Women in Cages

American B-film companies found in the Philippines a cheap, plentiful supply of labour and locations for their tropical drive-in sleazefests. Admittedly these exploitation films are an acquired taste and a dubious form of entertainment; however they mark an important cultural milestone as the first features where a black actress, even playing a prison moll or topless revolutionary, is given a lead role of any substance. Director Jack Hill started the eightball rolling when he shot The Big Doll House in 1971, set in a nameless Latin American prison but filmed in the Filipino jungle. Unseen in Australia since the early 70s, the film featured a mixed cast of local and American exploitation regulars, but it's remembered as the first high-profile role for the later Queen of Blaxploitation, Pam Grier.

Legend has it that Sam Arkoff, head of American International Pictures saw a statuesque Grier at his company switchboard and cast her on the spot for her breakthrough hit Coffy. That, as they say, is bull shee-it. The former beauty queen made her film debut in 1970 as an extra in Russ Meyer's big breast bonanza Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, and appeared in a number of B-pics shot in the Philippines the following year for AiP's rival company, Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Alongside her role as the tough-as-nails prostitute in Big Doll House were supports in the horror flick The Twilight People and as a topless hooker (again!) in Cool Breeze, then back behind bars for Women In Cages.

In Women In Cages, Grier plays the sadistic warden for once, a pot-smoking lesbian with a fully-equipped torture chamber (including a guillotine!). The 'New Fish' (a recent inmate, for you prison film novices), a ditzy blonde ex-stripper called Alabama, has taken the heroin possession rap for her pimp boyfriend. She knows too much, so the pimp blackmails her cellmates to execute her. A competent and well-shot entry in the tropical prison genre from Filipino director Gerry De Leon, it places the embittered ex-addict and prostitute Grier in the position of slave owner, watching her white charges toiling away in the plantation with obvious ironic glee.

For those viewers who are accustomed to cheering on the antics of cult actress Pam Grier on screen, her character in 1972's "Women in Cages" may come as something of a surprise. Far from her bodacious, sympathetic action heroine, she here plays as nasty a personage as can be imagined: a pot-smoking, white race-hating, lesbian sadist from Harlem named Alabama, who is the matron in an exceptionally sleazy Filipino prison for women. Fans of this type of film--a subgenre that includes other New World films such as "The Big Doll House" ('71) and "The Big Bird Cage" ('72), both with Grier--know what to expect from such: nude shower scenes, sadistic but lovely prison guards, a handful of gorgeous inmates and over-the-top action sequences. While not as much fun as the other two films just named, "Women in Cages" does still provide the requisite goods, and Pam stakes her claim to be placed in the pantheon of such classic female jailers as Dyanne Thorne in the "Ilsa" films, Barbara Steele as the crippled warden in "Caged Heat" ('74), and my favorite, the grotesque matron that Hope Emerson plays in "Caged" ('50). In addition to Pam, the film boasts the presence of cult favorite Roberta Collins, as a smack-addicted rat fink; several catfights; vermin (of the snake, rat, leech and Filipino bounty hunter/rapist varieties); torture by fire, whip, rack, wheel and electricity; AND an oceangoing brothel. Though I still prefer the underrated Grier films "The Arena" ('73) and especially "Black Mama, White Mama" ('72) to this one, "Women in Cages" still proved an entertaining diversion.

Jeff is sent to a woman prison, after being caught carrying heroine that belonged to her crime figure boyfriend Rudy. He asks her to keep her mouth shut and would try his best to get her out, but unknowingly to her he has other plans. When she arrives at the prison to do her time, she must face a tyrant of a head warden, Alabama who has a thing against American woman and a sadistic torture chamber of the dark ages called "the playpen" for certain troublemakers.

We all know the formula by now for cheap drive-in WIP features, I take it? Wrongly accused woman. Hard labourers work in the fields. Out-of-control cat-fights. Mass showering. Suffering at the hands of the head warden. Harsh terrain surrounding the prison to make it hard to escape. A gusty prison break. And finally those corrupted individuals get their up and comings. So basically the heat is on in the banana republic.

"Woman In Cages" is another quick, cheaply done Corman production, but this time Jack Hill didn't hold the helm. Instead Gerry De Leon was in the director's chair and he brought to the table a real mean-spirited and quite gloomy Philippine WIP affair. His conventional direction might lack style and cracking energy, but it's balanced out by its intrusive grittiness. The story by James H. Watkins and David R. Osterhout is rather straightforward with little lead way in its same-old-same-old actions and plodding moments, but plenty of sour and quite outlandish moments do occur. The moral card of injustice that leaks its way in comes off as quite silly and lazy. While, there's some slight wit evident, it just seems to get derailed. It mainly concentrates on the unpleasantness and sleazy nature that's drilled in constantly. In the long run these scenes might be effectively crude, but personality does lose out to this rough shtick that really does dry up proceedings. The characters don't feel as dominating; say in "The Big Doll House". Some of the actresses of that film do turn up here. Pam Grier plays the nihilistic lesbian head prison guard with such venom, but this hard-boiled devil woman glow does take away from her energetic persona. The crackling stunner Roberta Collins is in fine form as the on edge drug addict and the gorgeously biting Judith M. Brown also appears. Jennifer Gan was decent in the lead role of the glassily clueless Jeff. Music director Tito Arevalo provides a smoking; on-the-ball soundtrack and Felipe Sacdalan's cinematography methods are unsparingly grounded.

Not one of the best of the sub-genre, but well worth a look for the fans for some glorified badass whipping in this mostly dour WIP outing.

If I recall correctly, Pam Grier appears in about four women-in-prison films on both sides of the bars. In this film, she is the Chief Matron, and not a nice person at all.

This was one of the last films for director Gerardo de Leon, the most- awarded director in the history of the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Science.

It also features Judith Brown and Roberta Collins, who both appeared in several women-in-prison films.

In an uncredited role, you see Sofia Moran, a Philippine action star, who became their 13th President.

Torture, showers, crawling through the sewer (Yech!) and boobage.

Women in Cages is yet another sleazy women in prison film from the same people that brought us classics such as The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage. This film is nowhere near as good as those two, but it's still an entertaining effort that fans of this sort of trash will surely appreciate. The plot is just your general women in prison sort of story and, naturally, focuses on a bunch of women inside a women's prison. One in particular has been sent to jail after being set up by her boyfriend; meanwhile, another prisoner has been given the task of murdering said unfortunate prisoner. There's also an escape attempt being plotted. This women in prison film stands apart from many of the others simply because it stars Pam Grier in the role of a guard rather than a prisoner. Naturally, she steps into this role well and plays the antagonist with relish. Unfortunately, there's no role for Sid Haig in this one. The film is directed by Gerardo de Leon, and regrettably he doesn't have the same flair as Jack Hill and the film does fall a little flat in that respect. However, it's still decent enough entertainment and at about seventy five minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome either. Worth a look.