Prison stuff. In prison movies.
Based on the book by Swiss Alexander Ziegler, who as a 22-year-old was sent to prison for a gay relationship with a 16-year-old, this is a not-so-simple love story that battles its way through prison, a reformatory for juveniles, and considerable torment. Although it is a German production, almost all of the action takes place in Switzerland. (more…)
Posted on April 6th, 2014 at 7:00 pm. Updated on April 6th, 2014 at 7:00 pm.
I’d thought that this was a movie based on real-life events, but no, it’s a dramatisation of those events interspersed with commentary from the real-life characters, 35 or more years on. A ‘documentary feature’ is what it is, apparently. (more…)
Posted on March 24th, 2014 at 8:28 pm. Updated on March 24th, 2014 at 8:34 pm.
This is a variation on the adage that “You can’t keep a good man down.” Sometimes, it seems, you can’t keep a really, really bad man down, either. (more…)
Posted on March 17th, 2014 at 10:00 pm. Updated on March 17th, 2014 at 10:08 pm.
Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, 1936. Spain is about to plunge into civil war, and an unlikely romance between Daniel Da Barca (Tristán Ulloa), a charismatic Republican doctor, and Marisa Mallo (María Adánez), the daughter of a wealthy businessman who has quickly thrown his lot in with Franco’s rebel Nationalists, is beginning to blossom.
Posted on March 9th, 2014 at 12:59 pm. Updated on March 9th, 2014 at 12:59 pm.
There’s something a little pathetic about two ageing action heroes reliving their glory days from the ’80s. Granted, neither Sylvester Stallone nor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks mid-sixties, exactly, and they make a far better fist of playing action heroes than the younger but tumescent Steven Seagal in Maximum Conviction (2012). But it’s a worrying trend; I’m not looking forward to seeing Chuck Norris and Burt Reynolds wreak havoc in a palliative care prison.
Posted on February 24th, 2014 at 9:26 pm. Updated on March 9th, 2014 at 1:13 pm.
Jailhouse as haunted house. It’s not the most novel of concepts. (more…)
Posted on February 16th, 2014 at 1:35 pm. Updated on February 16th, 2014 at 1:35 pm.
This was released as Women Without Men in Britain – a title suggestive of something a bit wild or scandalous. It’s neither of those. I suppose that if one takes the title at its most literal, it’s indisputable that the women prisoners are without men. And although she might not agree, the lead character, Angela Booth (Beverly Michaels), is decidedly better off for it.
Posted on February 12th, 2014 at 10:00 pm. Updated on February 12th, 2014 at 10:02 pm.
This (along with several other contenders) could serve as a baseline against which all women’s prison movies are measured. It’s far from great, and far from terrible. It’s camp, but not too camp. Well, it’s over-the-top camp at times. It has a brave heroine, a particularly nasty villain, plenty of true-to-life prisoners who have no wish to fly above the radar, some drama… and, presumably because it’s made-for-TV and it’s 1972, a surfeit of beautiful women but no shower scenes, lesbian scenes, or lascivious male officers. What’s more, it stars two prison movie greats: Ida Lupino (Women’s Prison, 1955) and Barbara Luna (The Concrete Jungle, 1982). (more…)
Posted on February 4th, 2014 at 8:18 pm. Updated on February 8th, 2014 at 7:45 pm.
There are many men of my generation who will remember Susan Dey as the only reason for watching The Partridge Family. My memory of Laurie Partridge has dulled considerably, but it could well be her who has strayed into this TV movie, and into this TV prison, by mistake.
Posted on January 27th, 2014 at 8:39 am. Updated on January 27th, 2014 at 8:45 am.
It’s Uruguay, 1980. In Montevideo’s Libertad (‘Freedom’) Prison (named with no hint of irony, it seems), communist-red clothing is banned on visitors and children’s pictures of birds are not allowed, either. Birds, it would appear, symbolise flight and choice and freedom, and the military regime is not well disposed to such thinking. (more…)
Posted on January 21st, 2014 at 8:59 pm. Updated on January 21st, 2014 at 8:59 pm.