Django-21 Review of The Big Doll House

The Big Doll House (1971)

Classic feelgood exploitation! One of Roberta Collins' finest movie moments!

[8/10 · 15 September 2003]

What a great movie! An entertaining female "Great Escape"! Roberta Collins, Pam Grier and Sid Haig in particular are real hoots with some great moments and dialogue. Bodine (Pat Woodell) is a great character too (introduced as someone not to be messed with), especially letting loose with twin machine guns in the final gunfight. Lots of fun to be had in Jack Hill's Women In Prison exploitation classic. See Matilda The Hun and Foxy Brown themselves duke it out and mud wrestle. Ponder as to how someone so skinny (whereas the resident junkie is quite healthy) got to be head guard. The obligatory prison breakout relies on the help of one prisoner's pet cat to come through at the right time. The scenes with the junkie being completely out her tree are hilarious, although she also gets to show her creepier, more deranged side too in some scenes. The prison break attempt and the final gunfight with the authorities are fun and exciting stuff and for me Roberta Collins steals the show. Not content with the aforementioned mudwrestle with prison bully Pam Grier, she gets some male action at knifepoint and gets great revenge on the evil prison governess. Roberta has some great dialogue too in "Get it up or I'll cut it off!" and "Bye bye lardass!" The head guard has a slight Barbara Steele resemblance. The ending is a bit rushed, some character's fates are left up in the air and the dialogue that seals Judy Brown's fate was a dub forced on the film but it's still great fun and was a groundbreaking hit for AIP. Roberta, Pam and Judy had all just been in "Women In Prison" beforehand and Jack Hill later also directed Pam Grier in some of the blaxploitation flicks that made her an icon. Roberta Collins would of course go onto starring in the masterpiece "Death Race 2000" and the inferior (in my opinion) prison classic "Caged Heat". As you'd expect from this type of movie, there are chances to see attractive women getting naked or scantily clad and you get amusing foodfights and catfights. The female leads are obviously in on the joke though and have fun with it. There's some amusing moments and unlike the "Charlie's Angels" tv show, these resourceful, smart women really do get a chance to kick ass and get tough. Classic feelgood exploitation!