Chain Gang Women

A dull 'home invasion' type thriller from Crown International Pictures. The film has nothing to do with the exploitative title, which makes it sound like one of those Filipino women-in-prison movies starring Pam Grier. Instead, it's a stodgy, slow moving tale about a couple of escaped convicts who take some women prisoner in their own homes.

It has much in common with the film WILD RIDERS, although it's nowhere near as sleazy in feel. In fact, it's rather dull and tame, and has little nudity. The actual jailbreak scene takes half a film to happen, and the resulting home invasion thrills are very diluted and lacklustre. As is so often the case from this era, the film only really gets going at the very end. Production values are sub-par, the acting is non-existent, and the film as a whole is a chore to sit through. Much like a lot of Crown's output, then.

Neither woman is on a chain gang, and neither one appears until half-way into the film. Our two "heroes" are (English teachers: here's a way to teach the difference between protagonist and hero) on the chain gang until they escape and find two women. I am a fan of sexploitation, but there just wasn't enough in this. The film is worth watching for the charming quad-split-screen effect maximized so beautifully in "Time Code." Lower all expectations--as if merely agreeing to see a movie entitled "Chain Gang Women" weren't enough--and enjoy.

Theoretically speaking, nothing should be simpler and more straightforward than (s)exploitation movies from the 1970s! The title should pretty much summarize the entire plot and furthermore there should only be a lot of sleaze, violence, naked women and filthy male pigs. Show the movie poster of "Chain Gang Women" to 100 neutral persons, and at least 99 of them will estimate that it's a by-the-numbers "Women in Prison" (WIP) grindhouse/exploitation effort. But this is where Lee Frost and Wes Bishop fooled us all! "Chain Gang Woman" is NOT a 'women in prison' flick. Heck, it's not even a regular prison thriller but a sort of dreadfully boring prison musical! The seemingly never-ending first half of the film exists of nothing but footage of male prisoners working in the middle of Georgia nowhere to the sound of dire country music songs. Eventually there's an outbreak, but don't start hoping for any action or rancid sleaze just yet. There are only 2 (TWO!) women in this dumb movie and sadly they confirm all the ghastly rape fantasy cliches. None of the male protagonists has any macho charisma, neither of the females has any sex-appeal and the entire film is boring, boring, boring... There are literally hundreds of worthwhile 70s exploitation classics out there, and numerous of them actually feature the stuff that you expected to see in "Chain Gang Women", so please don't waste your precious time on this dreck.

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.