Caged Women

Caged Women

Caged Women

Caged Women (1980) *** (out of 4) A group of women are having fun and working at their local whorehouse when the police storm the building and arrest them all. They are sent to a prison located on an island cut off from the rest of the world and it doesn't take long for them to fall victim to the evil warden (Karine Gambier) and her rapist guards. Also known under its original title, GEFANGENE FRAUEN and ISLAND WOMEN, this film came pretty late in the whole WIP (women-in-prison) movement. I've often said that if you've seen on WIP movie then you've seen them all. The only difference in them is the level of cruelty that they will go for. To me Jess Franco's BARBED WIRE DOLLS is the best of the lot but CAGED WOMEN deserves a lot of credit as well. The film was written and directed by Erwin C. Dietrich, the long time producer for several Franco classics including BARBED WIRE DOLLS. He certainly knew what he wanted to deliver and this here is pretty much a remake of that film. With that being said, this movie is without question one of the most gratuitous movies in the genre. I say that because the sleaze factor is pretty much off the charts and especially when it comes to the sexuality and nudity. The opening twelve-minutes or so is pretty much just a showcase for the various women. We see all of the ladies strip down, * and do various other sexual things that certainly cross the line of what you'd see on Cinemax. It's like the director is teasing us with all of the beautiful women he has lined up and it just grows even sleazier once we hit the prison. I also give the director credit because there's not a single ugly woman to be found here as they're all extremely attractive and constantly naked. Gambier, another Franco vet, is good in her role as the warden and you've also got Eric Falk playing a sadistic guard. The always stunning Brigitte Lahaie plays one of the prisoners and as I said there are countless other beautiful women in the cast. Storywise there's nothing original here and there's certainly no great direction or anything else but the film was meant to be pure trash and exploitation and on that level it works really well.

i'm very surprised of the low average rating that this film is getting. i've seem many disappointing exploitation films(dark lighting, excessive gore,dull story,lack of good looking girls and lack of full frontal nudity) but this one really stands apart. it has beautiful girls,good locations, scenes well lit and an interesting story. it has constant nudity and it doesn't shy away from full frontal like so many other films seem to do just to attract a different market.Of course,it's not perfect. But what films are? The fight between a naked man and a woman (she easily wins)isn't very credible. Another scene were there's a grenade and smoke isn't credible as the grenade looks like a plastic green lemon and the explosion(if you can call it that!) looks like a cloud of smoke. There's also a scene where a girl kills a doctor with a steel instrument. First of all,it's doubtful it would have killed him and it makes the girl look bad(a knock on the head would still have done the trick)since the doctor was not established as a very evil character after all. But there's so much that's good about this film,that those are little imperfections that can be easily forgotten. This review is the one of the 2006 uncut PAL widescreen special edition titled CAGED WOMEN which comes with an xxx stars bonus. The xxx stars bonus is clips of really bad * so if you can find a DVD cheaper without the bonus,go for that one.

"Gefangene Frauen" or "Women's Penitentiary VII" or "Island Women" (and there are many more titles for this one) is a Swiss 90-minute movie from 1980, so it had its 35th anniversary last year. The director and one of the writers is Erwin C. Dietrich and this film here shows how much he had worked with Jesús Franco on several occasions. There is lots of sex in here, basically from start to finish, the women are almost always *, some of them have big breasts, some have small and some of them have blonde hair (actually the majority) and some dark hair. The diversity in this area may be there, but it lacks entirely in terms of story-telling. It is about a bunch of women who are held prisoner at an island by some evil blonde warden. And she has them fight men (was that a feminist statement, Mr. Dietrich?) and beat them up with kicks to the balls. Then, on other occasions, they have sex with men, with each other or with the warden. Oh well. This is a * movie, nothing more and the actresses in here are even bad for * film actors still. I personally prefer brunettes so if you are horny and like blondes, this may be a bearable watch and I have to say I even liked the one petite blonde with the big breasts, aside from the one (yes only one) brunette character. So yeah, there is no reason really to watch this film. If you are horny, go for * and I do not mean "go for this film here" as it really sucked a lot and was never a rewarding watch. The premise is not that bad, but what they made of it is pretty disastrous. This may not be a Franco film, but it looks exactly like one of the Spanish filmmaker's worst. The only question worth discussing controversially after seeing these 1.5 hours is what was the worst aspect of it: Script? Acting? Sex scenes? I highly not recommend the watch.

