Barbed Wire Dolls (Jess Franco, 1976)

I've seen women tortured, raped, beaten, degraded, belittled, and even killed by deranged prison wardens who profess to be sex-crazed lesbians. But in almost every case, their lesbianism, sex-crazed or otherwise, always seems to come off as being a tad insincere. I mean, I'm just not getting much of a muff-diving vibe from some of these so-called lesbians, no matter how hard they try to dyke it up. Maybe that's problem, they're trying too hard. Well, someone who doesn't have that problem is the warden, or "directress," as she likes to be called, in Barbed Wire Dolls (a.k.a. Frauengefängnis), as she literally oozes sappho from every pore. Combining butch mannerisms with an awkwardly feminine wardrobe, it should come as no surprise that the directress of this unnamed seaside prison is the most convincing authority figure to appear in a women in prison movie. Why? Isn't it obvious? The film is directed by Jess Franco (Diamonds of Kilimanjaro), a cinematic artist who not only knows the proper way to film a distressed naked woman writhing on a bed, but knows a thing or two about to how to create a compelling female villain. Whether it be Pamela Stanford in Lorna The Exorcist, Nadja Gerganoff in Bloody Moon, Eva León in Golden Tample Amazons, or Brigitte Lahaie in Faceless, Jess has an excellent track record when it comes to femme fatales, perverted psychopaths, and heinous henchwomen. And you can add the wonderful Monica Swinn to that impressive list, as she brings an alarming amount of cuntish charm to the role of the evil directress, a woman so dedicated to her malicious craft, that she considers Albert Speer's memoir "Inside the Third Reich" to be light, pre-cunnilingus reading. Or was it light, pre-anilingus reading? You see, I couldn't quite see what dark hole her lips were caressing during a moment of mouth-to-undercarriage tenderness; hence, the lingual confusion.
 

 

Anyway, while I could talk about lingual confusion for hours on end (let's just say both areas received a tongue bath on that day and move on), I would much rather be talking about the important role makeshift hold-up stockings play in the Barbed Wire Dolls universe. In fact, as I blathered on about Miss Swinn's prowess as a lesbian, Peggy Markoff's makeshift hold-up stockings were never far from my mind. Okay, as I'm sure some of you are wondering, what the heck are "makeshift hold-up stockings"? Originally, I wanted to play it coy, and not explain in great detail what the difference is between hold-up stockings and makeshift hold-up stockings. But then it dawned on me, I'm dying to tell you what the difference is.
 

 

Here's the deal, the hold-up type (stay-up stockings or thigh-highs, as their sometimes called) have a built-in elastic that allows them to stay up without the aide of suspenders. Whereas, the makeshift variety, the kind Ingrid (Peggy Markoff), a mentally unwell inmate who thinks she's Queen Isabella of Spain, wears throughout this movie, are held up by more unorthodox means. Colour me discombobulated, but that sounds like a confused chunk of uncut madness.
 

 

Your bewilderment is totally justified, as even I was thrown for a proverbial hosiery loop when they first appeared onscreen. My initial reaction when they made their sheer debut was relief, as the prospect of watching a chicks behind bars flick that featured nothing but unadorned legs for eighty straight minutes was an unappealing one. However, my relief soon turned to puzzlement, as I desperately tried to figure out what it was that Ingrid had attached to the tops of her hold-up stockings. It turns out it was string. Determined to not let a little thing like incarceration ruin the visual presentation of her legs, Ingrid has improvised a unique way to keep her stockings up.
 

 

The frayed string used to keep her black stockings up also helped when it came time for me to keep track of the film's two redheads, as Peggy Markoff (Ilsa, The Wicked Warden) shares a cell with another crazed redhead named Rosaria Cortina (Beni Cardoso), a woman we see at the start of the film being deprived food by Nestor (Eric Falk), a sadistic thug/freelance torturer employed by the prison. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that Barbed Wire Dolls has two crazed redheads? Is that what you're saying? Oh, you better believe that's what I'm saying. To put a different way, out of the four main women in this movie, half of them are crazed redheads. Wow, that's truly amazing.
 

 

Getting back to Rosaria, crazed redhead #1 (#1 since she appears onscreen first, not because I liked her more than crazed redhead #2): The exact reason she's chained to the wall and being deprived a just out of reach bowl of food is unclear (as we'll soon find out, it doesn't take much for you to get this kind of treatment), but it does establish the tone of the film early on. If the opening scene is any indication, on top of being beaten while chained to a wall, Rosaria is verbally berated ("Drop dead you stupid whore!"), we should expect a lot of nastiness over the course of the next eighty minutes.
 

