| Vintage Pulp | Dec 29 2018 |
Maximum security, maximum thrills.
Japanese manga artist Toru Shinohara painted two posters for Meiko Kaji's classic Female Convict series. We shared the first, for Joshuu sasori: Dai-41 zakkyo-bô, aka Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, back in 2014. Here's the second, for Joshû sasori: 701-gô urami-bushi, aka Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701's Grudge Song. It premiered in Japan today in 1973. We'll get back to Shinohara a bit later.
JapanToei CompanyJoshû sasori: 701-gô urami-bushiFemale Prisoner Scorpion: #701's Grudge SongMeiko KajiToru Shinoharawomen in prisonposter artcinemapinkupinky violence
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 26 2018 |
Grier goes missing from another foreign poster.
We shared an Italian poster for the 1971 Roberta Collins/Pam Grier women-in-prison flick The Big Doll House, and today we have the Japanese promo. In Japan the movie was called Zankoku Onna-Keimusho, which means something along the lines of “cruel female prison.” Grier doesn't show up on the poster anywhere, though she's third billed. The central figure is Judy Brown, and elsewhere you see Roberta Collins, Sid Haig, and seven other cast members, but no Grier. This is not the only time she was demoted from an overseas poster, and all we can say is it's not a nice thing. The art is still very interesting, though. The Big Doll House opened in Japan today in 1972.
JapanZankoku Onna-KeimushoThe Big Doll HouseJudy BrownRoberta CollinsSid HaigPam Grierposter artcinemasexploitationwomen in prison
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 24 2018 |
You only get partial coverage, and that's if you're lucky.
Let it be known—if you cheat on Hitomi Kozue she'll come after you with a samurai sword. At least, that's what happens in the intro of Shin jitsuroku onna kanbetsusho: Rengoku, aka New True Story of a Woman Condemned to Hell. After Kozue slices her cheating man and his mistress, we smash cut to her chained in a prison van headed toward the rest of the movie. Jail time starts with a complimentary cavity search, and from there the amenities continue to disappoint. No pillow mints. No DSL. There's cell service, though, which comes in quite strongly after dark. But in general Kozue finds incarceration to be a bummer. Oh well. These deprivations are nobody's fault but hers—you've gotta keep a level head even when your partner is dicking a local tramp.
Kozue is lonely, but she soon learns that a man can easily be replaced by a piece of polished wood, or a religious figurine, or an inflated condom, or a willing finger or two. If she'd known all those possibilities before she kebabed her boyfriend she might have avoided imprisonment. But maybe not—we learn in flashback that what seemed like a straightforward case of catching her man cheating is more complicated. We won't say more. You'll just have to watch the film, which is a better-than-average women-in-prison entry, with that unique pinku flair, and a special beauty in the lead role, plus Yuri Yamashina in support. Shin jitsuroku onna kanbetsusho: Rengoku premiered in Japan today in 1976.
Below: a nice promo image of Hitomi. Why? Be-Kozue we had it. More from her later.
JapanNikkatsuShin jitsuroku onna kanbetsusho: RengokuNew True Story of a Woman Condemned to HellHitomi KozueYuri Yamashinapinkuwomen in prisonposter artcinemanudity
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 4 2018 |
It's bad for you but impossible to resist.
When we saw the promo materials for Sweet Sugar we had to watch the movie, because women-in-prison flicks are one of the most reliable forms of guilty fun out there. This one premiered in January 1972, and stars the majestic Phyllis Davis as the archetypal uppity American woman laid low in a tropical hellhole prison. How she got there doesn't really matter. It's what goes on there that the film is built around—medical experiments, a cruel warden, sadistic guards, and not nearly enough clothing to go around. Davis wins over the other inmates and eventually leads them in a chaotic escape attempt. As a women-in-prison entry Sweet Sugar
is pretty well regarded, but of course utterly ridiculous and impossibly cheap—the entire budget could probably fit in the rear pockets of Davis's short-shorts. She actually appeared in another tropical prison flick, by the way—1973's Terminal Island, which we talked about a few months ago. In that one she was part of the scenery. In this earlier effort she's asked to carry the film and manages to lug it for ninety steaming minutes without once breaking down in tears and placing a furious call to her agent. Now that you know what you're going to get with Sweet Sugar don't place a furious call to us. We warned you.
is pretty well regarded, but of course utterly ridiculous and impossibly cheap—the entire budget could probably fit in the rear pockets of Davis's short-shorts. She actually appeared in another tropical prison flick, by the way—1973's Terminal Island, which we talked about a few months ago. In that one she was part of the scenery. In this earlier effort she's asked to carry the film and manages to lug it for ninety steaming minutes without once breaking down in tears and placing a furious call to her agent. Now that you know what you're going to get with Sweet Sugar don't place a furious call to us. We warned you.
