The Big Bird Cage (1972)

Am I Missing Something?

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Writer / director Jack Hill follows up his Women In Prison classic "The Big Doll House" with this savvy send-up of the genre. It's fast paced and consistently amusing entertainment with everybody in fine form, including Hill and his winning actor combo of Pam Grier and Sid Haig. It's appropriately trashy stuff as we get an eyeful of our attractive female cast members and get generous doses of sex and violence.The stunning Anitra Ford ("Invasion of the Bee Girls") stars as Terry, a promiscuous young woman who's been with some important men. She gets caught up in a robbery staged by Blossom (Grier) and Django (Haig), and is assumed to be in on the whole thing and sent to prison - a typical prison for this sort of thing with sadistic guards and a maniacal warden (Andres Centenera) and a towering wooden structure (the "big bird cage" of the title) in which the prisoners are forced to risk their lives as they process sugar. Soon, however, Blossom and Django infiltrate the prison in an ambitious attempt to help the convicts break out.This is highly enjoyable stuff, and the sense of humour helps make it go down very easily. The actors are a treat to watch, especially sassy and sexy Grier and the always entertaining Haig. The ladies playing the prisoners include Candice Roman as the tough talking Carla, Teda Bracci as comedy relief character "Bull" Jones, Carol Speed as the feisty Mickie, and Karen McKevic as the Amazonian fighter Karen. Lovers of Filipino cinema will also relish the appearance by Vic Diaz (a very familiar face in this sort of thing) as one of the guards.Hill and his editors keep the movie moving along nicely, and building towards the inevitable big breakout sequence which is wonderfully rousing. Our hottie inmates are people we can root for while we also enjoy hating the villains. Along the way there's time for mud wrestling and some great laughs as Haig pretends to be gay in order to get close to the guards. The most ridiculous but riotous scene has McKevic smearing chicken fat over her naked body so she can slip past people in order to get her hands on Speed, who's been teasing her.All in all, this is a real hoot of a movie, and a refreshing artifact from a time when filmmakers weren't about to worry about being politically correct. Highly recommended to anybody who loves Pam Grier, Sid Haig, Jack Hill, and Women In Prison pictures in general.Eight out of 10.

Pam Grier and Sid Haig; what a combination. They are revolutionaries, and plot to get into a women's prison to get recruits for their cause. Lots of fighting; even mud wrestling.While Grier works inside the prison, Haig pretends to be gay to get next to the head guard (Vic Diaz).This women's prison had a male Warder played by Andres Centenera. He is a real character.Anitra Ford(Invasion of the Bee Girls) provided another interesting character as a nymphomaniac actress, which the government wanted out of town - so they locked her up.Lots of action especially at the end.

In one of those jungle prison camps, females are forced into hard labor, working within the "bird cage" of the title, an elaborate sugar mill. Sid Haig and Pam Grier are revolutionaries who rob from societal fat cats, soon finding themselves within the prison labor camp causing a revolt against maniacal warden(Andres Centenera) and his host of homosexual male guards(..including a hilarious turn by Vic Diaz).The center of my attention was the incredibly yummy Anitra Ford, a stunning beauty whose character has a reputation notorious for her sexual involvements with various political leaders..she's deemed a threat whose knowledge is a threat. She seems to have no fear or nervousness about her current situation due to her confidence in getting out of captivity. While Pam Grier is recognized as the star, she often plays second fiddle to Ford because her role doesn't really make a certain impact until getting herself purposely put in Zappa's(Centenera)labor camp, where she forges the girls together in a planned rebellion, tired of their superior's tyrannical ways and slave labor. Teda Bracci is the leader over the girls until Grier challenges for authority / supremacy and secures the role. Candice Roman and the statuesque Karen McKevic supply extra eye candy as other white girls who found their ways into this camp. Carol Speed is the feisty(..she has a mouth that often gets her into heated situations where she runs and squeals when potential harm could come to her)token black girl of the bunch until Grier comes along..her fate when the mill breaks down, in regards to needed repairs, is horrifying. Marissa Delgado is Rina, a nutty prisoner Ford befriends and helps along the way.The mill is essentially a tower with a wooden skeletal frame, gears moving in proactive fashion, the girls keeping it running through blood, sweat, and tears...in the shape of a bird cage, this was designed by Hill's father. You get everything the women-in-prison genre offers in unique ways. There's the shower, cat fights, explosive finale with shootouts and violence, sadistic bonkers warden constantly shouting(barking orders), women yearning for the touch of a man(..poor Vic Diaz gets balled at the end!), attempted escapes, torture towards our heroines, and grim conclusion(..few make it out alive).Haig and Grier are superb together and have marvelous chemistry(..they're mud fight where Haig hits her across the ass with a dead duck is hilarious). Haig's posing as a gay man to gain access inside the labor camp, actually getting hired as a guard because Diaz wants to ravage him, had me in ribbons. The beautiful Phillipine locations compliment the lovely women quite well..and, best of all, the girls are outfitted in short shorts and shirts tied off above their wastes, so that we can lustfully gaze at their impressive figures throughout.

Jack Hill's follow-up (but not a sequel) to his earlier 'The Big Doll House' is a much more confident and enjoyable movie. Hill wrote as well as directed this one and I think that makes a world of difference. The basic model of the earlier film is followed but Hill shrewdly saw that the handful of scenes between Pam Grier and Sid Haig in that movie showed plenty of potential, so this time round he casts them as singing Revolutionary lovers (yeah baby!), an inspired move that really makes this one something special. The foxy Anitra Ford ('Invasion Of The Bee Girls') plays a sassy character who crosses their paths early in the film during a robbery. Super cool Django (Haig) takes a fancy to her but before he can do anything about it she is arrested and sent to a brutal prison. (I should point out that even though this movie, like the others in this short-lived 1970s cycle, was filmed in the Philippines, it is set in some nameless Banana Republic). Before too long Grier also finds herself in the same compound, which is dominated by "the bird cage", a strange contraption the women are forced to work on as punishment. Django cooks up a nutty plan to save her by pretending to be gay to ingratiate himself with one of the camps (very camp) guards Rocco, played by Vic Diaz, who later reunited with Haig and Grier in 'Black Mama White Mama'. This is a fantastic piece of entertainment overall and a guaranteed hoot! Personally I would say it is only rivalled by 'Caged Heat' and 'Chained Heat' as far as women in prison exploitation movies go. Highly recommended fun.