 

Arriving like clockwork, a new prisoner named Maria de Guerra (Lina Romay) is being escorted through the castle-like structure to the orientation office by the prison's male warden (Roland Weiss) and a female guard, who is dressed in a nondescript green army uniform. If you think Lina Romay looks cute in her peach trousers and matching vest, enjoy the peachy view while you can (her terrific bum looked sublime encased in the colour peach), because she's about to be given a drab blue smock and nothing else to wear.
 

 

When Maria meets the directress (Monica Swinn), along with a Dr. Costa (Paul Muller) and a guard named José (Raymond Hardy), for the first time, it would appear that she isn't wearing any pants whatsoever. Well, if you closely, you'll notice she is in fact wearing pants, they just happen to be the world's shortest pair of super-short short shorts. Along with a monocle in her right eye (held in place, no doubt, by sheer will power), slicked back greasy blonde hair, a white dress shirt (cinched a the waist with an imposing belt), and a pair of black knee-high boots, the directress is an imposing figure.
 

 

What's strange about the Maria orientation scene, besides Monica Swinn's appearance, is the part where the doctor asks her to sign a document that basically allows them to perform shock therapy on her. The fact they asked her to sign it wasn't the strange part, it was the cavalier nature in which she signed the document. Maybe she thought they said, "sock therapy." Either way, I thought she might have at least protested a little bit. But then again, Maria does spend the first half of the movie in a trance-like state. In other words, she probably didn't hear a thing the doctor or the directress said during her processing.
 

 

Holy crap! They don't waste any time do they? Before taking her to her cell, the directress decides that Maria needs a little, you guessed it, shock therapy. Strapped naked to a wire bed frame, Maria is zapped with electricity. Her screams can be heard all the way in the cell that she is soon gonna call home; that is, if they ever stop torturing her. Troubled by her screams, a blonde inmate named Bertha Contrini (Martine Stedil), a murderess with large breasts and Azura Skye-esque cheekbones, is trying her best to block them out. As this is going on, Ingrid can be see admiring her stocking-covered legs on her bed. Thrusting her never-clothed, burnt sienna crotch in a seductive counterclockwise manner while resting her legs against wall of her cell (it's almost as if she views her stockinged stems as an art gallery worthy work of art), Ingrid has decided to take a relaxed attitude towards long-term incarceration.
 

 

"I'm a doll. A real doll. Touch me!" ~ Ingrid
  

 

Cellblock-based leggy lounging is the activity of the hour, as Rosaria, Ingrid, and even Bertha all recline in a fashion that was exceedingly leg-friendly. Bored with lounging leggily, Ingrid decides to wave her pussy in front of Bertha's face. What is it, five o'clock already? Meaning, I have a strong feeling Ingrid does this a lot. As Ingrid was gyrating, I couldn't help but notice that the frayed bits of string that are supposed to be helping keep her stockings up fall to the floor. I'll admit, I was overwhelmed with sadness when the string on her left stocking vacated her thigh area. But when the other one fell, I cried like a baby who cries a lot. I've been this moved by something that has appeared in a movie since that Union soldier yelled, "Give 'em Hell, 54!" in Glory. 
 

 

Realizing that a film can't be just about do-it-yourself lingerie and heaving burnt sienna crotches, Jess Franco slowly starts to introduce conventional plot elements to the film. Such as: the identity of the writer of a mysterious [intercepted] letter bemoaning the conditions at the prison (the directress and the doctor seem quite concerned) and the sordid reason as to why Maria ended up in this awful place. The latter involves incest and murder, and is told via flashback. No big deal, right? I mean, the use of the flashback narrative device is quite common, even in the heady world of Jess Franco. Yeah, but I bet you have never seen a flashback sequence acted out in slow-motion before. You see, instead of slowing down the film, Lina Romay (who's naked, of course) and Jess Franco (who plays her father) perform the scene at a slower rate. Now, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but the sight of Jess chasing Lina at half speed is hilarious.
 