Costa RicaSweet SugarPhyllis DavisEllarainoPamela Collinsposter artcinemasexploitationwomen in prisonmovie review
| Modern Pulp | Oct 20 2017 |
The only rehabilitation going on here is by the poster artist.
Above you see a striking color poster for the Roger Corman produced women-in-prison flick Women in Cages, one of the many sexploitation epics filmed in the Philippines during the 1970s. For an entertaining ninety minutes on that subject, by the way, you should watch the documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed. It's the final word on the chaos of Philippine movie production and covers everything from Savage! to Apocalypse Now. Women in Cages is one of the earlier Philippine women-in-prison flicks, coming after The Big Doll House.
Despite the fact that the poster is signed R. Engel and dated '72, it's actually a piece of modern pulp made within the last several years. The person behind it is German artist Rainer Engel, who put it together 
borrowing the DVD box cover art from Subkultur-Entertainment's 2013 re-issue of the movie, which in Germany was called Frauen hinter Zuchthausmauern. We ran across the re-styled poster on the artist's website, decided his mock-up beats the hell out of the 1971 original art, and thought it was worth sharing.
When we wrote about the film a while ago we said we thought it was a bit much. Specifically, it's relentlessly grim. Of the trilogy that includes The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage this middle entry is the one that forgot the first rule of the 1970s women-in-prison genre—the movie should be absurd and fun. When it isn't—i.e. when it shades into depressing realism—you come away wondering if there's something wrong with you for having watched it in the first place. You can read our post on the film here, and you can visit the artist's website here.
borrowing the DVD box cover art from Subkultur-Entertainment's 2013 re-issue of the movie, which in Germany was called Frauen hinter Zuchthausmauern. We ran across the re-styled poster on the artist's website, decided his mock-up beats the hell out of the 1971 original art, and thought it was worth sharing.When we wrote about the film a while ago we said we thought it was a bit much. Specifically, it's relentlessly grim. Of the trilogy that includes The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage this middle entry is the one that forgot the first rule of the 1970s women-in-prison genre—the movie should be absurd and fun. When it isn't—i.e. when it shades into depressing realism—you come away wondering if there's something wrong with you for having watched it in the first place. You can read our post on the film here, and you can visit the artist's website here.
PhilippinesGermanySubkultur-EntertainmentRoger CormanRainer EngelWomen in CagesFrauen hinter ZuchthausmauernMachete Maidens UnleashedPam Grierposter artcinemawomen in prisonblaxploitation
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 5 2017 |
And they thought cellblocks 1 through 6 were bad.
Diario segreto da un carcere femminile, for which you see a nice poster above, was released in English as Women in Cellblock 7. Jenny Tamburi is thrown in prison as an accessory to a drug trafficking doublecross that led to the disappearance of twenty kilos of heroin. Interpol agent Anita Strindberg wants to prove her father, also an Interpol agent, had nothing to do with the heist, and has herself and her amazing hair placed in prison in order to ply Tamburi for exonerating evidence. Outside parties think Tamburi knows where the missing heroin is, including her lawyer and the mafia, but she claims to have no idea.
So you have an innocent woman in prison, under threat from convicts connected to the mafia, and into this arrives an undercover agent who soon becomes her protector. The cast, which besides Tamburi and Strindberg includes Eva Czemerys, Olga Bisera, Cristina Gaioni, and Valeria Fabrizi, get to rubbing on each other in beds and showers in cinematic approximations of lesbian sex, which means you've got yourself a classic women in prison sexploitation flick. There's also a plot thread external to the prison involving the mafia trafficantes, and some of this features effective action, but it's the ladies on lockdown that are the draw here.
Do they make the movie worth watching? We wouldn't go that far, but they're certainly scenic, and they work hard to hold together a ridiculous script. The conundrum of movie acting is that you have to give it your all or be judged unfit for further roles. At eighty-one minutes in length, at least the film lets the cast out early for good behavior even if the warden doesn't. Diario segreto da un carcere femminile premiered in Italy today in 1973, and the poster was painted by Enzo Nistri. You can see more of his work here and here.
