1971 - BIG DOLL HOUSE, Roger Corman's famous exploitation film

It's amazing what the passage of time does for some movies.  Fifty two years ago when Roger Corman released this "women in prison" exploitation flick it was considered a piece of crap.  However Corman had the last laugh, director Jack Hill shot the film for around $200,000 dollars and the film went on to gross around $3,000,000 dollars, probably mostly from the drive in movie circuit.

Corman sent Jack Hill to the Philippines to shot the film the reasoning being that he could stretch a dollar a lot further over there.  Hill has stated that he rewrote the script as they filmed because it was very bad.  He claims he tried to add more humor to it.  But no one watching this film is viewing it for it's comedic scenes.

The film features a lot of women in various states of undress as they like to say.  The film has lots of torture scenes, some weird attempts as lesbianism, a mud fight and towards the end a whole lot of shooting.  The action scene is actually kind of well done.

 

 The cast is the usual "bevy of beauties" who can't act one lick.  The standout is Pam Grier in one of her first major roles.  Grier plays some kind of lesbian but it's difficult to tell because nobody was really going to go there in the early 1970's.  Grier sings the title song and she's really off key.   Roberta Collins is an inmate who is so horny she makes a guy have sex with her at knife point.  Sid Haig and Jerry Franks are Harry and Fred a couple of guys who deliver food to the prison,  they have the most amusing scenes in the film.

 

Today Big Doll House is considered a classic in the "Women in Prison" exploitation feature, that's what the passage of time can sometimes do for a movie I guess.  I will have to give Corman and Jack Hill credit, it's sort of entertaining in a demented kind of way.

Written by Don Spencer, (Jack Hill?), the running time is 95 minutes.