mark.waltz Giving a fine imitation of Bela Lugosi, Oscar winning actress joins the ranks of Esther Dale, Sara Allgood, Hope Emerson, Ida Lupino and Jeanne Cooper as tough or sadistic matrons/wardens in a women's prison. She's hard looking, hard acting, and the heart is as hard as granite. This is one of the many exploitation films that used lesbian subterfuge to pack in an audience, a sort of international Eurotrash drama that is tedious and often distasteful.There's never an opportunity to get to know or understand any of the characters, only the element of 60's trash to try and sell. So in the amount of obviousness, there's also Maria Schnell as McCambridge's potential successor and "Pink Panther" foil Herbert Lom as the prisoner's governor and practically the only male character in the film. Around the prisoners, McCambridge dresses severely and extremely mannish, but in front of Lom, dresses extravagantly, as if to use the few womanly wiles she can to hold onto her job. She truly is a sight to behold.While the DVD print is a ton of improvement over the old faded VHS print, it still struggles to give some reason for being other than the use of sex and violence to titillate. Brief flashbacks to several of the girl's pasts don't really endear them, and it just drags on and on. I'll rank this among the lowest of the women's prison films, because the exploitation elements just expose it for being cheap and vulgar with a waste of talents for a few middle of the road names who are more like cult figures today rather than real movie stars.

Uriah43 After being wrongly accused of prostitution "Marie" (Maria Rohm ) is sent to an extremely harsh island prison known as the "Castle of Death" which is run by a sadistic director named "Thelma Diaz" (Mercedes McCambridge) and her immediate supervisor "Governor Santos" (Herbert Lom). While there she is subjected to all kinds of abuse which includes both torture and rape. However, her hopes of being treated decently are revived when a new director by the name of "Leonie Caroll" (Maria Schell) arrives and appears to have the interests of the prisoners in mind. Now, rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that as far as Women-in-Prison (WIP) movies are concerned this one wasn't too bad. Admittedly, the addition of several beautiful women like Luciana Paluzzi (as "Natalie Mendoza"), Rosalba Neri ("Zoie"), Elisa Montes ("Helga") and the aforementioned Maria Rohm and Maria Schell had much to do with this assessment but that's an important ingredient with movies of this type anyway. Additionally, having established actors like Herbert Lom and Mercedes McCambridge helped as well. On the other hand there was at least one particular scene which the director (Jesus Franco) probably intended to be artistic but totally bungled as it was much too dark and blurry. Likewise, the film seemed to lack continuity from one scene to another which also lessened the overall quality to some degree. On a side note I should probably add that there are several versions of this movie out on the market and at least one of these has an X-rating. So viewer caution is advised. Along with that I should probably also point out that the movie I saw was filmed in French with English subtitles in case some viewers might need to know as well. In short, while this movie clearly isn't Academy Award winning material it still wasn't terribly bad and I rate it as only slightly below average.

hasosch 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?

lastliberal Ah, women-in-prison and Jesus Franco. What can we expect.It really depends on the version you watch, as there are versions from 70 minutes (UK) to 99 minutes (Argentina). The US and Sweden have 86 minute versions, although Sweden banned even that. This is a 90 minute unrated version.One does not expect to find a double Golden Globe and Oscar winner in a Jesus Franco film, but here she is - Mercedes McCambridge (All the King's Men - 1949) as the prison superintendent.Also Maria Schell, who has 2 BAFTA Film Award nominations and another 14 awards, as an inspector from the Ministry. She did get prisoner 99 (Maria Rohm) out of solitary on her first day.More expected is Herbert Lom as the Governor, the only surviving member of The Ladykillers (1955), and a Razzie nominee for King Solomon's Mines.It appears Franco was going for quality as it is more than a half hour in before we see a breast, and some girl-on-girl action. Even that was shot with a lot of Vaseline on the camera. Don't the women in this prison take showers? Marie (99), Zoe (Rosalba Neri), and Rosalie (Valentina Godoy) attempt to cross 30 miles of snake-infested jungle and swamp at night to escape. yeah, right. They find a lily-covered pond that looks the same as the one in Virgin among the Living Dead.Of course, it isn't the snakes on the ground they have to worry about, but the snakes attached to the dozen male prisoners that saw them and are running after them. One doesn't make it.A good drama with some famous actors, but disappointing as a WIP exploitations.