Women in Cell Block 7 (1973)

During the movie they have a scene where the prisoners are watching a movie. The movie is DANGER!! DEATH RAY (1967) which stars GORDON SCOTT. You can clearly see Scott on the movie screen. Gordon Scott is in WOMEN IN CELL BLOCK 7 without actually being listed as a star in the 1973 release. It is amazing how these little "additions" are slipped into a movie and no credit is ever given to the actors. Larry Anderson, Canada

Although she is totally innocent "Daniela Vinci" (Jenny Tamburi) is sent to prison by the lead inspector on the case with the hope that she might reveal some crucial information concerning 20 pounds of heroin that her mobster boyfriend stole from a rival mob boss. At the same time another woman named "Hilda" (Anita Strindberg) is sent to the same prison as an undercover agent who also wants this information. However, the problem that both of them face is just trying to survive the sadistic guards and the savage female prisoners they are forced to contend with 24 hours a day. Now rather than reveal any more of the story and risk ruining the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that I found this to be a sub-par European Women-in-Prison (WIP) movie in just about every way. For one thing the story didn't seem to transition well from one scene to another which caused it to feel a bit disjointed. Additionally, the sex scenes lacked passion and eroticism. Put quite bluntly—they were boring. On that same note, except for possibly Anita Strindberg, none of the women were really that attractive. So essentially this was a movie that I thought was badly directed and suffered from poor casting. As such I rate it as below average.

When you have a queue of 500 movies, you sometimes forget why you picked a particular one. I am not a women-in-prison completest, so maybe I just wanted to see Paola Senatore (Eaten Alive, Story of a Cloistered Nun), Jenny Tamburi (The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine) or Anita Strindberg (The Eroticist) again. It simply escapes me. Two WIP movies in the same day may be excessive, but it happened by accident.This one starts with a good car chase through the Italian streets as Hilda (Anita Strindberg) is getting her anal exam by a matron after entering prison to find out where Daniela's (Jenny Tamburi) boyfriend hid the heroin and save her father.It isn't long before we see our first lesbian encounter. Isn't that why we watch WIP movies? Along with the obligatory shower scenes. Of course, the guards (matrons) get their turn, too. Then there are the prison yard fights where the object is to rip the clothes of your opponent.The "riot" in the prison yard was a hoot. They turned the firehouses on the girls, and it was like water hoses. They stripped and got wet.Just another day in prison.

Although this is basically a WIP movie, it differs greatly from both the popular Corman produced US/Filipino versions and the much sicker European variant typified by the work of Jess Franco. It is a mid-70's Italian film, so about half of it is a crime thriller with the usual car chases and violent Mafia intrigue involving a missing load of heroin. The WIP subplot comes in when the daughter of kidnapped Mafia boss (the not-even-remotely-Italian-looking Anita Strindberg)goes undercover in a woman's prison to protect and get information from the "new fish" (Jenny Tamburi), whose dead boyfriend was transporting the heroin. However, this surprisingly complex plot still leads to the usual shower scenes, catfights, lesbian groping, and everything else audiences have come to expect from these type of films.This movie has touches of realism, featuring for instance a lot of secondary characters who look like they could be actual female prisoners (director Rino DeSilvestre would later pioneer a kind of "neo-realist sleaze" with his follow-up film about prostitution "Red Light Girls"). But, of course, it also features the familiar torsos of Gabriella Giorgelli and future porn star Paola Senatore. Certainly no one will complain about a lack of nudity in this movie, from the opening scene where the lovely Tamburi is graphically "probed" by a lesbian prison guard to probably the most ridiculous prison riot ever where the guards turn fire hoses on barely rioting prisoners (which turn out to just be regular hoses for some reason) and the prisoners respond by stripping off and taking yet another impromptu shower (these have to be the cleanest prisoners in the history of the penal system).But as much as I enjoy seeing Tamburi,Strindberg, et. al. butt-naked, there is a total lack of character development in this movie and the acting is very sub-par, which is unfortunate because Tamburi and Strindberg at least are capable of much better. And aside from his alleged realism, DeSilvestri doesn't demonstrate any real style in any of his films I've seen. I'd maybe recommend this, but it really depends on what your looking for.