ItalyDiario segreto da un carcere femminileWomen in Cell Block 7Anita StrindbergEva CzemerysJenny TamburiOlga BiseraCristina GaioniEnzo Nistriposter artcinemamafiasexploitationwomen in prisonmovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 4 2017 |
Treat your toys with care or they might break out.
Above is an Italian poster for the American financed, Philippine shot sexploitation actioner The Big Doll House, which starred Roberta Collins, Brooke Mills, Pat Woodell, Pam Grier, and Judy Brown. This wasn't the first women in prison movie—those had been appearing for decades—but it was the one that got the ’70s prison sexploitation ball rolling in the U.S. It offers a full slate of whippings, waterboardings, overheated isolation, and bizarre snake tortures, orchestrated by the evil wardeness Christiane Schmidtmer. Collins leads the beautiful convicts' eventual escape from bondage and hers is the most memorable character in the ensemble, though all the personalities are interesting. Don't get us wrong—the acting is of course atrocious, and the production values aren't high, but that didn't bother us and it didn't bother American audiences either. They made the movie a hit and the women-in-prison conveyor belt quickly cranked out other Filipino bondage productions like Women in Cages, The Hot Box, The Woman Hunt, The Big Bird Cage, and many others. The Big Doll House wasn't the best of the lot, by any stretch, but hey—being a trailblazer matters. We think it's worth a viewing.
ItalyPhilippinesSesso in gabbiaThe Big Doll HouseChristiane SchmidtmerRoberta CollinsPam GrierJudy BrownBrooke MillsPat WoodellSid Haigposter artcinemawomen in prisonsexploitationmovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 17 2016 |
Yumi Yumi Yumi puts her knife in your tummy.
A couple a years ago we wrote briefly about and shared a poster for the Yumi Takigawa headlined pinku flick Shin joshuu sasori: 701-gô, aka New Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701. Above is another poster from the film, actually the standard poster, as opposed to the bo-ekibari, or horizontal two-piece we showed you before. It's a great image, as is the very Yumi shot of Takigawa accompanying it. See the other poster here.
JapanToei CompanyShin joshuu sasori: 701-gôNew Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701Yumi TakigawaMeiko Kajiposter artcinemasexploitationwomen in prisonpinkupinky violence
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 7 2016 |
Everybody in the whole cellblock is in for a jailhouse shock.
Above, a nice poster with Erina Miyai and Natsuko Yashiro for Onna keimusho, aka Women's Prison, about a woman whose fiancée strays on their wedding day, prompting her to attack her romantic rival, leading to her being sentenced to a stint in the big house. Friends and enemies are made, sex and sexual assault occurs, and an escape leads to a showdown with the fiancée whose wandering dick started the whole mess in the first place. The photos below show Miyai and Yashiro in happier times, before they became hardened felons. Onna keimusho premiered in Japan today in 1978.
Japanおんな刑務所Onna keimushoWomen's PrisonErina MiyaiNatsuko Yashiroposter artcinemawomen in prisonpinkunudity
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 23 2016 |
Machine gun Margaret strikes again.
In the tropical Republic of San Rosario four beautiful nurses—Margaret Markov, Rickey Richardson, Andrea Cagan, and Laurie Rose—are kidnapped and forced to teach the healing arts to a revolutionary army so it can bring medical care to villages it liberates. While one of the nurses begins to agree with the captors, the others just want to escape. But when they do, they are captured by an army leader and what they learn prompts them to escape back to the revolutionaries' jungle compound to warn them of an impending government attack.
Scripted by Jonathan Demme and produced in the sweaty Philippines by sexploitation specialists New World Pictures, The Hot Box features most of the elements you expect from jungle sleaze, with perhaps less skin than the standard. But there's plenty of leering, drooling, and general depravity, followed by punching, kicking, stabbing, and Margaret Markov going cyclical with a machine gun. By the way, we'd not note this ordinarily, but post-massacre we'll add that mowing down people with machine guns is fine for cinema, but all other applications are idiotic and tragic.
There's a debate online about whether this is a women-in-prison film. People often get obtuse online—of course it's a women-in-prison film. The nurses don't spend three reels inside a bamboo cage being hosed down with river water, but they are twice held against their will and escape both times. Textbook stuff. Do we recommend the film? Not quite. But Markov is always worth the time. Amongst a slate of atrocious performers, she can almost act. Almost. The Hot Box premiered in the U.S. today in 1972.
PhilippinesNew World PicturesThe Hot BoxAndrea CaganLaurie RoseRickey RichardsonMargaret MarkovJonathan Demmeposter artcinemasexploitationwomen in prisonmovie review
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