Pulp International - women+in+prison

Jul 5 2023

Strindberg, Tamburi, Bisera and company wip it good in Italian sexploitation drama.

We ran across this poster for a movie we watched years ago, the exploitation drama Diario segreto da un carcere femminile, which premiered in Italy today in 1973 and is known in English as Women in Cell Block 7. Such films, for the uninitiated, are thought of by b-movie fans as belonging to a sub-genre known as women-in-prison or WiP. In honor of today's post we've gone back through the website and keyworded for them, so you can see what we've done on this unusual style of cinema by clicking “women in prison” at bottom.

The art on the poster is by Enzo Nistri, which makes it worth a share. The movie is sort of interesting too, though perhaps not exactly good. However, we've never been able to forget Olga Bisera's naughty correctional facility finger. You can see her using it in a couple of the production photos below, and following those are some of the stars, who comprise a who's-who of 1970s European exploitation cinema: Anita Strindberg, Eva Czemerys, Jenny Tamburi, Paola Senatore, Maria Pia Luzi, Gabriella Giorgelli, Olga Bisera, and Valeria Fabrizi.

Italy Diario segreto da un carcere femminile Women in Cell Block 7 Anita Strindberg Eva Czemerys Jenny Tamburi Olga Bisera Paola Senatore Maria Pia Luzi Gabriella Giorgelli Enzo Nistri poster art cinema mafia sexploitation women in prison movie review

Femmes Fatales

May 15 2023

My friend likes to knit. She really likes to knit. And you're gonna let her knit you a scarf or you're meat.

Above: a photo featuring Barbara Nichols, gun-toting Shirley Knight, and crafts-ready Constance Ford, made for the 1962 prison movie House of Women. Why does Ford have knitting needles? This probably comes as a surprise to most of you (or maybe we're underestimating knowledge of the prison system, considering one of every five prisoners on the planet are in jail in the U.S.), but in certain American jurisdictions, as well certain places internationally, very young children can live with their mothers in prison. House of Women deals with that strange reality, and makes for an unusual and interesting promo shot.

House of Women Shirley Knight Barbara Nichols Constance Ford women in prison

Vintage Pulp

Jan 19 2023

Unlike mama's boys, they're fully able to take care of themselves.

Ages ago we shared a Turkish poster for the blaxploitation flick Black Mama, White Mama, with Pam Grier and Margaret Markov. Today we're sharing the U.S. promo, as well as a nice production photo of the stars. The movie, which premiered today in 1972, was a regendering of The Defiant Ones, but done with a lot more skin and a lot less budget. Even so, it was pretty fun, as women-in-prison flicks go—if you start with modest expectations. You can see more promos from the film here.

Black Mama White Mama Pam Grier Margaret Markov poster art cinema sexploitation women in prison blaxploitation

Vintage Pulp

Nov 17 2022

Black don't crack a smile.

Above is a second excellent tateken poster for Shin joshuu sasori: 701-gô, known in English as New Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701, with Yumi Takigawa dressed in black from head to toe and looking ready to deal out death. These tateken style promos are rare, so we're happy to have found two. As usual, we like to share posters on a film's premiere date, and that was today in 1976.

Japan Toei Company Shin joshuu sasori: 701-gô New Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701 Yumi Takigawa poster art cinema pinku pinky violence women in prison

Modern Pulp

Oct 15 2022

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is a mandatory look at grindhouse moviemaking during the untamed 1970s.

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is a film we've watched a few times, and whenever a movie racks up multiple viewings we think it needs to be highlighted. It's a fast paced documentary about the wave of low budget exploitation flicks made in the Philippines from the late ’60s through the ’70s. We weren't old enough to see any of them during the actual grindhouse era, but caught them in later years, and one reason we came up with this website was for the opportunity to riff on these types of flicks. Over the last decade-plus we've had the pleasure of writing about entertaining dreck like Savage Sisters, The Big Doll House, Night of the Cobra Woman, and Cleopatra Wong.

