Woodyanders Haughty celebrity Terry (a delightfully brash performance by slinky brunette minx Anitra Ford) gets arrested and sent to a brutal women's prison work farm. Gutsy revolutionary Blossom (robustly played with splendidly sassy aplomb by the one and only Pam Grier) decides to engineer a break out from the outside in. Ace B-flick writer/director Jack Hill relates the entertaining story at a constant quick pace, stages the action set pieces with real flair, and maintains a winningly easy'n'breezy tone throughout. Moreover, the eager cast have a field day with the wacky material: Carol Speed as the scrappy Mickie, Teda Bracci as raucous top con Bull Jones, Candice Roman as sex-starved strumpet Carla, Karen McKevic as fearsome and predatory lesbian Karen, Andres Centenera as the strict and sadistic Warden Zappa, and Marissa Delgado as the fragile Rina. The always terrific Sid Haig is in fine lively form as merry bandit Django while legendary Filipino sleaze movie mainstay Vic Diaz almost steals the whole show with his hilarious turn as mincing gay guard Rocco. Better still, this film covers all the pleasingly sleazy grindhouse bases: a group shower scene, torture and degradation of women, a sizable smattering of tasty bare distaff skin, fierce catfights, and an exciting last reel revolt and subsequent escape. However, it's Hill's trademark sly humor that really gives this movie an extra uproarious lift (Django has to pretend to be a flamboyant homosexual in order to get hired as a prison guard and poor Rocco winds up being raped by the ladies during the thrilling climax). Philip Sacdalan's pretty polished cinematography does the trick. The funky score by William Loose and William Castleman hits the get-down groovy spot. An absolute blast.

BA_Harrison When it comes to Women In Prison movies, I usually want 'em to be as sleazy and as violent as possible, but director Jack Hill's WIP flicks look set to be an exception to this rule: The Big Bird Cage, his second foray in the genre (after The Big Doll House), is a gloriously camp exercise in trash cinema, occasionally tasteless but presented with such a goofy sense of humour that it proves to be far less offensive than many of its contemporaries and almost impossible not to enjoy.Set in an unnamed 'banana republic' (but shot in the Philipines), the film opens with beautiful brunette social climber Terry (the belly-licious Anitra Ford), a close personal 'friend' (i.e., lover) of the president, being abducted by revolutionary Django (Sid Haig) during a daring robbery. To avoid capture by the law, Django resorts to leaping off a bridge, leaving poor Terry to be apprehended by the police, after which she is accused of being an accomplice in the crime; this presents the authorities with a convenient opportunity to rid themselves of Terry, a potential embarrassment for the government, by shipping her to a high security camp where unruly prisoners are forced to do dangerous work in a towering, wooden sugar mill—the 'Bird Cage' of the title.Meanwhile, Django, his feisty woman Blossom (busty Blaxploitation queen Pam Grier) and their revolutionary pals continue to plan their political uprising. Concluding that their cause would benefit immensely from the recruitment of more gutsy females like Blossom, they put into motion a scheme that involves Blossom getting herself incarcerated in the same establishment as Terry, and Django going undercover as a camp guard (and I do mean 'camp'—all of the guards are homosexuals so as not to tempt the prisoners).With his tongue firmly planted in cheek, director Hill delivers everything one might expect from such a set-up—umpteen cat-fights (some in mud), the lesbian inmate, a sadistic warden, the camp informant, the tragic deaths of several prisoners, and an eventual uprising—plus, of course, lots of lovely women wearing very short shorts (I like short shorts!) and ill-fitting garments that frequently expose their breasts. All these lovely ladies AND Sid Haig as a hot-blooded revolutionary who must pretend to be gay to save the day = an unmissable treat for WIP fans!

poomyatta This was the third women in prison (WIP) movie produced by Roger Corman's New World Pictures within just two years, beginning with THE BIG DOLL HOUSE and WOMEN IN CAGES, both released in 1971. In spite of the similar titles, there's no narrative connection between BIRD CAGE and DOLL HOUSE, though the films were later shrewdly retitled `Women's Penitentiary I' and `II' by distributors who hoped each film would capitalize on the other's popularity. Director Jack Hill, who also helmed DOLL HOUSE, says Corman hired him to make a sequel, but since the WIP genre had already become formulaic and predictable, Hill played up the humor and delivered a parody instead. Like DOLL HOUSE, the film features Pam Grier and Sid Haig in prominent roles and was shot in the Philippines. This time, Hill makes much better use of both actors as well as the beautiful locations.Perhaps the movie is best remembered as the screen debut of Anitra Ford, the exotically beautiful model who turned quite a few heads as well as price tags on television's THE PRICE IS RIGHT game show. She plays Terry, an American tourist visiting a Central American banana republic where her indiscreet flirtations with the prime minister get her in trouble with the governing party. She's sent to a bamboo shack prison for women staffed exclusively by gay guards and centered around a towering, archaic-looking sugar cane mill, the `big bird cage' of the title. The warden (Andy Centenera) designed the structure himself and is more than willing to sacrifice a few of his charges now and then to keep it in working order. At one point, an unfortunate prisoner is crushed to death when she's forced to crawl under the contraption to reposition a gigantic, misaligned cog. Prisoners who lose their wits are permanently confined in a cage for `crazies' while those who attempt to escape are tracked down by attack dogs. Regardless, Terry makes a run for it and nearly gets gang raped in the process. When the effeminate head guard Rocco (Vic Diaz, who has been called `the Peter Lorre of the Philippines') catches up to her as she's being molested by half a dozen local men, he dryly comments, `Why doesn't that ever happen to me?' As punishment for her attempted escape, Terry's left hanging from a rope tied to her long, dark tresses. Talk about having a bad hair day!The other inmates are the usual batch of rag tag stereotypes. There's the butch top dog (Teda Bracci), the sex starved nymph (Candice Roman), and a pathetic new kid (Marissa Delgado) who's befriended and championed by the heroine. The most original character is an Amazonian lesbian (Karen McKevic) who's supposedly so violent she must be chained to her bed, though she looks more like an unusually tall anorexic. She seems to have been included strictly for laughs: in one especially silly scene, she smears chicken fat over her body hoping to slip past her other cell mates so she can get her hands on a teasing tormentor.Curiously, the most entertaining parts of the film don't involve the prisoners but rather a nearby group of revolutionaries led by Blossom (Grier) and Django (Haig). Neither actor has ever been more appealing in any role and they work brilliantly together. In the opening scene, they pose as musicians in a local band to burglarize a seedy nightclub and Grier actually sings on the soundtrack. Later, they wrestle in the mud before kissing and making up. As they noisily make love in a hut, another bandit ruefully comments, `What an army we could raise if we only had a lot of women.... Where could we find [so many] women to steal?' Thus are the unlikely seeds of a prison break sewn!Haig is hilarious in the scenes where Django `camps it up' flirting with the guards to weasel his way into the prison staff and Grier leads the eventual riot with her usual gusto. The film features lots of action including a fiery finale. There's also quite a bit of nudity, though unfortunately only a few brief glimpses of foxy Ms. Ford in the buff. She shows a bit more skin in her next two films, INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS and STACEY (both 1973).

Minsky95 This was the typical women prison movie. I thought the women were very sexy and the outfits were great. All the camera did was focus on the women and the women were always in provocative poses for the camera and they were always scantily dressed(which I loved). This is your basic prison/breakout movie of the 70's. All I can say about this film is that it's extremely cheesy, but the women are gorgeous and their butts are great!