5 femmes à abattre

Jonathan Demme's feature length first unit directorial debut was this women in prison favourite, done for his boss in the 1970s, Roger Corman. It stars Erica Gavin as Jacqueline Wilson, a young woman nabbed by the police during a drug bust. While serving time, she meets a variety of convicts, among them the ultra tough Maggie (Juanita Brown), the equally feisty Belle (Roberta Collins), and the more low key Lavelle (Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith). When two of the ladies perform a risqué routine in order to entertain the others, the superintendent (Barbara Steele) decides to come down hard on her charges.

Once one stops to think about it, they do realize that there is more going on than in the standard issue type of W.I.P. feature. It *is* exploitative, of course; Demme does realize what's required of him. Still, he waits until about 24 minutes into the movie before he even begins showing off the birthday suits on the babes. There are shower scenes, and cat fights, and generally agreeable mayhem. There's also a decent subtext about the degrees to which males exploit females, and take advantage of them, and what can happen when enough females band together to take preventative steps. One can hardly fail to notice the depravity of a central male character, the nefarious prison doctor Randolph (Warren Miller), who has a taste for electro shock therapy and for taking nude photos of his patients at their most vulnerable.

The script by Demme is also laced with humour at appropriate moments. The characters maintain a good amount of rooting interest, with exploitation veterans like Brown and Collins offering standout performances. However, the most intriguing person here is Superintendent McQueen, played as being very repressed by Ms. Steele. In the real world, McQueen is confined to a wheelchair, and has one very erotic dream sequence.

Fans of the 1970s B movie will recognize a number of the supporting and bit players: Crystin Sinclaire, Carmen Argenziano, John Aprea, Patrick Wright, Gary Littlejohn. Pay close attention to catch Demme's regular cinematographer Tak Fujimoto as a sex emporium customer.

"Caged Heat" is sexy and violent, paced reasonably well, and delivers some excitement in its climactic prison breakout sequence.

Seven out of 10.

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.

Erica Gavin stars as Jacqueline Wilson, who is sent to jail for between 10 and 40 years. Once inside, she finds herself at the mercy of strict warden Supt. McQueen (Euro horror star Barbara Steele) and perverted Dr. Randolph (Warren Miller), who quietens troublemakers with a spot of lobotomy. Together with some of her cellmates, Erica makes a desperate bid for freedom…

Trashy women-in-prison flick Caged Heat was directed by Jonathan Demme, the same man who, seventeen years later, would win an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs. This being a low-budget exploitation movie from the Roger Corman production stable, there isn't much to suggest the director's future success, his film delivering the expected genre ingredients—lots of nudity (inc. full frontal), (mild) torture, (mild) sexual abuse, a cat-fight etc.—all at a lively pace, but little else of note.

Nowhere near as sleazy as Jess Franco's WIP films, or as memorably fun as Jack Hill's, Demme's film is one for fans who have seen all of the essential titles, but still have a hankering for more babes behind bars action (without scraping the bottom of the genre barrel).

I'm not quite sure what to think of Caged Heat. Don't get me wrong I think Demme is a magnificent director but this…Ugh, I'm not sure what to say. I read that Caged Heat was praised by critics, I could probably see what they saw in comparison to other girls in prison flicks. It didn't have that aspect of a campy movie. It had some style to it which is good. It shows that Demme had some sense of artistic view from the very beginning of his career. You can tell that he took time in planing out shots. The best example of this is when the camera is passing by the prison cells and you can see each inmate doing something different. Those are also signs of good directing. The characters are memorable and well developed. The movie doesn't aim for showing a lot of skin. Sure some of the girls are very attractive (especially the two blond ones), still the movie doesn't rely on sex at all.

I guess you can say this is a decent first attempt. Considering the budget he had to work with, I'd say its pretty good. Its good to see directors work their way up but never forget where they came from. Demme was grateful to be working with Roger Corman and it shows. He gave him a role in Silence of the Lambs. Nevertheless Caged Heat is nice to check out. It's great entertainment that's for sure. And isn't that what films are all about?

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...