Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

One of the most popular and enduring B-movie genres is the ‘women in prison’ film. It was given new life by Producer Roger Corman with Jack Hill’s THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (in 1971) and for many, the high-point was the Corman produced Jonathan Demme written and directed CAGED HEAT in 1974. Exploitation fans would usually be treated to a combination of tough and sexy ladies in various stages of undress, involved with light sado-masochism, lesbian wardens and prison guards. Cat fights, near nymphomania and over-the-top violence usually resulted. Sometimes torture and rape was part of the formula too. Some critics have over-analyzed that the films had themes of strong empowered women that reflected the women’s movement of the early 1970s. Yeah, sure.. that’s what it was all about—Women’s lib.

It had nothing to do with seeing naked sweaty women while horn dog guys gathered at the drive in movies and drank beer or later on rented these genre films on video and finished off kegs. Nope... they were subversive message pictures reflecting Women's lib. Yep, that's what they were. And when I was 12 years old I skipped the pictures in Playboy and read the articles.

When Ted V. Mikels got around to making his women in prison film in the late 70’s, he decided to do things a little differently. The genre was pretty much already played out, so half of the movie is spent showing how several women wound up in prison. It’s like two low-budget drive-in movies in one. The first part is a Bad Women Heist movie, the second is a Women’s prison movie. There’s even a bit of nudity in the film –a rarity in most of Mikels’ films. And like most of Mikels’ films his ideas are way too big for his tiny budget, so only part of what he wants to do is possible. Since he wants to do way too much in several directions we have quite a fascinating mess here.

I won’t for a moment lead you to believe there’s anything all that original or good about 10 VIOLENT WOMEN. I do however really enjoy how Mikels re-works the scraps of several genre films to create a very entertaining movie. He really works very hard to try and keep us thoroughly entertained. If nothing else, you’ll probably be mesmerized with how Mikels’ mind seems to work. There’s a strong 1940s era melodramatic undercurrent at work in the film combined with modern exploitation elements and up-to-date plot points including drug dealers and wealthy middle-eastern sheiks. It doesn’t make much sense, but things move fast enough you’re not suppose to think too much about it anyway.

The film begins introducing us to several (6 or 7) women who are working a gold mine. That’s right… a gold mine. This is a movie that is going for gritty raw realism after-all. A lot of about to be liberated women in the 1970s worked in gold mines. It's true. (Hey, you weren't paying attention to what was really going on in the 70s were you platform shoes boy?)

The only male around has decided to blast part of the tunnel they are working in, which several of the women believe is a bad idea because there are other women working in the mines. They are informed it’s safe, because the blast is occurring in a shaft no one is working in. Well the blast injures one of the girls and the women are very upset. They wind up not getting paid as they quit. It turns out the male crew chief hasn’t been paid either so he tries to grab one of the women before they leave. A blouse is ripped off, and then the women beat him up.

These now empowered strong independent women decide they are done playing by the rules and being ‘good’ girls. What’s next you ask?

Well, they plan a fairly complicated jewelry store heist. We don’t see the planning of the robbery—which had to have taken quite a bit of time, but instead see how the robbery comes off, which involves disguises, look-outs, decoys, hostage-taking, switching cars and clothes. One of the worst performances I have ever seen in a movie (which is saying a lot) is by Frank Walshe, the actor who plays the owner of the jewelry store. It’s something that has to be seen to be believed. Over-acting doesn’t begin to describe what it is he does. To show how scared and excited he is, he gasps for breath like he has just finished running a marathon, but a moment later he is fully recovered and yells angrily at his security guard for allowing himself to be distracted by some pretty tourists (part of the gang of course) and allowing the robbery to take place. Also arriving right after the robbery is a wealthy Arab Prince who is picking up a rare, nearly priceless sacred scarab. Of course it’s one of the things that the girls have just stolen. This creates complications.

The women, it turns out, have planned the robbery pretty well, but they haven’t planned what to do with their jewels once they have them. They can’t think of everything, right? This leads them to meeting with Leo, a Las Vegas based fence and drug dealer. Leo is played by Ted V. Mikels who does a pretty good job playing a nasty sleazy bad guy who wears a huge whale bone around his neck. Instead of money which he apparently lost gambling, he offers the girls about a million dollars in cocaine to sell on the streets. The girls are very upset with this and when Leo pulls a gun on them, well let’s just say you’ll remember what happens to Leo long after the movie is over and perhaps gain a new respect for stiletto heeled shoes.

