Women in Cages (1971)

User Rating:

3.3/10   

Director:

Gerardo de Leon

Writers:

David Osterhout (writer)
James H. Watkins (writer)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

White skin on the black market!

Plot:

American women prisoners in a foreign country. Sex and action.

Plot Keywords:

Prison | Sadistic | Jungle | Sadist | Sexploitation

Cast

Judith M. Brown	...	Sandy (as Judy Brown)
Roberta Collins	...	Stoke
Jennifer Gan	...	Jeff
Pam Grier	...	Alabama
Bernard Bonnin	...	Acosta (as Bernard Bodine)
Charlie Davao	...	Rudy (as Charles Davis)
Johnny Long
Holly Anders
Dwight Howard
Roberta Swift
Paul Sawyer
Jeffrey Taylor

Also Known As:

The Playpen (USA) (working title)
Women's Penitentiary III

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA | Philippines

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

New Zealand:R16 | Australia:MA | USA:R | UK:18 (video rating, heavily cut) | UK:R (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Philippines

Company:

New World Pictures

Quotes:

Alabama: This is going to be just like home, only different!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Grindhouse (2007)

Pam's No Hope Emerson But Still Pretty Darn Good

For those viewers who are accustomed to cheering on the antics of cult actress Pam Grier on screen, her character in 1972's "Women in Cages" may come as something of a surprise. Far from her bodacious, sympathetic action heroine, she here plays as nasty a personage as can be imagined: a pot-smoking, white race-hating, lesbian sadist from Harlem named Alabama, who is the matron in an exceptionally sleazy Filipino prison for women. Fans of this type of film--a subgenre that includes other New World films such as "The Big Doll House" ('71) and "The Big Bird Cage" ('72), both with Grier--know what to expect from such: nude shower scenes, sadistic but lovely prison guards, a handful of gorgeous inmates and over-the-top action sequences. While not as much fun as the other two films just named, "Women in Cages" does still provide the requisite goods, and Pam stakes her claim to be placed in the pantheon of such classic female jailers as Dyanne Thorne in the "Ilsa" films, Barbara Steele as the crippled warden in "Caged Heat" ('74), and my favorite, the grotesque matron that Hope Emerson plays in "Caged" ('50). In addition to Pam, the film boasts the presence of cult favorite Roberta Collins, as a smack-addicted rat fink; several catfights; vermin (of the snake, rat, leech and Filipino bounty hunter/rapist varieties); torture by fire, whip, rack, wheel and electricity; AND an oceangoing brothel. Though I still prefer the underrated Grier films "The Arena" ('73) and especially "Black Mama, White Mama" ('72) to this one, "Women in Cages" still proved an entertaining diversion.