Femmes gangsters

Only Roger Corman could get the most out of a rented dinghy, access to a small area of swamp and New Orleans stock footage. Man...these cool chicks are very groovy as they put the "touch" on Conners. Not really a laugh-out-loud-so-bad-it's-good kinda film, but bad enough to keep you with it to the bad-girl end. The "action" is paced well enough and the cast is near-perfect B-movie/drive-in stuff. The 50's style denim hot-pants are "prison issue" and with the tied-shirt halter tops they're all ready to wrestle. Poor Touch (Mike) Conners...he has to spend half the film with his hands tied behind his back. But that only makes it necessary for the girls to do all the heavy lifting as they plod through the swamp and pull the boat through the shallows. It's "African Queen" meets "Gator Girls" complete with diamonds, booze, guns, a homemade spear and an alligator that can't float. Holy cow!

This is a film you'll either love or hate, depending on your tolerance for low budgets and passable acting. It doesn't have any ambitions other to entertain on the cheap, and it does that fine.

A couple decide, during a stock footage Mardis-Gras, to head into the bayou for reasons I've already forgotten. At the same time, a female cop goes undercover and heads into jail to meet a gang of three women who know the location of some diamonds (also in the bayou). Luckily for the cop, all three women are in the same cell. Also luckily for the cop, they believe her story and volunteer almost immediately to escape, promising her a share of the diamonds. No wonder they got caught in the first place! As you could predict, our gang of convicts and our romantic couple meet in the bayou, and that's when the trouble starts. After killing the couple's guide, the girls kidnap the couple and the cop finds it difficult to stay under cover and protect the couple. Much flirting, drinking, and cat fighting ensues.

Also, the couple don't turn out to be so in love either. When one of them gets eating by an alligator, the other is seemingly non-chalant about it. True love.

Like most early Roger Corman films, everything's cheap, the film is short, but it's lots of fun too. All the girls run around in cut off shorts while cat fighting or moaning about stuff, and the story zips along quickly enough. What else do you want from Roger Corman?

In SWAMP WOMEN, a foursome of female convicts (including Marie Windsor, Beverly Garland, and Carole Mathews) escape from prison in order to find a fortune in stolen diamonds hidden in the bayou. Unbeknownst to the others, one is an undercover cop.

Upon entering the titular bog, the action truly begins. Sort of.

Mike "Touch" Connors is on hand so that he can be tied to various trees along the way. His perpetually-whining girlfriend is -blessedly- consumed by a hungry alligator. In some sequences it's obvious that the swamp has been miraculously transformed into an Olympic-size pool.

Treachery and betrayal abound as the so-called "Nardo Gals" bicker, tussle, and fight for dominance. All while wearing fashionable short-shorts and halter tops!

Director Roger Corman shows just what he can do with no money, a basic idea, and a cast that's up for the challenge. Well worth watching on any rainy Saturday afternoon...

Six years before directing his masterpiece, Pit and the Pendulm, Roger Corman made his directorial debut with a decent little crime flick called Swamp Women. It's about a group of women who break out of jail to search for their hidden diamonds, though the woman that broke them out is an undercover cop. The acting varies, at times they're pretty good and others not so much. They did make you care to some extent about the characters; I know at the very least I didn't want them to get caught. The story was interesting enough, but the ending was really disappointing. The frequent catfights were pretty funny, I must admit. All in all, this is pretty good for what it is.

6.5/10

"Swamp Diamonds" is the absorbing new (well, new in 1955) thriller from Roger Corman concerning the often razor thin boundaries that separate feminism from, well, anything that makes sense. But hey, if you like chases, escapes, fencing, magic, giants, revenge, and true love, go watch "The Princess Bride". It's a great film! But right after that catch "Swamp Diamonds"... and only if you have nothing else to do. Why not, right?

Oh, and make sure it's the MST3K version.