The Big Doll House

The Big Doll House is a 1971 women in prison film starring Pam Grier, Judy Brown, Roberta Collins, Brooke Mills, and Pat Woodell. The film follows six female inmates throughout daily life in a gritty, unidentified supra-tropical prison. Later the same year the film Women in Cages featured a similar story and setting, much the same cast, and was shot in the same abandoned prison buildings. A non-sequel follow-up, titled The Big Bird Cage, was released in 1972.

Plot

Collier (Brown) enters prison, having been found guilty of killing her husband. She is introduced to the pulchritudinous companions of her cell, in for crimes ranging from political insurgency to heroin addiction. The women trade tiffs, which leads to their torture by sadistic guard Lucian (Kathryn Loder). The torture ceremonies are viewed by an impassive cloaked figure.

Collier's cellmates Alcott and Bodine (Collins and Woodell) plan to escape. Collier and another cellmate Ferina (Gina Stuart) agree to go along. Assisting is their other lesbian cellmate Grear (Pam Grier), though there are doubts Grear's heroin addict girlfriend Harrad (Brooke Mills) will be equipped to escape.

Ferina, Alcott and Bodine break from the solitary confinement sauna and take their revenge on Lucian. The escapers wield guns, attitude, and a vacillating feminist/submissive sexuality to free themselves.

During their escape they round up various personnel from the prison as hostages, taking elegant prison warden Miss Dietrich (Christiane Schmidtmer), sympathetic prison medic Dr Phillips (Jack Davis), and two local men regularly allowed access to the prison to sell market produce, Harry (Sid Haig) and Fred (Jerry Franks).

Further information

This was the second film made by B movie giant Roger Corman for his company New World Pictures. It was shot in the Philippines for budgetary reasons, allowing for what Corman calls a 'bigger feeling'. The tag line "Their bodies were caged, but not their desires. They would do anything for a man. Or to him." encapsulates the rather contradictory air expressed by the inmates as they yearn for freedom of multiple kinds; sexual, political, and perhaps ideological — while simultaneously acting as agent provocateur. As a drive in film of the first order, it retains an energetic over an intellectual bent, and thus avoids serious consideration of or accuracy in portraying the actual situation of female American prisoners, instead fulfilling the genre characteristics of Hollywood's women in prison films. Director Jack Hill later made Coffy, a blaxploitation film with Grier which is based on personal vendetta.

Cast

• Pam Grier as Grear
• Judy Brown as Collier
• Roberta Collins as Alcott
• Sid Haig as Harry
• Brooke Mills as Harrad
• Pat Woodell as Bodine
• Christiane Schmidtmer as Miss Dietrich
• Kathryn Loder as Lucian

External links

• The Big Doll House at the Internet Movie Database
• The Big Doll House at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Numbers