Watch Jackson County Jail For Free

Simply Perfect

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A Masterpiece!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Dinah Hunter (Yvette Mimieux) is traveling cross country from California to New York. In the deep south she unwisely picks up two hitchhikers. They hold her up and take her car leaving her all alone. She goes to a bar to use a phone. The bartender tries to attack her but she fights him off. Then a policeman wanders in and the bartender accuses her of attacking him! She's hauled off to jail and locked up. Then she's brutally raped but kills the man who did it. With the help of a fellow prisoner (Tommy Lee Jones) she escapes and they're both on the run.What sounds like a typical exploitation picture is surprisingly not bad. Aside from the rape scene (which is downright disgusting) this is pretty tame. There's next to no nudity (Mimieux briefly bares her breast) and it has a good script. This has been praised as a feminist picture. I don't agree. Sure she fights back and kills the man who rapes her but so do other woman in other exploitation films. Also she almost immediately falls in love with Jones and clings to him to save her. That's hardly feminist. The film also has plenty of shoot outs and car chases and Mimieux and Jones are very good in their roles. So it's worth seeing but a little overpraised and not a feminist film at all.

"Dinah Hunter" (Yvette Mimieux) works for an advertising agency and after an extremely bad day comes home only to find her husband with another woman. Determined to make a new start in life she decides to leave Los Angeles and drive to New York. But on the way she makes the mistake of picking up two hitchhikers who end up stealing her car and leaving her unconscious along the side of the road. To make matters even worse, after managing to stumble into a nearby restaurant she finds that her problems are only just beginning. Now, rather than reveal any more of the story and risk ruining the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that I found at least one particular scene involving Yvette Mimieux to be quite graphic and brutal. In any case, I thought she did exceptionally well as did Tommy Lee Jones (as "Colin Blake") who also put in a fine performance. On the flip side, I didn't care too much for the ending and would have preferred a bit more finalization. All things considered I rate this movie as slightly above average.

Yvette Mimieux is a tough, terrific actress, and she cuts an assertive and sexy presence on the screen (especially in these post-"Time Machine" years); however, this mangy Roger Corman production doesn't do much for her or anyone else. Woman traveling alone is unjustly incarcerated while driving cross-country; she escapes jail with help from a convict (Tommy Lee Jones), but the crooked police are not far behind. Though it eventually caught-on with early cable-TV audiences, "Jackson County Jail" is hardly more than a slapdash effort, an exploitation item not designed to empower women but to give drive-in audiences a thrill at seeing one abused. The pretentious finale aside, the picture doesn't even have the good sense to play up its redneck clichés or have fun with the jailhouse formula; instead, director Michael Miller and screenwriter Donald Stewart take things far too seriously, culminating in one ridiculous scene after another. * from ****

This movie is about a woman getting into trouble - nothing more and nothing less. she gets robbed by two hitch-hikers, she's put into prison because she ain't got a passport anymore, a policeman rapes her and she kills him after that and escapes with a prisoner...The movie continues this way, event-event-event... Director Michael Miller is so concerned about being boring, he leaves feelings and emotion.Jones and Mimieux do their parts well, especially Mimieux. Too, I miss at least a few experiments with camera and music, but if you don't want to think about a movie this might be right for you.