An odd film. It can't decide whether it wants to be a tribute to 50s/60s "girls behind bars" exploitation pictures, a pseudo-political satire, or a crime drama. In better hands, it might have straddled those genres effectively, but as it is, it's more than a little scattershot.
In some sense, the film only seems to be sure of itself when it lapses into "lipstick lesbians in jail" exploitation. Personally, I could have done with more of that material, but then I watched the emasculated basic cable version on Lifetime. In retrospect, I'd recommend renting the video so you don't have to miss out on any of the "sexuality/nudity", and so you won't have to put up with the lame-o profanity overdubs. One particularly egregious dialogue change (judging from context and lip-reading) was "I shot his balls off" to "I blew his brains out", which renders the followup line "there was nothing to sew back on" utterly nonsensical.
Most of the laughs in the film are unintentional rather than written. The lack of acting from the character who stabs herself got a big laugh from me. The only *good* acting in the film to speak of comes from Anne Heche, who puts more work into her role than you'd expect. Lots of nice bits of business that I can tell were her idea rather than scripted or directed, since her scenes are the only ones with that kind of quality. Oh, I guess Miguel Sandoval (the "digger" in Jurassic Park) has a couple of nice moments as well.
All in all, about what you would expect from legendary (to MST3K fans, at least) schlock producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, who also directed the unrelated 1956 film with the same title. Worth viewing if you're an Anne Heche fan or have nothing better to do, but don't go out of your way.
In some sense, the film only seems to be sure of itself when it lapses into "lipstick lesbians in jail" exploitation. Personally, I could have done with more of that material, but then I watched the emasculated basic cable version on Lifetime. In retrospect, I'd recommend renting the video so you don't have to miss out on any of the "sexuality/nudity", and so you won't have to put up with the lame-o profanity overdubs. One particularly egregious dialogue change (judging from context and lip-reading) was "I shot his balls off" to "I blew his brains out", which renders the followup line "there was nothing to sew back on" utterly nonsensical.
Most of the laughs in the film are unintentional rather than written. The lack of acting from the character who stabs herself got a big laugh from me. The only *good* acting in the film to speak of comes from Anne Heche, who puts more work into her role than you'd expect. Lots of nice bits of business that I can tell were her idea rather than scripted or directed, since her scenes are the only ones with that kind of quality. Oh, I guess Miguel Sandoval (the "digger" in Jurassic Park) has a couple of nice moments as well.
All in all, about what you would expect from legendary (to MST3K fans, at least) schlock producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, who also directed the unrelated 1956 film with the same title. Worth viewing if you're an Anne Heche fan or have nothing better to do, but don't go out of your way.