 

The search for the identity of the letter writer is somewhat less comical, as it involves anilingus, stress positions, forced masturbation ("Touch your sex. I will watch. Enjoy it!"), and sadomasicism ("Beat me!"). The anilingus and sadomasicism scenes are both feathers in the acting cap of Monica Swinn, as she gets to channel her feminine side in both. Wearing a frilly, see-through black robe (the kind fourteen year-old boys try on when their mom's not home), Monica uses kindness, as supposed to brutality, to get what she wants. Exploring the softness of Bertha's pert anatomy, Monica hopes to find out who wrote the letter by employing her secret weapon, and that is, properly implemented anilingus.
 

 

While Beni Cardoso and Peggy Markoff do an excellent job of filling the film's crazed redhead quota (their nonsensical gibberish is pure gold) and give my favourite performances in the film, you have got to commend Eric Falk's beastly work as the sadistic Nestor, a man so heinous, that even the guards look it him with disgust. Though, to be fair, the main reason for Eric's greatness has a lot to do with the guy who dubbed his dialogue (it's deranged bordering on psychotic), but you can't tell me that his skill with a horse whip wasn't off the charts in terms of unpleasantness.
 

 

Containing everything you could ask for in a women in prison film, Barbed Wire Dolls is a rousing success. Seriously, in terms of supplying the audience with sex, violence, sex, and degradation, you can't deny that it delivers the goods. My only problem is that the ending is so damn bleak. And I would have liked to have a seen a scene that explained the reason why Peggy Markoff's character was the only inmate who was allowed to wear stockings. So, yeah, if the ending had been softened a bit, and the backstory surrounding Ingrid's stockings had been fleshed out a little more, I would no problem declaring this putrid pile of cinematic sleaze to be one of the best women in prison films the genre has to offer.

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Isla: The Wicked Warden (Jess Franco, 1977)

Do you recall that heated discussion I had with myself not so long ago–you know, the one about the colour of the stockings worn in the classic women in prison flick Women's Prison Massacre? You remember, part of me thought they were dark charcoal grey, while the other part thought they were black. You don't, eh? Are you sure? Okay, I believe you. There's no need to get testy. Anyway, as I sat down to watch Ilsa: The Wicked Warden (a.k.a. Wanda, the Wicked Warden and Greta - Haus ohne Männer), my brain readied itself for yet another hosiery-based entanglement; a collants conundrum, if you will. It's not that I expected there to be any issues regarding the firm-fitting garments worn throughout this movie, it's just that I like to be prepared for anything that is thrown my way. Low and behold, when a new inmate is handed her uniform, after being thoroughly hosed down, of course, she asks the guard: don't I get any panties? Laughing, the guard tells her flatly, no, this is all you get. I'll admit, I was a tad disappointed when I found out there will be no tights, stockings, nylons, pantyhose, or even socks for me to grouse about in this film, which, judging by the camera angles employed during the opening shower scene, was clearly directed by Jess Franco, the master when comes to focusing his lens on what really matters. On the other hand, the prospect of watching an extravagantly sleazy film without the usual array of perverted burdens hanging over my head was actually quite liberating. Besides, only a real sadist would force women to wear crotch-constricting lingerie in a tropical environment. Oh, that's right, Ilsa/Greta is a sadist. The only logical explanation I think of is that she's grown soft over the years. And, for some strange reason, has changed her name to Greta, dyed her hair red, and relocated to an unknown corner of Latin America.

Armed only with her trusty whip, her always improving German accent, and her trademark ample bosom, Greta (Dyanne Thorne), tired of torturing for the betterment of humanity (conducting medical experiments on prisoners of war is so last season), has decided to start inflicting pain on others for profit and political reasons. You see, the country she currently resides has enemies–and, judging by the number of women languishing in "the hole," it has a lot of enemies–and thanks to Greta, she has ways of making them talk. If you think about it, her mistreatment of dissidents makes sense (it's an excellent way to ingratiate yourself to a new government), but how does one earn money from degradation? Why, that's simple, you film the degrading acts with a hidden camera and sell the footage to unscrupulous pornographers.

A steady flow of cash, a chummy relationship with the nation's corrupt government, and the occasional free massage administered by the sanitarium's most attractive inmate, life at Clinica Las Palomas is pretty sweet for Greta and her dedicated staff. Who would have guessed that a tiny tittied troublemaker posing as a patient would be the person to threaten Greta's cushy existence? Not me, that's for sure. It just goes to show that a morally bankrupt woman with large breasts is no match for a self-righteous woman with small breasts.

