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Sick Product of a Sick System

One of my all time favorites.

Absolutely the worst movie.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Erica Gavin stars as Jacqueline Wilson, who is sent to jail for between 10 and 40 years. Once inside, she finds herself at the mercy of strict warden Supt. McQueen (Euro horror star Barbara Steele) and perverted Dr. Randolph (Warren Miller), who quietens troublemakers with a spot of lobotomy. Together with some of her cellmates, Erica makes a desperate bid for freedom…Trashy women-in-prison flick Caged Heat was directed by Jonathan Demme, the same man who, seventeen years later, would win an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs. This being a low-budget exploitation movie from the Roger Corman production stable, there isn't much to suggest the director's future success, his film delivering the expected genre ingredients—lots of nudity (inc. full frontal), (mild) torture, (mild) sexual abuse, a cat-fight etc.—all at a lively pace, but little else of note.Nowhere near as sleazy as Jess Franco's WIP films, or as memorably fun as Jack Hill's, Demme's film is one for fans who have seen all of the essential titles, but still have a hankering for more babes behind bars action (without scraping the bottom of the genre barrel).

Caged Heat (1974) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Maggie (Erica Gavin) gets thrown into prison for committing a crime with her boyfriend. It doesn't take long for her to realize she's in for a long ride as the prison is being ran by a sadistic warden (Barbara Steele) as well as a crazy doctor (Warren Miller) who is doing bizarre experiments on the women.CAGED HEAT was the first film from director Jonathan Demme. Yes, that Jonathan Demme who would win a Best Director Oscar seventeen-years after this film with THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. By the time CAGED HEAT was released the women-in-prison genre was several years strong and by this time producer Roger Corman already had a formula down that he wanted followed. Of course you had to have a short running time and in that short time you had to have plenty of violence, action and of course nudity.Demme manages to deliver a pretty fast film, although there's no question that there's really nothing new on display here. He at least managed to turn in a fun exploitation picture that has all the elements needed for a "Corman picture" so to speak. The film has an attractive cast with Gavin fitting the lead role just fine and we've also got cult favorites Roberta Collins and Juanita Brown. Miller is good in the role of the crazy doctor and it's certainly fun and strange seeing Steele here. I thought the cult favorite was decent in the part but I'm not sure she seems too thrilled being in it.The film has plenty of nudity with a lot of beautiful women and of course there's the required shower sequences. The action is pretty good and for the most part there's really nothing overly bad here. As I said, the prison genre was already going strong for a few years so there's nothing new here but CAGED HEAT is fun.

Jonathan Demme's first cinematic tryout is one of the most notorious W.I.P. efforts of the early 70's, but you can nevertheless easily conclude already why he's one of the only directors of his class who went on to do bigger things, like … oh I don't know, making Award winning masterpieces like "Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia". The script contains a handful of really clever findings, like a girl who uses her showering town tome sneak off to the kitchen through the air ventilation system and steal food for her friend in isolation, as well as some ambitiously experimental stuff, like a lurid dream sequence and an ingenious method to commit bank robbery. There's not as much torture, rape, humiliation and lesbian escapades going on in "Caged Heat" as in most other Women in Prison movies, but you can always take comfort in the thought that this is a more story-driven accomplishment. Besides, this weren't the rancid 80's so don't expect another "Chained Heat" (the Holy Grail of W.I.P. cinema) or "Reform School Girls". The rebel girls in this prison facility are subjected to harsh electro shock therapy – beautifully referred to as behavioral correction – that makes them shut up for the rest of their sentences. The prison is run with an iron hand by battle ax head warden McQueen, who's a religiously fanatic crippled woman in a wheelchair who dreams about dancing in front of her prisoners in a bunny outfit. Fantastic, that is! Even more fantastic is that this role is taken up by the legendary cult siren/horror wench Barbara Steele! "Caged Heat" is admittedly slow and boring in places – quite a few places unfortunately – but it actually plays in a different league than the vast majority of Women in Prison movies. Plus, the ending is awesome!

When I think 'Women in Prison', my mind often goes to sleazy Italian/Spanish productions by directors such as Jess Franco and Bruno Mattei; and while these films are often very sleazy, they're also very samey and once you've seen one; you might as well have seen them all. I have to admit that these types of films generally aren't my favourites; but in fact the idea of women behind bars has been done very well on several occasions outside of Italy and Spain; and Roger Corman's New World Pictures is responsible for some of the best of them. Caged Heat is the directorial debut of Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme, and it's a well done little flick with plenty of entertainment value! Naturally, the film centres on the story of a girl who is caught committing crime and sent to a women's' prison where she is introduced to a host of violent inmates. This prison is ruled over by the stuff wheelchair bound Superintendent McQueen; and she takes offence to a play put on by the girls; leading them to plot an escape.This film is much lighter on the sleaze than I'm used to in a women in prison flick; but this is more than compensated for by some great action scenes and dialogue and that's what ensures Caged Heat entertains throughout. It does have to be said that the plot is not particularly original or ambitious and basically follows a structure similar to many other women in prison films that came before it; but that's not such a big problem. The film never gets boring and is peppered with standout scenes; including an escape attempt while out working in a field and a bank robbery. The film is helped along by assured direction from the man who would go on to helm the masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs and a great cast with plenty of standouts; including best of all the legendary Barbara Steele in the role of the head prison warden. Overall, Caged Heat may not leave the viewer with much to think about by the end; but it's a brilliantly entertaining little grindhouse flick and anyone that enjoys this type of film will surely want to track it down.