99 Women (1969)

Directed by future cult director Jess Franco, this is a restrained and commercial film that doesn't have much of his voice but all of his skill. This would be his most profitable box office global hit ever as it was made for producer Harry Alan Towers, a guy who got big locations, big international stars and big distribution. To be honest, this is mostly Towers' film, which isn't bad. Its melodramatic, easy to digest and has some softcore kicks. This is considered the genesis of the Women in Prison film genre and quite a few writers claim there wouldn't be an Orange is the New Black without it. It establishes the archetypes like lesbianism, corporal punishment, evil wardens and big escape plans. Surely that stuff is lifted from male prison films, but whatever. Jess Franco would remake and riff off of 99 Women many times and some of those films are more entertaining or at least more sleazy: Sadomania, Tropical Inferno, Women Without Innocence, Love Camp.

Jess Franco may have had high hopes for this women-in-prison (WIP) film. The cast which includes Herbert Lom, Luciana Paluzzi, Maria Schell and Mercedes McCambridge certainly suggests that Franco meant business. The end result though, falls short. Made in 1969, perhaps Franco was hampered by censorship constraints. Compared to his later films, this one is rather tame.Herbert Lom gives it his all as the corrupt and lascivious Governor Santos but the rest of the cast could have done better. There is not much of the sleaze factor in this film. Nudity, hot Sapphic action and lathering-up in the showers are in short supply, as are torture and whippings, surely the mainstays of WIP films. Franco seems to have gone for the mainstream cinema, with attention to the new warden, the attempts to get rid of her and the escape of three inmates which all goes horribly wrong.There is a so-called notorious French edition which includes some hard core action but these clips have been clumsily spliced in. In one scene, the inmate with short red hair is replaced by a blonde with long hair for the hard core action. How crass is that? In my opinion, the one to go for is the Director's Cut. If you want hard core sex action get a proper porn film.

99 WOMEN gets off to a bad start by having a theme tune that belongs in another movie and when you've got an inappropriate soundtrack that belongs in another movie you're getting one out of ten there and then . That said it is directed by Jesus Franco so you have a rough idea what expect - not much As you can imagine with a Jesus Franco movie set in an all female prison so pious celibacy is not on the agenda and the director deserves some credit for casting some very attractive actresses . It's a film of two distinctive halves where the first half introduces the characters and gives an excuse to show their sleazy back stories and their bi-curious lifestyle while the second half revolves around an escape attempt which resembles an exploitative female version of PAPILLION Neither half is all that good and fail to work as a coherent story , just a series of scenes strung together with no great thought put in to the wider picture . It also suffers from several scenes where people talk in French without the benefit of English subtitles . That said one has to look on it of the context of when it was made when people would be still used to the rather repressive Hays Code in American cinema and this must have been a very subversive not to mention titillating film when it was released in 1969 but at the end of the day it's still exploitation cinema

Does the world really need all these 'Women in Prison' flicks? The legendary director Jess Franco apparently seemed to think so, because almost half of the titles that fall under this category are his. There's also a lot of variation in this questionable sub genre of cult-cinema - largely determined by how old they are - as most of them are really nasty and exploitative whereas some (the pioneers mainly) are more sensual and emphasizing on the drama-elements. "99 Women", at least the original non-hardcore version, got released during the earliest stage of "W.I.P" madness and thus Franco was still clearly 'exploring' how far he could go with inserting lesbian sleaze and brutal whippings. The later ones are a non-stop series of tasteless sex and raw violence, but this film actually has a remotely decent script and an above-average amount of stylish elements. A small island in the Pacific Ocean serves as a gigantic prison, with a fort for women in one corner and one for men in the other. Female prisoners n° 97, 98 and 99 arrive one morning by boat and they immediately meet the sadistic head warden Thelma and the sleazy Governor Santos. The girls are punished and put in isolation cells for no reason and lethal 'accidents' appear to be a regular routine. Just because so many prisoners die, the government sends a new female principal to the island. She makes efforts to befriend the prisoners, particularly the beautiful & innocent Marie, but the wicked old headmistress constantly boycotts her. "99 Women" isn't the most exciting movie ever, as many sequences are dreadfully slow and pointless, and there's a serious lack of continuity. The locations are very nice looking and the photography is occasionally even elegant, but sadly it's all just an empty package. If you don't purchase the X-rated version, you won't have much sleazy goodness to admire. "99 Women" is incredibly tame, with only a couple of scarcely dressed women cat-fighting and some lesbian experimenting. The cast is really good, though, with the ravishing regular Franco-nymphs Maria Rohm ("The Bloody Judge", "Eugenie") and Rosalba Neri ("Amuck!", "Lady Frankenstein") playing likable characters. Herbet Lom is awesome as the fiendish, nudity-obsessed (can you blame him?) governor. Mainly just recommended to Francophiles.