Built around interviews with stars such as Pam Grier, Sid Haig, Margaret Markov, Gloria Hendry, and directors/producers like Eddie Romero, Jack Hill, Joe Dante, and Roger Corman, Machete Maidens Unleashed! is an insider's look at a unique era in cinema history. It compellingly juxtaposes snippets of cinematic insanity against clips of the performers involved laughing over the craziness of it all. While the movies

discussed often fall into the category of sexploitation, at the time they were also considered an adjunct of the women's liberation movement—a point made by a couple of the actresses interviewed. Coming out of the sexually repressive decades of the fifties and early sixties, nudity was seen as a rebuke to patriarchal control.

Covering productions ranging from 1964's The Walls of Hell to 1979's big budget war flick Apocalypse Now, this is a wide ranging documentary, and by far the most entertaining one on the subject matter we've seen. What with our website's Philippine provenance, and with PSGP having spent a couple of years in Guatemala, another country where life was cheap but fun was unparalleled, this also hit us directly in the nostalgia gland (PSGP feels like the only reason these films weren't made in Guatemala is because everyone actually would have been murdered, instead of just thinking they would).

All the interviewees seem to understand that they're from an extinct breed of very brave film performers, making entertainment for audiences ready to see absolutely anything happen. It sometimes seems that modern audiences have forgotten that the filmmaker is not the material, and the actor is not his or her character. The message comes through strongly here that movies are simply make believe. The creators may

want to outrage, or teach, or push censorship envelopes, or illuminate themes that leave audiences enriched in some way, but it's still just a job they perform before going home to their real lives. We wouldn't be surprised if some of the interviewees now feel they'd been traumatized, but during this movie, at least, they shrug off the difficulties of filming—ranging from extreme weather to graphic nudity to military revolt—as obstacles true professionals must navigate.

The title cards of some of these films should be enough by themselves to intrigue you. We have a set below. We've also mixed in some screenshots. We'd love to have uploaded actual production photos, but the films are so low budget those are close to impossible to find. But why look at photos when you can watch the movies? Give it a shot. Quarts of booze are optional. Machete Maidens Unleashed! had its world premiere in Australia in the summer of 2010, and first hit U.S. shores today the same year at the Philadelphia International Film Festival. We've pointed you toward a few Philippine grindhouse flicks above, and you can read about more—there are so many, so please excuse the avalanche of links—here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Philippines Australia Manila Philadelphia Philadelphia International Film Festival Machete Maidens Unleashed!poster art cinema sexploitation blaxploitation women in prison movie review

Vintage Pulp

Oct 14 2022

Worse than Alcatraz. Tougher than Rikers. It's the prison island of scantily clad women.

This tateken style poster was made to promote the Edo era drama Onna-ro hizu, generally known in English as Island of Horrors. The story centers around Nembutsu Island, a rocky outcropping in the Shiranui Sea used as a prison. It's inhabited by about fifteen coincidentally beautiful female captives and six samurai guards. Nobody calls the island by its real name. It's usually referred to as either the Isle of Women, which sounds kind of fun, or Decapitation Island, which does not. The new warden has been assigned there as punishment for not being tough enough in his other stops—a charge he's eager to disprove, with the help of the slap-happy guards and their baroque tortures. Additionally, the women are terrorized by Omasu the Ripper, your typical sadistic prisoner who subjugates the others in order to curry favor with her captors. And worse still, bubonic plague arrives. So, it's not overstating the situation to say that things are pretty bad on Nembutsu Island.

So how do you get the hell off that godforsaken rock? It isn't easy. The women are aware that sometimes there are pardons or paroles, and that knowledge gives them hope. But what if those lucky recipients sent from the island are not freed, but instead secretly sold into sexual slavery? Not saying that's what going on. But, you know, what if? Of course, there's no way the prisoners could ever find that out unless someone who was supposedly freed returned to the island. Omasu has her own departure plans. She tells the warden she knows where a cache of stolen ryō—gold currency—is hidden, trying to leverage it for freedom. She tries to leverage her body for that purpose too. But in the end, release from Nembutsu Island may come down to simple teamwork, and watching the inmates come to that conclusion makes for a well above average women-in-prison drama, worth a watch for the darkly beautiful cinematography and island visuals, as well as good performances from stars Maya Kitajima, Reiko Kasahara, and Yuki Aresa. Onna-ro hizu premiered in Japan today in 1970.