Opening with some tranquil shots of an unnamed jungle, Jess Franco (Eugénie de Sade) quickly ushers us into the soft and squishy realm of feminine hygiene. Implying from the get-go that's there's a huge discrepancy between Greta's day-to-day life and that of the "patients" under her care, we're treated to a duel bathing sequence. On the one hand, we see Greta soaking in a tub without a care in the world; her massive jugs are covered with frothy bubbles. And at the other end of the bathing spectrum, we have a group of woman showering with low-grade soap as two burly female guards gawk at them. How burly were the guards, you ask? Well, let's just say, if my head happened to become lodged between either one of their chunkier-than-usual thighs (don't ask me how it got in there), the chances of me being rescued would have been pretty slim, as my screams for help would have been muffled by at least five or six undulating layers of pale, vein-covered flab.

Just a second, let me enjoy that mental picture for a little while longer. Okay, I'm good. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, showering. A group of female inmates are showering, when all of a sudden, one of them starts to scream. It would seem that this is all part of a not-so elaborate rouse to distract the guards so that another inmate could grab her "uniform" and flee the clinic.

Running through the jungle, the fugitive, a brunette woman named Rosa Phillips (Esther Studer), is being pursued by rifle-wielding guards in khaki shorts. Eventually finding her way to the home of Dr. Arcos (Jess Franco), the wounded (a couple of bullets grazed her during her perilous flight to freedom) escapee thinks she has found sanctuary. But think again, Miss Phillips. You're going to have to stagger more than a couple of miles through some dense bush to escape the clutches of Greta, the torturer. Mumbling about shock treatment as she's carted away, the doctor wonders why Rosa, a woman who is supposedly being treated for a sexual abnormality (nymphomania, lesbianism, and prostitution are the clinic's specialties) would need to be tortured.

Repeatedly denied access to the notorious facility, Dr. Arcos, intent on exposing the clinic's wrongdoings, needs to find a trustworthy witness, one who will uncover the veil of wickedness that hangs over the place, and put an end to Greta's reign of terror once and for all. And the witness he's been looking for literally lands in the backseat of the doctor's car. Her name is Abbie Phillips (Tania Busselier), and she's the sister of Rosa Phillips. Determined to find out what happened to her sister, Abbie allows Dr. Acros to have her committed to Las Palomas under an assumed name.

Reborn as Abbie Garcia, a teacher, who according to her forged medical records, was caught having sexual relations with a number of underage students, the undercover patient quickly finds herself at the mercy of the thick thighed guards I alluded to earlier. Commenting on the fact that she doesn't need a bra, the guards remove her clothes and hose her down. Cackling like a couple of wart-covered witches on payday when the water they're spraying fails to penetrate the density of her "pubic nest" (what she lacks in boobs, she more than makes up for in pubes), the guards clearly enjoy their work. When they're finished, one of the guards hands her her uniform (a white shirt that looked like the kind of garment a small child might wear if her or she were playing a doctor in a school play). Realizing that the shirt they gave her isn't going to provide her with the coverage she requires to feel comfortable, she says, "I would like to have some panties." As you would expect, more laughter erupts from the guards, who basically tell her that's it as far as clothing goes.

You'll notice, as she's being denied panties, that there's a number on her uniform. Which is nothing new, as most prisons, clinics and sanatoriums give their "guests" a number (it's a tried and true method when it comes to dehumanizing the people you want to control). What is new, however, is the punishment for when someone fails to use it while referring to either themselves or the other inmates. For example, if you say, see Abbie across the room and you would like to get her attention, don't call out, "Abbie." Instead, try shouting her number, which, in Abbie's case, is 41 (be careful, though, I'm not sure if Greta allows shouting within the walls of her clinic). If you don't, you'll get your number branded just above your left breast. Nowadays, of course, that wouldn't be seen as much of a punishment, as self-mutilation is all the rage. But back in the 1970s, the surface of your flesh was sacred, and having a number burnt into your chest would no doubt severely cramp your style.

