Der heiße Tod (1969)

Director:

Jesus Franco

Writers:

Anya Corvin (German dialogue)
Milo G. Cuccia (screenplay)

Release Date:

23 April 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Horror

Tagline:

99 WOMEN... behind bars -- without men!

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Escape | Cult Movie | W.i.p | Nudity

Cast

Maria Schell	...	Leonie Caroll
Herbert Lom	...	Governor Santos
Mercedes McCambridge	...	Thelma Diaz
Maria Rohm	...	Marie
Rosalba Neri	...	Zoe
Elisa Montés	...	Helga (as Eliza Montes)
Luciana Paluzzi	...	Natalie Mendoza
Valentina Godoy	...	Rosalie
José María Blanco	...	Doctor
Mike Brendel
Elsa Zabala
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ana Lucarella
Olívia Pineschi
Juan Antonio Riquelme
María Vico

Also Known As:

99 Women (UK)
99 donne (Italy)
99 mujeres (Spain) (cut version)
Der heisse Tod (West Germany)
Island of Despair (USA)
Isle of Lost Women
Prostitutes in Prison
The Hot Death
Women's Penitentiary XII (USA) (video title)

Runtime:

Argentina:99 min | Australia:81 min (25 fps) (video) (cut) | Italy:90 min | Sweden:86 min (banned version) | UK:70 min | USA:86 min | West Germany:94 min | Spain:83 min

Country:

Liechtenstein | Spain | Italy | West Germany | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

France:-16 | Australia:MA (2007 re-rating) | Singapore:R21 | Norway:18 (cut) (1970) | Argentina:18 | Sweden:(Banned) | USA:Unrated | West Germany:18 | Canada:R (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

Company:

Cinematografica Associati (CI.AS.)

Trivia:

Italian censorship visa # 53649 delivered on 10-4-1969.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Quartier de femmes (1974)

The triumphal procession of meaninglessness

On the American market, two basic trends can be observed nowadays: First the sustained lack of availability of monumental German as well as general European films, second the flooding with cheap editions of even cheaper film elaborates for which even the plastic of the DVD is wasted.

"Jess" Francos work belongs to the second category. After World World II, the film industry lay down in Germany. The good directors were either dead or in the US, successors were not in sight. The people was lacking even its basics. However: Panem Et Circenses! Bread and Plays! Simultaneously with the Adenauer era which supplied the starving people with bread and sausage, the German film industry set wholly on entertainment. The 4 main branches, that had been cultivated, were: 1. The "Heimatfilm" (maudlin Melo-Dramas). 2. The "Schlagerfilm" (Schlager musicals), 3. The "Lederhosenfilm" (rustic, blunt and outspoken sex(-Ploitation) movies in the era of German Pre-liberalization (vide: "Schulmädchenreport" and the like), and 4. "Krimi" (thrillers compared to which Grimm's fairy tales are startling).

When the liberalization of sexuality came, towards the end of the 60ies, there was a sensible shortcut in "apt" directors who could handle these smeary, sleazy and grimy concoctions. Ulli Lommel belonged to those who tried, but the Spaniard Jesus Franco filled in the blank. In a sheer endless series he produced crap over crap, manure over manure, feces over feces (for which, in 2009, he awarded the Goya-Price by the Spanish King). Well understood: Germany in the film landscape of the 60ies - that was sex and crime, Heimat and Wirtschaftswunder, crap and dilettantism. At exactly the same time, e.g., in France, directors like Godard, Rohmer, Truffaut, Eustache, Chabrol, Rivette, Melville a.o. worked with actors like Belmondo, Brialy, Anna Karina, Lafont, Leaud, Jeanne Moreau, Piccoli, Jean Seberg. Not to speak about the US, where despite the Big War there always has been continuous high-level film work.

Would there not have come the Big Release from all that manure - and it came in the person of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who mucked out the German Augias Stall beginning at approximately 1966 - one could hardly imagine what would have happened. But such movies like "Der Heisse Tod"/"99 Women" (1969) still stand here in the now historic landscape like monuments of an epoch when the level of the German film sank below zero. This does, however, not legitimate anybody to put such dung onto DVD. Can one really hold anything against that once famous film critique who said that the new German film did not only start with Fassbinder, but also ended with him?