Ilsa, the Wicked Warden

I´ve always been a huge fan of the wonderful depraved Ilsa-series: "She Wolf of the SS" is a classic sexploitation sicko, "Harem Keeper" a funny desert adventure and "Tigress" a silly but entertaining secret agent story. However, Jess Franco´s more indirect sequel is the most disturbing one, because "The Wicked Warden" is most realistic installment and the silly humor of the other parts is totally missing. The WIP-part of the series.

So get ready for a range of all thinkable sickness like violent torture with whips and electro shocks, snuff movies or a gruesome mass rape sequence, which brings director Jess Franco almost on the same level as a Joe D´Amato or a Bruno Mattei! The final Ilsa-munch is one of the most disgusting scenes ever, although it reminded me somehow on the showdown in William Lustig´s "Maniac" (1980)...

Not to forget its unique main actress Dyanne Thorne who is damn hot, even with over forty! Dyanne makes the whole film, ever scene is hers! God, how I love that woman! Franco´s darling Lina Romay looks pretty pale in comparison..!

"The Wicked Warden" is a sicko de luxe: realistic background, disturbing violence and hot sex! What do you want more?!? Go and see it now!!!

ILSA--THE WICKED WARDEN (aka any one of the dozen other titles it goes under) is not the most disturbing, brutal or violent of the infamous series, but it is by far the sleaziest.

Dependably twisted schlockmeister Jess Franco dishes up enough nastiness, violence, sex, nudity and sleaze for a dozen average exploitation pictures. A female journalist infiltrates a women's prison to expose the corruption within. Once inside (posing as a prisoner), she is exposed to the grim, vile world that is a women's prison.

Ilsa (Greta? Wanda?), played by Diane Thorne, is the vicious warden, who puts her prisoners through all sorts of physical and psychological abuse, although the prisoners manage some pretty outrageous behavior on their own. There's a nice, long, voyeuristic catfight in the showers, as well as an unspeakably tacky scene in which self-appointed lead prisoner Lina Romay forces the reporter to lick her ass clean after a bout of diarrhea. That pretty much sets the standard for taste in this movie.

Franco shows an odd Tinto Brass-like fetish for female buttocks in this movie, as every prisoner's standard uniform is knee high boots and a prison shirt--no pants or underwear--thus giving the viewer plenty of glimpses of bare bottoms.

Overall, THE WICKED WARDEN is about as sick and twisted a movie as the average viewer is ever likely to find. There are nastier movies out there, even nastier women in prison movies, but this will more than acquaint you with the subgenre.

You have Jess Franco directing and Lina Romay starring, is there a more sure guarantee of a high sleaze content? You just can't ask for much more.

However, this movie doesn't approach the pure, unadulterated, in your face sleaze of other Franco/Romay movies, although it tries. It tries hard.

You have Ilsa, the wicked warden, torturing and tormenting the poor female inmates, although to be sure the torture and torment wasn't very convincing. You get the feeling the actresses might have looked a bit more tormented if Franco had told them they had to take a pay cut. So it goes.

You have Lina Romay, hot as molten steel, running around naked as the day she was born and enjoying it as usual. I have to admire a girl who is so completely dedicated to being naked all the time, in every situation. She is just an unabashed exhibitionist, not even requiring the flimsiest of excuses to remove her clothing. She insists on it! She demands it! It's probably in her contract somewhere that she gets to spend at least ninety percent of the runtime of any movie naked.

The plot line is the standard Ilsa fare, a wicked woman giving everyone a hard time until she gets her just deserts. Yawn. If you even thought about watching this for the plot then you are in line for a sanity check. This is, as has been said, Class A Euro-Sleaze.

Too bad they don't make them like this any more.

Today, I watched another 2 Jess Franco titles from the Anchor Bay UK 8-Disc Set (which I rented from my local DVD outlet): ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN (1977) and JACK THE RIPPER*** (1976).

Though I wouldn't say that ILSA is exactly a good film, I was still quite surprised by how it managed to hold my interest throughout. Not that it made particularly inspired use of the various subtexts suggested in the script (the snuff movie angle, for instance, is not dealt with in any depth) – apart from its over-the-top, and undeniably horrific, conclusion – but it was certainly above-average for an Erwin C. Dietrich production with adequate scenery, an evocative if repetitive score and competent performances. The dialogue of the German-language version, however, was pretty hilarious (the various odes to Greta/Ilsa recited by the inmates, the sanitation officials who arrive for a surprise inspection complaining that the rumors of the supposedly corrupt management inside the prison are unfounded – for obvious reasons, they may not have been taken to see the dungeons where the female convicts are tortured, but did they even question themselves why these were forbidden the use of underwear while serving their sentence?!); still, the English dubbing (heard during the interview section of the supplements) makes it sound even worse!

I haven't seen the 'original' Ilsa films but, while Dyanne Thorne seemed to be relatively at ease inhabiting the Jess Franco movieworld, I also feel that her character was pretty one-dimensional and not really the main focus of the film; Lina Romay, on the other hand, has a lot of fun with one of her better roles; even Tania Busselier (in her third and last film for Franco) seems to have matured somewhat and here makes for a creditable heroine (for whom Franco boldly reserves an unexpected tragic fate, though this was perhaps done so as not to involve her in the film's cannibalistic climax).

Unfortunately, this edition was cut by more than 2 minutes by the BBFC: the death-by-asphyxiation of Rosa Philips was evidently trimmed as it now occurs in a split-second; I may be wrong but I reckon that the remainder of the censored footage involved the lobotomy performed on the Tania Busselier character (did they even show this?) as her sudden appearance as a 'vegetable' is most jarring…

Anyway, I look forward now to renting and watching another of Franco's notorious 'Women-In-Prison' films for Dietrich, namely BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975).

Retitled Ilsa the Wicked Warden and released as the third in the infamous Ilsa exploitation series featuring busty Dyanne Thorne, this movie from prolific director Jess Franco bores despite the excessive sleaze and gratuitous nudity on offer.

In an unspecified South American country, political prisoners are being committed to a maximum security asylum where they are tortured for information by the sadistic warden (guess who?). Whilst being subjected to torture (and, in one scene, rape by violent murderers), the prisoners are filmed by one of the guards who has a profitable sideline selling his specialist movies.

Enter Abbie Phillips, a beautiful young woman (and owner of the wildest 'bush' on the planet) who has had herself committed on purpose in order to search for her sister, an inmate who has mysteriously disappeared. Abbie must endure suffering and degradation at the hands of the inmates and staff before she can eventually discover the truth.

Less violent than previous Ilsa movies, but easily just as sleazy, this film is heavy on the sadism, perversion and nudity—all Franco specialities— and yet somehow it still manages to drag. Franco's awful direction and the overall low standard of acting certainly doesn't help matters; however, if you can endure the dreary parts, there are some priceless moments that make the effort worthwhile.

Lina Romay's performance as Juana, Ilsa's masochistic lesbian bitch, is particularly unforgettable. I guarantee that your jaw will hit the floor during the 'lick my culo' scene (you'll have to watch the film to see what I mean). Also worthy of mention is the scene in which Ilsa kills Abbie's sister with the old 'plastic bag over the head' routine. Nasty.

The shocking finale sees the warden set upon by the inmates, led by Juana who can no longer put up with Ilsa's wicked ways. The long suffering inmates literally tear her to pieces, biting and ripping her with hands and teeth—all the while being filmed by the movie-making guard who gets to deliver his potentially most profitable work so far: a snuff film!