. The prisoners attack the guards and everybody makes a break for it. Harris doesn't want to run but Weed threatens to chop off his leg. They go to Harris' girlfriend Ann. While Harris is out, Weed rapes Ann. They avoid a road block and stop at a farm where the farmer has a really young wife.

This is a horribly misleading title. The filmmaking is amateurish. The lead actors are not that compelling. They're not bad as amateur actors but don't expect more than that. Harris and Weed are set up for some very compelling conflict but the movie doesn't develop it. The farmer and his wife provide some additional possibilities. However I have no rooting interest in any of them.