I’ve said too much. The girls now have the jewels and lots of drugs. It isn’t long before a really dumb mistake by the alcoholic loose cannon of the group lands several of the women in prison. Hey they weren’t very good drug dealers, what can you say? It’s a tough prison where the 50 something warden is a sadistic lesbian who has her eye on one of our recently incarcerated thieving women. Eventually the remaining 4 women with a couple of new friends decide they have to bust out of prison. This happens after a fairly benign cat-fight, a shower scene where all but one woman keeps her bra on, and a rather gross lesbian seduction scene. It’s almost as if Mikels is intentionally showing cult movie fans just how utterly absurd the whole women in prison genre really is.

There’s also lots of wonderful low budget movie trademarks to look for. During a traveling scene look how often the weather and lighting changes indicating what seems to be a couple minutes in movie time was shot most likely over the course of several days and at various times.

The ending contains another ridiculous crazy logic twist that completely subverts the idea of the tough independent women theme the rest of the movie almost had. And no, the ending has nothing to do with gold mining—that would almost make sense.

You think it’s hypocritical to have a theme about women finding their independence and becoming empowered through a life of crime, only to have them wind up giving it all up? Mikels never pretends the movie is anything but brainless fun. The idea that showing women as bad-a-s-s as men in women in prison type films somehow empowers and liberates women audiences is just plain silly anyway. I doubt too many film-makers believe critics who insist there’s importance in some of these films beyond their immediate entertainment value. The films are made for guys. The appeal of these films has much more to do with male sado-massochistic fantasy than women’s lib. Seeing a scantily clad dressed woman kick booty is sexy and has sex appeal to every male in the audience. I’m sure women enjoy watching a guy get an a-s-s whooping from a lady, but in most of these films what you get is lesbian encounters, women fighting women, women taking showers, and women shooting at fairly non-descript men. Often the genre includes rape and torture as well—which would certainly nullify most empowerment claims. 10 VIOLENT WOMEN isn’t a particularly violent film (one scene is somewhat gory and memorable) and it has just a brief glimpse of a few pairs of breasts (appreciated). The film is a mess on almost every level and the acting, pacing and production quality is inconsistent. There are also funny little inter-titles sprinkled throughout the film which give the film a sense of style in an old Quinn Martin television show kind of way. Titles that say things like: THE PLOT THICKENS or THE ESCAPE.. Mikels by not paying attention to thematic consistency has actually made a mockery of the women in prison and women with guns genres by creating one of the oddest un-intentional parody films ever made. It’s ridiculous, absurd, sloppy and lots of fun.

TRIVIAL NOTES

Mikels explained to me in a recent interview (part of which wound up in CULT CUTS MAGAZINE and all of which was in BRUTARIAN magazine)how several actresses he lived with (CASTLE LADIES) wanted him to make a movie they could all be in. He got out an older script written by James Gordon White called: The Violent Sex. It was set in a female prison. He added a long prologue which grew to be half the movie and put that in front of the prison scenario. The budget was miniscule and it was shot on small pieces of film less than five minutes long called short ends. Mikels sold the film to a New York distributor that went bankrupt before paying him. Another company that had prints of the film claimed they had bought the rights and didn’t acknowledge Mikels claims of ownerships. Eventually the film wound up on video in 1982 as Woman's Penitentiary. Mikels reclaimed the film in 1989. Perhaps he’ll make a few thousand from IMAGE for it, now that it
is on DVD, but he isn’t holding his breath about it.

MIKELS' best known films are ASTRO ZOMBIES, CORPSE GRINDERS and The DOLL SQUAD.

DVD STUFF

The visual quality of the film isn’t very impressive, but that’s not IMAGE’s fault. The digital re-mastering doesn’t have any noticeable compression or edge enhancement problems. The master print has problems and there’s no financial reason to spend much on a complete restoration. Quite a bit of the film was shot in low light situations and is too dark, and washed of colors. Ted’s a good cinematographer so the fault is probably in a combination of poor film stock, less then perfect film lab processing and the age of the prints. There’s also some print damage. sloppy edits and end of reel deterioration marks as well.

DVD AUDIO COMMENTARY

Again there is a full-length audio commentary from Ted V. Mikels and he seems to be having fun watching the movie, cracking a few jokes, telling us some bits of trivia regarding some of the locations, people and production troubles of the film. There’s times where says very little for several minutes and that’s a bit disappointing. I wish there was someone interviewing him or keeping him talking. Also included is a filmography and 6 trailers for Mikels’ movies.

BOTTOM LINE:

You’ll find 10 VIOLENT WOMEN either a messy late in the game mish mash of a movie that doesn’t have nearly as much violence, nudity or sleaze as other films of its type OR you’ll see it as an unintentional parody of the genre and have a lot of fun watching it. There’s several ways the film might entertain you, provided you’re not expecting a sleaze fest. I certainly prefer this low budget goof to most of the hugely over-produced, overly-safe, predictable summer blockbusters Hollywood churns out. Just when you think you know what is going to happen, something absurd happens that you’ve never seen before.




Copyright© Christopher J. Jarmick 2003/2004



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older