Caged Heat

We have a bunch of chicks that looks pretty good and they have balls too. They are not some amazing actresses but they are OK: Juanita Brown, from "Foxy Brown"(1974), directed by Jack Hill, Erica Gavin, from "Vixen!"(1968) and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"(1970), both directed by Russ Meyer, Roberta Collins, from "The Big Doll House"(1971), directed by Jack Hill, "Women in Cages"(1971), "Death Race 2000"(1975), Ella Reid and Cheryl Smith are "the good girls". Barbara Steele is the "bad girl", the crazy Supt. McQueen, the prison boss. And Warren Miller is the "bad boy", the crazy Dr. Randolph, the prison doctor. They are all doing their best in this debut of Mr. Jonathan Demme, it's not so bad like somebody wrote right here, watch it, without high hopes, and judge for yourself! At least, you'll see some naked women...

There's lots of naked showering in this movie about women in prison. It's all young woman, ranging in age from 19 to 30, except for elderly, wheelchair-bound Barbara Steele (who's 37) as the warden, who wears glasses. There's also Warren Miller as the doctor who likes to experiment with his unconscious subjects and take pictures.

It's Jonathan Demme's first movie as director, and it's exploitation all the way, baby. It's never clear for most of the movie why they're in prison; it's thirty minutes in before one of the inmates talks about how she wound up in the joint, and like every convict, it's a bad rap. Yet when they get a chance to escape, they all seem competent with stealing cars, handling weapons and so forth.

It may be hard to reconcile the director of films like SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA and PHILADELPHIA with trash like this. Yet that was the entree to directing in that period. Earlier, fledgling directors might come out of the vast landscape of B westerns or short comedies. In the 1950s, directors started out in television and moved to the big screen. In the 1960s and 1970s, they worked for AIP and Roger Corman. Yet despite some prestige pictures in the 1990s, Demme returned to trash, with remakes of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and weird stuff like RICKI AND THE FLASH, like John Ford returning to westerns. Some people never forget where they come from.

Director Jonathan Demme's CAGED HEAT is a great example of the Women In Prison movie. All of the prerequisites are here:

#1- Women in snazzy street clothes behind bars!

#2- Multiple, full-on shower scenes!

#3- Cat fights!

#4- Thuggish / hillbilly guards!

#5- A sadistic, insane female Warden (played by the one and only Barbara Steele)!

#6- Gun fights!

#7- Hard core inmates!

#8- Breakouts!

#9- Torture!

Yes, this is a masterwork of its subgenre, and one of the gems in Producer Roger Corman's crown. Erica Gavin plays the woman who gets caught at the beginning, winding up in the pen. It's rough going, especially when she crosses paths with the tough-talking, no-nonsense Maggie (Juanita Brown). Ms. Steele's character isn't in it as much as you might think, but she makes the best of her crackpot role. Also, watch for Rainbeaux Smith as the very lovely Lavelle.

Highly recommended for the true WIP connoisseur...

Ahhh... 'Caged Heat'! I get a big grin on my face just typing the title! Look, you either dig Women In Prison movies or you don't, and if you do 'Caged Heat' is the second best one ever made, in a tie with Jack Hill's 'The Bird Bird Cage'. (The best for me is still 'Chained Heat' starring Linda Blair and Tamara Dobson, made a few years after this genre is generally regarded as being at its peak). I think the only thing stopping it from being number one is the absence of Pam Grier. If she had played the character of Pandora instead of Ella Reid, 'Chained Heat' would be IT. Funnily enough, three of the major cast members (Juanita Brown, Roberta Collins and Rainbeaux Smith) had co-starred in various Grier vehicles ('Foxy Brown', 'The Big Doll House', and 'Drum' respectively). This is Jonathan Demme's directorial debut after serving his apprenticeship with Roger Corman as a writer and producer, and he really came up trumps. Demme manages to make a tough and tense W.I.P. movie and a playful, tongue in cheek parody of one simultaneously. He has made more accomplished and successful movies since this, but arguably none more entertaining. The cast is an impressive one, not just Brown, Collins, Smith and Reid, but Russ Meyer bitch goddess Erica Gavin ('Vixen!') and horror legend Barbara Steele ('Black Sunday', 'Pit And The Pendulum', 'Night Of The Doomed', 'Shivers',etc.). I also liked the perverted Dr. Randolph played by Warren Miller. 'Caged Heat' is first class trash, and a perfect example of 1960s/70s exploitation movies exemplified by the energetic and fun output of American International and New World Pictures. We will never see their likes again! Enjoy!

As the director of such films as The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Rachel Getting Married, director Jonathan Demme has garnered a basket-load of nominations, and a few awards including an Oscar. Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is his directorial debut.

The film features Barbara Steele, the star of the Italian horror masterpiece, Black Sunday, as the prison superintendent. The rest of the cast were either novices, or veterans of B movie films like Vixen or Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Not the most exciting dialog, but plenty of boobage, and one really crazy doctor.