Le prigioniere dell'isola del diavolo

A review I read of this film classified it as 'Women In Prison' and 'Pirate Adventure'. As far as I'm concerned, you can classify this as 'Sci-Fi/Fantasy'. Slave women that pan for gold in 19th century aristocratic formal wear - clothing that never gets dirty on bodies that never sweat. This is the only 'women in prison' film I have ever seen with no nudity or sex. Also, no implied lesbianism. Basically, this might be the most unrealistic and boring 'women in prison' film of all time.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1 Casting - 1/1 Directing - 0/1 Story - 1/1 Writing/Screenplay - 0.5/1

Total Base Score = 3.5

Modifiers (+ or -): Believability/Consistency: -1;

Total RealReview Rating: 2.5 (rounded up to 3 for IMDB)

According to the IMDB, this was American star Guy Madison's second European film, after SLAVE OF ROME and before SWORD OF THE CONQUEROR and EXECUTIONER OF VENICE. Madison went on to have a successful and prolific "second career" in Europe throughout the 1960's. This film plays very much like an old pulp men's magazine story come to life. A boatload of scantilly clad and sweaty female convicts from France are on their way to Devil's Island, the infamous French penal colony on the coast of South America. One of them is also looking for her sister. We are treated to various abusive policies by the corrupt prison-camp management and guards, along with sexual exploitation of the women by officials looking to trade favors for attention (don't get excited here--you could show this film to an eight-year-old!). Thirty minutes into the film, handsome, rugged Guy Madison arrives to take over administration of the penal colony, and he's something of a reformer, stopping the abuse and punishing those who do not respect the human rights of the prisoners. That doesn't win him any popularity among the old guard. Madison also falls in love with one of the prisoners, but Madison's character is not exactly what he seems to be, and there's also a question of a cache of hidden gold... Unfortunately, Mr. Madison does not dub his own voice, although the voice assigned to him is not too distracting. He plays the role with class and authority. The rest of the cast, with exaggerated gestures and exaggerated dubbing, along with the period costumes and the low-budget historical settings, give the whole thing a pulp-magazine-illustration feel. Collectors of women-in-prison films may want to seek this out as an early (and tame) example of the genre, and Guy Madison fans should be satisfied (even though he doesn't appear for 30 minutes into the film), but overall I'd rate it only "average" among early 60s Italian costume dramas.

Director Domenico Paolella directed many excellent costume adventures and peplum films, and later the intense Eurowestern HATE FOR HATE, and worked with many American actors in the 60s.

The Plot.

Female prisoners are shipped to Devil's Island penal colony.

They are indoctrinated into the prison life from abusive guards and then a new prison governor arrives with planned reforms.

I suppose this is a precursor to all those women in prison movies that followed. Unfortunately the available prints today are horrible. The color has turned ll red and the film is way dirty.

The print I saw had a bunch of poor splices in it too.

I'm not a huge fan of dubbed movies, but this has a bit of money in it and it's watchable. That's about all.

Rather middling.

This film is ostensibly about women who were sent as prisoners to the infamous Devil's Island in French Guiana. However, this mostly seems like an excuse to assemble a large group of comely women (often with breasts bulging from their dresses) and have them punished or raped by the men running the prison. Considering this French-Italian picture was made in the early 60s, this means that most of this is done off camera and it's not nearly as sleazy as the genre became in the late 60s and early 70s where they were essentially soft-core skin flicks with strong hints of lesbianism. Here, it's quite subdued by comparison...but still rather sleazy and exploitational.

While the American actor Guy Madison is listed first in the credits, he doesn't appear until almost 40 minutes into the film. He's the new leader of the prison who is shocked to see how depraved the prison has become. He orders the men to stop beating and molesting the women and to treat them humanely (crazy concepts, I know). However, his reforms are short-lived as it turns out he's got a HUGE secret...and the old ways are soon re-instituted. Is there any hope for these 'ladies'?

Like so many European productions of the era, they brought in a token American actor and dubbed the film into multiple languages in order to increase the marketability abroad. Actors such as Clint Eastwood, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Burt Lancaster and the British actor Dirk Bogarde were lured into these mostly Italian productions. Madison's career by the early 60s was stalled and his making this film was a decent career choice, as some of these films made the actors mega-stars (Eastwood)...plus it offered a paycheck in spite of little in the way of artistic appeal!

Overall, it's a sleazy but not TOO sleazy film...watchable but not much more. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" it is NOT!

Dismal production values ruin a tale that, in some ways, was ahead of its time (several of the women know how to handle a gun, for example). The plot concerns female prisoners on the remote Devil's Island, who work all day under exhausting conditions to collect gold for the French government, and if they want to "rest" one day they have to visit the guards' rooms the previous night, if you know what I mean. One day a new warden arrives and takes over command of the prison, and his No 1 priority is to ensure the humane and respectful treatment of the prisoners. But could he have a secret agenda of his own? And is that black guy whose boat crashes on the island really a fisherman? I would like to give this film a higher rating than * out of 4, but I can't: the cinematography alone is among the worst I've ever encountered - everything appears to be seen through an awful orange filter. Ultimately, "Women of Devil's Island" is more of historical (as one of the earliest women-in-prison flicks) than of artistic interest.