Quartier de femmes

The Concrete Jungle (1982)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Elizabeth (Tracey Bregman) is the sweetest and most innocent thing you'd ever want to meet but her sleazy, no-good boyfriend plants some drugs on her and when she enters the U.S. she is arrested for trafficing. The poor woman is sentenced to a prison ran by Warden Fletcher (Jill St. John) who has some illegal doings happening with Cat (BarBara Luna) who just happens to be the toughest and dirtiest woman there.

Tom DeSimone's THE CONCRETE JUNGLE is a rather interesting women-in-prison flick just like his HELL NIGHT is an interesting slasher. What's so interesting about both movies is the fact that both of them try to cash in on a certain genre yet they also want to do their own thing. With HELL NIGHT, it was released during the slasher craze but it was more a Gothic horror film without the brutal slashings. With THE CONCRETE JUNGLE, yes it's a women-in-prison flick but it doesn't go for a lot of the trappings that you might expect.

Those trappings include the lead female getting naked, a manditory shower scene or a bunch of rough lesbian scenes. There's minor stuff throughout the picture but it's clear that director DeSimone wanted to deliver something more that a sleaze feast and to his credit he's actually done that. THE CONCRETE JUNGLE is a pretty entertaining movie thanks to a nice cast and a pretty good story. The prison life story has been told countless times and the story here isn't ground-breaking but it's interesting enough to keep you glued to what you're watching.

Another plus are the performers who do a nice job with their characters. Bregman is wonderful in the lead role because you really do buy her as the character. St. John and Luna are great villains and both of them add a lot of entertainment. The sleaziest moment in the film happens when Camille Keaton from I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE gets raped by one of the guards. You've also got porn legend Carol Connors showing up in a brief role.

While THE CONCRETE JUNGLE isn't the most graphic or violent women-in-prison film you're going to see, it's at least entertaining for what it is and fans should enjoy it.

The Concrete Jungle is the gold standard in movies about women in prison. Since then, a dozen of "late night, Cinema like" prison films with naked women trying to survive behind bars. For 1982, the Concrete Jungle made headlines for being the first of its kind. Today, it is far from being taken seriously. I felt bad for Camille Keaton rape scene. Not only was she not a leading actress in this film, nor did her character have any real importance to the story, her role was a quick flashback to her only famous role as the rape victim in the "classic" horror movie I Spit on Your Grave. I think it's time to call your acting career quits once you keep getting only rape roles.

Women's prison films have always had an appreciative audience. Perhaps the first noteworthy one was "Caged" which starred Eleanor Parker. Released in 1950, it garnered good reviews and great box office. It also led to numerous inferior imitations, such as "Women's Prison" (1955) which at least featured a scenery-chewing performance from Ida Lupino as the wicked warden--(a role she would repeat, more or less, in the 1972 TV movie "Women In Chains".) There was also 1962's "House Of Women" which starred Shirley Knight. The seventies ushered in such examples as the Roger Corman/New World productions of "Women in Cages" and "The Big Doll House". Then came Jonathan Demme's take on the subject "Caged Heat", after which the genre was pretty much left to porno producers. But in 1982, one of the best films on the subject was released. "The Concrete Jungle" was produced on a low budget and a quick shooting schedule (but, then, weren't most films in this genre?) and managed to deliver a gritty and tense story of one relatively innocent girl's battle to survive a hellish female penitentiary.

When her slimy boyfriend Danny (Peter Brown) uses his unsuspecting girlfriend Elizabeth (Tracy Bregman) to carry a stash of cocaine in her skis, she is nabbed by airport security. After a speedy trial, she is sent to the Correctional Institution for Women in California. There she learns quickly that she must toughen up if she hopes to leave there in one piece. She also eventually finds that the warden (Jill St John) is not only cruel and unsympathetic, but in cahoots with an inmate Cat (Barbara Luna) the prison's Queen Bee, who is her partner in a prison drug and prostitution racket. When Elizabeth witnesses a murder committed by Cat and her henchwomen, she spurns her attentions and becomes her enemy. Meanwhile, Deputy Director Shelly Meyers (Nita Talbot), aware of the drug and prostitution business run by the warden and Cat, also suspects that Elizabeth has knowledge that could help her convict the villains, and she begins to press her for information. This does not bode well for Elizabeth, for by now, the warden is also suspicious and seeks to destroy the girl before she can talk.

Lurid, (and undeniably sleazy at times), "The Concrete Jungle" is nevertheless a fully satisfying melodrama, and one which tells a convincing story. The supporting cast is full of exploitation-film regulars, each of whom does a good job. Bregman is fine as the heroine, St John is a chilling warden, and Luna gets the role of her life as the vicious Cat who makes life hell for those who oppose her. Especially noteworthy is Talbot as the crusading penal official. "Jungle's" Producer, Billy Fine, would try to top the box office success of this one with "Chained Heat" the following year, but that film (and most of those that followed it) were really unintentional parodies of the genre.

I remember watching this on HBO back in the mid-80's. I thought Tracey E Bregman (who apparently took a summer break from Young & Restless) was mostly believable as Elizabeth. I say 'mostly' because there were moments she is just too glamorous to be believable as the hard-luck prisoner. Barbara Luna is quite notable as QueenBee "Cat"; a role she was almost born to play. Jill St. John mostly skirted around her warden role, in which I gave a C+ rating, if that. The best performances, ironically, were the female prisoners, and Robert Miano (Stone).

I had been a young fan of U.K.'s 1970's series, 'Prisoner, Cell-Block-H'. While I don't compare this film to that series, some of the action bears reflection on surreal existence within actual prison life.

While no movie from the "women in prison genre" will ever be called a masterpiece, 1982's "The Concrete Jungle" is a cut above the rest, largely because it does take itself somewhat seriously, while it tells a plausible story of what goes on inside the prison system. There are no group shower scenes in this one, but there is some rather ugly, vile depictions of forced sex and other sordid goings on. The best thing about this one is it's effective study of power hierarchy inside the prison system, from guards over prisoners, to prisoners over weaker prisoners, and most interestingly between warden and direct underlings. Every angle is covered. Even the power that a man has over a woman, simply by using love as a weapon to control and deceive; it's all here. The most impressive thing is how this nightmarish world is captured, as the story's heroine, Elizabeth, sinks deeper into the sordid and desperate life behind bars. Tension builds to an almost unbearable level as the attacks of the 'Queen Bee' become more vicious, from beatings, to shooting up rivals with syringes of air, to razor blade attacks, as in the film's most effective scene, that finds the once timid Elizabeth, becoming the aggressor and cutting her abuser with the same blade that was pulled on her. Soap Opera legend Tracey Bregman shines in her role, and is convincing, especially when her character begins to change into one of the animals that had at first horrified her. This title has finally been restored for Bluray and it makes a big difference, as now the competent cinematography and it's highly polished look can now be appreciated. The director followed this successful movie with another WIP film the following year. "Chained Heat" with Linda Blair, which cranked up the exploitative elements considerably, but does not have the same quality of this lesser known, earlier film. As far as the genre goes, "Concrete Jungle" is one of the best. Also recommended are the prison movies "Vendetta," and "Red Heat," which is hard to find in an uncensored version.