The Female Bunch

I recently bought the Al Adamson blu-ray collection, and this is the first one I started on. It was sleazy exploitation of strong independent women who hate men. The movie is told through a flashback from the P.O.V. of Sandy, a waitress who keeps falling in love with the wrong men. After attempting to kill herself, her friend Libby (Get it? Women's 'Lib') introduces her to a group/cult of women who live on a ranch, where no men are allowed. Eventually, Sandy wants out and tries to help a man that wondered on to the ranch. The other women want him dead. Will they survive? If you like trashy grindhouse films, you might enjoy THE FEMALE BUNCH!!!

This film may not be high on many peoples list to see but it had a feel to it that made one feel for the characters. Drugs, sex, violence, were some of the more prevalent attributes, but it also had a touch of "I want to live outside of the known society & do my own thing" to it. I personally enjoyed this flick, & would suggest it to the rebel crowd.

"The Female Bunch" manages to pull off quite a trick. It somehow manages to make make nude scenes (with some rather dreamy women by the way) boring. Those scenes are embarrassing to watch. Those scenes are the only reason to watch a movie like this. Throw in some bad dubbing and a cheap look and "The Female Bunch" is the pits every step of the way.

"The Female Bunch" was completed in Aug 1969 under shooting title "A Time to Run," even more brutal and shocking than director Al Adamson's breakout success, "Satan's Sadists," on Western locations in Utah and the Spahn Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, at the very time the Charles Manson family was committing their most heinous crimes. The new title was inspired by "The Wild Bunch," going even further in its violence and nudity, even a full frontal shower scene, never topped by Adamson. A modern story about man-hating women living on an isolated California ranch, enabling them to run heroin from across the Mexican border. The sight of the bunch on horseback, constantly riding hither and yon, quickly grows tiresome, and even their sexual antics prove boring under Adamson's out of focus direction. Future HEE HAW girl Jennifer Bishop had an extensive exploitation career in Adamson films, "Blood of Dracula's Castle," "Horror of the Blood Monsters," and "Jessi's Girls," but hasn't the acting chops to truly convince as Grace, the 'queen bee' of this hive, and none of the other females stand out. The nominal male leads are Lon Chaney and Russ Tamblyn, only around long enough to justify their prominent billing, Chaney billed with the 'Jr.' for the only time since the 1942 Universal short "Keeping Fit." Tamblyn only arrives at the midway point, getting killed in glorious fashion with a pitchfork to the groin after being branded on the forehead by Grace. As Monti, aging former stuntman, Chaney is the only male working on Grace's ranch, believing that she'll eventually respond favorably to his amorous advances, only to be knocked out, tied to the back of a horse, and allowed to be dragged off to certain death. With only 6 1/2 minutes screen time, it's a disappointingly small role for the actor's last, but even worse is the quality of his cancer ridden voice, reduced to a terrible rasp, even when he's supposed to register emotion. There's a certain home movie atmosphere in the way that Adamson unflatteringly films his star, happily guzzling a bottle of vodka and spitting it out! It's a sad sight to see, but Lon Chaney's career comes to a close after 164 films in 37 years of dedicated work.

This is a historic film it was filmed at the Spahn ranch outpost of the the Manson family or at least parts of it were. There are too many similarities between the film and that group. Ironic Manson was also a Film Consultant at Universal Studios. Anyhow the film by its self has that classic 60's free Hollywood spirit , this was a time when Hollywood as the Motion Picture Film capitol was being broken up and auctioned off piece by piece and studios were scrambling around figuring out what was going to be the next big wave in show business. The creativity of the era is what balanced it all out this was a time when money didn't mean much and you didn't need to be a big shot to get licensing. Very unlike what we saw by the late 70's. Films like this are unique and they cannot be compared to your usual run of the mill productions. Now you have to literally go through a avalanche of regulations. The value is in the spirit of the film not in the acting even though much of the acting is good if you compare it by that standard as acting stands by itself. I'd rather watch this film over again than anything coming out of my local theater.