Japan Daiei Studios Onna-ro hizu Island of Horrors Masakazu Tamura Maya Kitajima Reiko Kasahara Yuki Aresa women in prison poster art cinema movie review

Femmes Fatales

May 26 2022

They call it maximum security to scare you. I still get hair dye, cigarettes, good shoes, and pedicures, so I'm all good.

Let's circle back to Jan Sterling, shall we? As you know, she's become a favorite actress of ours, and since she has a number of excellent promo images we might as well run through a few. This one was made for her 1955 drama Women's Prison, in which her co-stars were Ida Lupino, Audrey Totter, and Cleo Moore. Think we'll be watching that? Well, with three great film noir icons in the cast, along with Sterling herself as one of the most elegant felons ever, you can bet on it.

Women's Prison Jan Sterling Ida Lupino Audrey Totter Cleo Moore women in prison film noir

Vintage Pulp

Dec 21 2021

Hong Kong sexploitation epic isn't very good, but give it credit for ripping the scab off a historical wound.

Above is a poster for the sexploitation flick Nu ji zhong ying, known in English as The Bamboo House of Dolls, and to get right to the heart of the matter, this one must have set Sino-Japanese relations back a few years. The film stars Danish actress Birte Tove as a nurse in Hong Kong who during World War II gets corralled along with her co-workers into Japanese Women's Concentration Camp 13, there to undergo various indignities before finally deciding that escape is her only option. You know the drill.

Tove is the marquee attraction, but the film is largely cast with Hong Kong actresses such as Lee Hye-Sook, Hseih Wang, and others, which means that while the movie resembles entries in the women-in-prison sub-genre—with the scheming wardeness, lesbian sex, group showers, and half-cocked escapees made into examples of what not to do while in a tropical women's prison—the obvious historical context of Japan actually sexually abusing Chinese women during the war gives it an underlying grimness that's hard to ignore.

We suspect that if this were made today it would spark an international crisis, insults traded by high ranking officials on Twitter, and possibly diplomats kicked out of China and Japan, but 1970s filmmakers did not shy away from uncomfortable subject matter—and this is about as uncomfortable as it gets. That isn't the problem, though. Well, that isn't the problem for us. The objective problem is the movie is just bad.

Legendary Hong Kong producers the Shaw Brothers (and by legendary we mean Run Run Shaw would be knighted in 1977) wanted to copy Jack Hill's women-in-prison movies The Big Bird Cage and The Big Doll House, but possibly overlooked the fact that setting such films in imaginary Central American hellholes as Hill did was worlds away from making the Japanese the villains in a historically laden sexual abuse epic. But what do we know? Run Run got knighted, not us. In any case, Tove's escape plan runs into some snags, but we won't reveal what those are, just in case you're in the mood for politically explosive titillation. Our advice? Give it a pass. Nu ji zhong ying premiered in Hong Kong today in 1973.

I get the feeling there's history here. Since I'm from Denmark, maybe I can I just leave?

Japan China Hong Kong Denmark Nu ji zhong ying The Bamboo House of Dolls Birte Tove Lee Hye-Sook Lieh Lo Hsieh Wang Terry Liu Shaw Brothers Run Run Shaw Jack Hill poster art cinema sexploitation women in prison movie review

Vintage Pulp

Oct 29 2021

Whether you call her Ilsa, Greta, or Wanda, she's a Thorne in everyone's sides.