I kid you not. The surprise ending is meant to comment on a bizarre political trend in the last third of the 20th Century in which military putsch leaders seemed to be of ever decreasing rank. The nadir of this phenomena being the 1980 Liberian coup which left MASTER SERGEANT Samuel K. Doe as head of state. At the climax of this film the lowly soldiers stationed as guards at Red Island turn out to be part of the movement to overthrow their country's military dictator and replace him with one of their own. But, surprise, Red Island's sub-commander reveals during the denouement that he's already cut a deal with the regular military to depose and succeed his comrade within a fortnight. Oh-ho! Sex AND Politics? That's the SEVENTIES for you. (should also mention that the chicks were totally smoking)

Clearly in the top 3 of all WIP flicks, my main addiction to this 80 minutes of celluoid is born of seeing Brigitte Lahaie and a bevy of other beauties parading around naked in bright daylight. "Gefangene Frauen" (Caged Women) is one of Dietrich's finest softcore achievements. He has taken the WIP genre and added a twist of his own. The girls are kidnapped from a brothel and taken to an island prison. There they undertake a modest degree of insubordinate behaviour which triggers obligatory punishment. This consists of having to strip and walk around naked in the prison for the rest of the film. And what can you say against that? What with * wrestling, * whipping and a * escape project, it's all a go-go. Sure the acting is weak and the plot rattles, but that is not what we are here for. It delivers what it says on the tin. Big time.

I'd love to write a little summary of this movie's plot, but...there simply isn't one! If you just take a look at the plot keywords for this title, you pretty much know the entire content of the film: sex, breasts, exploitation, female frontal nudity and women's prison! 80 minutes of pure sleaze and nothing more. "Escape of the Island Women" (an alternate title that isn't even listed here) clearly wanted to become another notorious and controversial woman-in-prison classic, but it totally lacks the brutality of one. WIP-flicks are meant to blend graphic sexual images with shocking violence, but the violence here has just been replaced with more sex. Director Erwin Dietrich surely can't compete with specialists in the field, like Jess Franco or Joe D'Amato, and he should have sticked to making ordinary soft-core flicks. The only aspects that slightly look like cult-cinema are the resemblance of the tyrant-president with Fidel Castro and the group-rape of a (minor?) girl by soldiers. The girls are ravishing, though, and the Ibiza filming location looks very enchanting.

Put them all together: Erwin Dietrich behind the camera, Brigitte Lahaie and a whole bunch of gorgeous, very naked women in front of the camera, keep the nudity and hot scenes going from beginning to end, and you've got a winner. Storyline?... who cares! Okay, okay... a bunch of beautiful girls are kidnapped from a bordello by a paramilitary force (yikes!) and taken to a deserted island to be held as sex slaves. That's the bad news. The good news is they don't suffer much at all, and they are * most of the time. Basically the same cast from "Come Play With Me" (another wonderful Erwin Dietrich romp) with a bunch of welcomed additions. Fans of '70s Euro sleaze will definitely enjoy this one.

Much like Tinto Brass ("Caligula"), the people who made this movie can't tell the difference between explicitness and eroticism. No build-up at all, just throw naked women on the screen; no, it doesn't work that way. If close-ups of female genitalia aren't your thing, prepare to be looking away from the screen at many points (I often did). The "all women are whores at heart" mentality of the movie is offensive, and the "story" is by turns absurd and boring (the escape is the most boring part!). But halfway through there is a random scene that pops out of nowhere and involves one of the (female) prisoners and one of the (male) guards in a * wrestling match, which she wins with a couple of judo moves. Although the choreography of the fight is bad, the whole scene is undeniably memorable. In fact, that scene and the nice cinematography are the only two reasons I give this film * out of 4, instead of 0.