Die wilden Zehn

Having watched several of Mr. Mikels' films over the years for no clear reason, the only thing I can say about most of them is that they are not as cluelessly inept as Edward D. Woods Jr. This, unfortunately omits the goggle factor as you stop and rewind to make sure that, yes, indeed, Mr. Woods did indeed do that. Mr. Mikels never astonishes in that way, which means there's usually absolutely no reason to watch them, except to wonder how he continued to raise money for the next one.

Nonetheless, you may feel the need to look at one of Mr. Mikels movies for yourself. That's all well and good with me; I'm not often here to tell you what to watch, but more about what you'll see if you watch attentively. On that basis, I'd like to make your experiment a little less painful, and this one actually has some decent underlit cinematography by Yuval Shousterman. Perhaps this was a means of coping with a budget so small that they couldn't afford any lights, but then, a good lighting man can make a virtue of necessity.

In Director Ted V. Mikels' TEN VIOLENT WOMEN, the Maestro forays into the world of the Women In Prison movie. He succeeds brilliantly, since women do end up in prison.

A mining accident sends a crew of women into a life of crime. Their spree of heists includes the high-heeled spiking death of a lowlife "fence", played by Mikels himself! Drug deals, flamenco dancing, and arrests ensue.

In the slammer, we're introduced to the "head screw", Bri Terry (Georgia Morgan), and her ex-lunch lady guard squad. Terry is a meanie pants with certain "ideas" about the females in her charge. Sadism and weirdness take place. Thankfully, the big finale contains much needed belly dancing.

With this film, the Director has chosen to forgo such trifles as sound, lighting, production, acting, or any semblance of a story line. Instead, he just turns on the camera and lets it all fly! Otherwise, this could never have become the miraculous shambles that it is.

In the galaxy of sub-sludge cinema, Mikels' star burns very bright. He has a real knack for this sort of stuff. Whether that's a good thing or not is left to posterity...

My review was written in May 1984 after a screening at Selwyn theater on Manhattan's 42nd St.

"10 Violent Women" is a strange women's prison film which will be of interest to followers of that specialized genre. Made in 1978, pic was released regionallly in 1982 and is reviewed on its belated firs appearance in New York.

Convoluted storyline (punctuated by freeze-frames and announcement titles-ove as gags) opens with eight women getting frustrated with their work and turning to crime. They successfully pull off a jewelry store robbery, but are nabbed (roughly halfway through the film) by narcs when they try to sell them cocaine obtained from Leo the fence (Ted V. Mikels, the director, in a support role).

Action in stir is generally routine, except for a memorably overdone turn by Georgia Morgan as the extremely butch head guard, who likes to doff her mannish uniform at night, put on frilly nightgowns and force the prettier inmates to submit to everything from humiliation to whippings. After a much too easy escape from behind bars, heroines Samantha (Sherri Vernon) and Maggie (Dixie Lauren) mark time unconvincingly until a shah whose sacred scarab ing they stole (in the jewel robbery) invites them onto his yacht, drops criminal charges and whisks them off in an absurd happy ending.

"Women" is the sort of odd B-movie that proliferated a decade ago for regional and drive-in circuit use (when budgets under $50,000 per film were possible), but since then tv action shows have obviated the production of such pictures. Filmmake Mikels, for example, made an interesting actioner "The Doll Squad" in 1972 with Francine York starring as the leader (named Sabrina) of a trio of tough female undercover agents, which was the prototype of "Charlie's Angels".

Though too kinky in spots for general audiences (Mikel as Leo is killed gruesomely by a "heroine" stabbing him repeatedly with her spiked heel), "Women" is technically adequate low-budget action fare. Its title defies precise calculation, since only three or four heroines are in the spotlight at any one time.

Flabbergasting is the word for this mighty entry in the canon of Ted V. Mikels, the Grade Z journeyman of 30-plus years of schlock. His films are so terrible, and not necessarily in an endearing kind of way, that you don't know whether to deify or damn the man for persistently, self-reliantly, churning out such endless truffle... his way or no way. Perhaps Mikels is the last of the true independents...

Anyway, this amusing piece of tedium concerns the exploits of some high-kicking gals (and there are eight, not ten, by the way) who, after they get even with some pervert slob at their job in a mine (in a real "Huh?" of an opening), decide to have some more adventure by plotting an intricate heist of a jewelry store and then rip off a "fence", which proves to be their undoing. As the picture lumbers along, the number of women in this club begin to dwindle. Finally, there are two left, who get sent to a tough women's prison (actually, a boiler room, but never mind) where they become at odds with a stereotypical butch lesbian warden (who probably has an 8mm copy of SEVEN BEAUTIES in her desk), and plot to escape.

I have not mentioned the names, nor any distinguishing traits of the girls. So -uh- "impressionistic" is this "uncompromising testament of women getting even in a male-dominated society" full of "dramatic irony" when they meet their retribution in the form of a woman (who is actually more male)... oh to hell with it. There is zero characterization; faint names are dropped here and there, but good luck matching them to the proper girl. In fact, the solely solid character in the entire piece is director Mikels himself, ironically, in his wonderful cameo as the fence whom the too-confident female mob attempts to rob.

But otherwise, this is yet another Ted Mikels home movie that actually got sold for release (if perhaps only on home video). The best attempts at artistry are the Neo-Realistic prison love scenes, which are so simply because they had no lights! That scene alone accounts for the dreariness that pervades this picture. The elusive tone of 10 VIOLENT WOMEN is interesting-- although it attempts to appease the R-rated audience with sex and violence, the movie is actually quite juvenile in its approach.

The completists of the wide wonderful world of Grade Z cinema will probably want to check this film out anyway. (Why else did I sit through Larry Buchanan's MISTRESS OF THE APES?) But for the sane viewer, their Ted Mikels fix will be abetted with THE DOLL SQUAD instead.

Ten Violent Women (1982)

1/2 (out of 4)

Director Ted V. Mikels takes at least two different genres and throws them together but the end result is yet another deadly dull disaster. A group of women working in a dangerous mine grow tired of that so they decide to rob a jewelry store, which leads to an issue when a valuable jewel they stole is wanted by its crazed owner. Eventually the women get involved with a drug deal that soon leads them to prison where they're abused by the wicked female warden. TEN VIOLENT WOMEN is an utter disaster no matter how you look at it. I've said this countless times before but I really enjoy Mikels and his style and energy but sadly this very rarely transfers to the screen. If you've seen interviews with Mikels or even the documentary done on him then you know he's an interesting person and someone you'd love to hang out with. The problem is that the majority of his movies are deadly dull and that's certainly the case here. This thing mixes up several genres but sadly the result is just bad. The worse part is that this exploitation film contains very little exploitation and instead the director takes a fun genre (women in prison) and turns it into a kid's flick. I say this because of the lack of nudity and there's even a shower sequence here where the women wrestle but in their bra and panties. What the heck is that all about? There are simply way too many other women in prison films out there that offer much more than what we get here. The first portion of the film deals with the various robberies but these too are just boring and drag on forever. Obviously there's way too much filler going on here and with a running time of 96-minutes it feels longer than Roots. The performances are as bad as you'd expect but so is everything else here.