Above is a Japanese poster for Ilsa, the Wicked Warden. We've already shown you Japanese posters for what we assumed was the complete Ilsa trilogy of torturesploitation flicks starring Dyanne Thorne, but when we saw this one we got a little confused. This was originally released in West Germany in January 1977—before the third official Ilsa film. It was not originally titled Ilsa the Wicked Warden, but Greta - Haus ohne Männer, as well as Wanda, the Wicked Warden. But still, since it came out before Ilsa 3, we thought maybe it was part of the group. So is it an Ilsa movie or not? Only one way to find out.

*cut to ninety minutes later*

Well, it's an Ilsa movie in spirit, but since Thorne plays a character named Greta, it isn't canonical. An enterprising video distributor renamed it to sucker aficionados of the first two Ilsa flicks. We doubt those fans felt tricked—Greta is identical to the other efforts, but without the nazi backstory. It was made under the steady, sleazy hand of veteran smut director Jesús Franco, and plotwise Tania Busselier goes undercover into Thorne's brutal Las Palomas mental institution/supermax prison in order to expose its corruption, but in risking her body and mind gets far more than she bargained for. And by more we mean whippings, various sexual invasions, and, probably, a sense of dismay about the direction of her film career.

The movie is really just an episodic collection of torture set pieces interspersed with sex scenes, and it's absolutely awful. There's no way to get around that fact. It's ridiculously written and atrociously acted, which we sometimes don't mind if a film has a certain spark, but this one is like a broken down horse with ticks and saddlesores. It'll get you somewhere but it won't be a pleasant ride. Thorne shows everything she's got, but while her fuzzy nooks and crannies may be a draw for some, we cannot recommend a movie this bad, even for people who think they're clever enough to make fun of it. Greta - Haus ohne Männer, aka Ilsa the Wicked Warden, aka Wanda, the Wicked Warden premiered in Japan today in 1977. If you're curious, here are our entries on the actual Ilsa canon—one, two, three.

Japan West Germany Greta - Haus ohne Männer Ilsa the Wicked Warden Wanda the Wicked Warden Jesús Franco Dyanne Thorne Lina Romay poster art cinema sexploitation women in prison nudity movie review

Modern Pulp

Aug 29 2021

That sound you hear is a great author spinning in his grave.

Guy de Maupassant? Really? We had no idea the master of the short story form and leader of the Naturalist school also wrote smut. Shows what we know. When we looked around for Folli piaceri delle porno prigioniere we learned it was originally made in West Germany in 1980 as Gefangene Frauen, but known in English as Caged Women. And instead of the highbrow rumination we expected from a movie based on de Maupassant, what we got was director Edwin C. Dietrich pushing the far bounds of sexploitation in ways that are crude, stupid, and unrepentant. Perhaps as compensation or apology, he also offers up more nudity per screen minute than a Jesús Franco film—and that's saying something.

Karine Gambier and Brigitte Lahaie headline a cast of bare blonde women and just-as-bare hairy eurostuds, as plotwise, a tinpot dictator worried about a U.N. sex trafficking investigation into his country's brothels hides his trafficked European prosties in a godforsaken island prison. You get every trope of women in prison flicks, but stretched to the max. There are showers, medical exams, naked whippings, naked manual labor, naked skeet shooting, naked arena wrestling, a naked prison break (but with comfortable shoes), and more. Notice how that went from standard sexploitation fare to waaay out there? Is it satire? Edwin Dietrich doubtless would have claimed it was. But merely turning the volume up to eleven is the dumbest kind of satire.

And as far as Guy de Maupassant goes, it's more like Guy de wishful thinking. We found no evidence the acclaimed author influenced this production in any way, regardless of what its writer (also Edwin Dietrich) said. It wasn't the only time Dietrich claimed he was inspired by classic literature. No surprise—when you make something like forty of these flicks you intellectualize them any way you can. De Maupassant's influence, we suspect, was merely to lend a veneer of credibility to the promo poster. If you watch Folli piaceri delle porno prigioniere, don't be a pretender like Dietrich. Just embrace your inner horndog and admit you're watching it for the skin.