hrkepler First, I give you a warning (not for spoilers, don't worry, there's nothing to spoil) before you watch that particular film - wait the day with right mood for cheap entertaining exploitation. Don't force yourself to watch it because you're doing some Roger Corman retrospect or something. First time I saw 'Swamp Women' years ago, I hated it, I thought it was one of the worst film ever made (what it exactly is), second time I watched to see if I was correct about it, and I loved it.Early Roger Corman cheesy exploitation girl power flick definitely doesn't belong among his best works. In this adventure crime thriller, a police officer Lee Hampton (Carole Mathews) is sent to prison undercover to infiltrate into a gang of criminals who know where the stolen diamonds are hidden. She helps them escape from prison and four women start journey in their cut short jeans through swamps of Louisiana with loving couple (Mike Connors and Susan Cummings) as hostages. The trip is filled with girls nagging on each other and constantly falling into catfights.The film is cliché ridden and screenplay is thinner than the paper it was printed on. The prison break is as easy as climbing over the fence (practically that was all that it was in the movie) and infiltrating into a gang of women of hardened criminals is easier than gaining friends in school yard. Thanks to the real setting of bayou and passable acting (except the police captain who was more wooden than a log), the film is quite entertaining. The characters seemed interesting and motivated enough to keep the film alive.'Swamp Woman' is good testament to Roger Cormans directing abilities to churn out such (cheap) entertainment out of so dull script. Don't expect too much action or thrills or suspense. But B-movie and exploitation genre aficionados might find 'Swamp Women' quite fun (boat) ride (through swamp). At least, I did.

Bezenby 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?

MisterWhiplash Roger Corman started off in the B-movie arena and never left, for better and for worse. This, one of his first films, gives the false impression that this will be some weird sci-fi movie with actual swamp creatures or something. Instead we get one of the early girl-prison type flicks that would later be popular in the 70s to a degree. Here an undercover cop goes incognito in a women's prison with three girls (including Marie Windsor and Beverly Garland), and their plot to escape from prison and get some stashed diamonds in the bayou swamps. Then, as they are making their escape, they kidnap a man and woman (including 3rd rate James Cagney knock-off Mike Connors) to lead them along in their boat. But they need to watch out for their flaring tempers- and a few alligators here and there.It's all, of course, pretty cheesy and at best acted with a little estrogen-laden grit. It's fun to watch some of these girls going at each other in big ham-bone performances, and all by a first-timer Corman who can direct just about to not have us leaving down the aisles (or our homes) in droves. It does make it more worthwhile, of course, to seek out the Mystery Science Theater cut, as the boys rip into it where appropriate (which is, indeed, quite often and with a relish, like with the alligator attack scene as they dub over completely). What is surprising, despite the obvious shortcomings, is that Swamp Women isn't a total loss. I actually enjoyed some of those scenes in the swamp, with the prisoners acting all bad-ass with their prisoners. Only when actual plot needs to be developed early on is it incredibly stagy. And, luckily, Corman (or the "Cor-Man" that is to be lived by as comes up with his director title card), provides some substantial humor without the MST3K track.

Lee Eisenberg Obviously, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" showed "Swamp Women" (alternately called "Swamp Diamonds") because it's such a slipshod production, and because the movie gets silly whenever the women start fighting. But otherwise, Roger Corman's directorial debut is quite fun, as some female convicts escape a New Orleans prison in search of some diamonds out in the swamp. With them are an undercover cop, and a man (Mike Connors) and his hubby. It turns into a real treat when they cut the legs off of their pants.True, the movie is pretty short on real plot, and you can tell that some scenes were filmed in a swimming pool, but otherwise it's a real pleasure; guilty pleasure, that is. Of course, I do recommend the "MST3K" version.