While the guards might not have been impressed with the size of 41's breasts, 14, 10, and 24 can't seem to get enough of them (14, in fact, says, and I quote, "her tiny tits excite me"). Who are these mosquito bite aficionados? Well, all I know about 24 is that she has an English accent and has the number 24 branded above her left nipple. As for 14 (Peggy Markoff). Let's see, she's a post-op trans woman who enjoys knitting, lesbianism, and watching shower fights (oh, and get on her good side and she might let you call her 7). Who's kidding who? The only number in that group that really matters is 10 (Lina Romay), the sexist woman to roam the halls of a shoddily run correctional institute since a certain pigment challenged enchantress in dark charcoal grey stockings headbutted her way into my heart. Sauntering into the clinic's sleeping quarters, her arms akimbo, the short-haired slice of gorgeosity is clearly in command (keep an eye on her when sits on her bed, it's obvious she hikes up her uniform with the sole purpose of reveling more of her delicious pussy). Unfazed over the fact that 41 didn't notice her exposed vagina (not even a cursory cunt coup d'oeil is thrown her way), 10 jumps to her feet (which are covered with a pair of beige boots) and starts to inspect 41's super-tight body.

Impressed with what 41 has to offer, tightness-wise, 10 tells her that she'll play with her later. Running late for an appointment, 10 shows up at the door of Greta's swanky pad and proceeds to give her a massage. You should have seen the sublime curvature of 10's wonderfully proportioned backside as she straddled Greta, it was a thing of rotund beauty. Changing positions, Greta returns the favour. However, not by giving her a massage, but by sticking pins in her chest (I loved the close up shots Lina Romay's dark eyes during this sequence). If she screams, she'll send 41 to the hole (10 has made it clear to Greta that she likes 41). Luckily for 41, she doesn't, scream, that is.

Remember when I said Ilsa: The Wicked Warden was all about this woman trying to find her missing sister? Yeah, well, it's not about that at all. Okay, maybe it is about that (how the fuck should what things are about). But in my mind, what the film really about is one woman's epic struggle to obtain a clean culo. And besides Greta, who do you think is the one woman at Clinica Las Palomas in a position to demand a pristine culo? Why, it's 10, of course. And who do you suppose she wants to be her primary culo cleaner? You guessed it, she wants 41. Walking up to 41 in the shower, 10 tells her, "you turn me on," and instructs her to wash her back and to scrub her culo. As I watched the suds slowly trickle down the sharply defined contours of her sturdy back, I couldn't help but notice that her culo wasn't being scrubbed at all. An increasingly frustrated 10 catches wind of this as well and yells, "I told you to scrub my culo!"

A sense ease began to wash over me as the soap finally started to make its way into 10's culo. Unfortunately, this ease wasn't shared by the actually owner of the sublime culo sort of being scrubbed. Dissatisfied with the manner in which her culo was being attended to, 10 decides to express her unhappiness through physical violence (the chaotic nature of the brawl that ensued gave the audience some excellent shots of 10's partially scrubbed culo). What's the penalty for fighting in this joint? I have no idea. What I do know is that inept culo scrubbing gets you strapped to a table and tortured. After injecting some sort of numbing agent into 41's vagina with a syringe (a bug-eyed Dyanne Thorne looks right at home with a syringe in her hand), Greta tells her, "shock therapy will calm your nerves." And judging by the white foam leaking from her mouth, I'd say it didn't work at all.

No doubt wondering if her decision to come here was a wise one, 41 spends the next couple of days naked, shackled, and forced to listen to the paranoid ramblings of 20 (a woman with a terrible scar on her neck who's locked in the cell next to hers). When she's finally released from the hole, 41 is consoled by 14 (I'm no doctor, but I'm sure the faintness of her eyebrows will help soothe her pain). If you're wondering what kind of punishment 10 got for fighting in the shower, don't bother. The so-called "wicked warden" and 10 are in cahoots with one another (you scratch my back, I'll urinate all over yours). Returning to the hole, Greta whips a naked woman with one eye chained to a wall for some shits but hardly any giggles (I'll admit, the twitchy nature of the one-eyed lady with stringy blonde hair was strangely alluring), beats 20 in her hay-covered cell (20 manages to call Greta a "vampire cunt" before her beating commences), and tortures a patient that 41 might be interested in.

Telling 41 that she has information regarding the whereabouts of her missing sister, 10 arranges a meeting in the lavatory. With 14 there as moral support, 41 proceeds to beg 10 to tell her what happened to her sister. Unsatisfied with the quality of her groveling, 10, who is sitting on the toilet while all this is transpiring, instructs 41 to lick her boots. After she's finished, it's time to–you guessed it–clean her culo. Unsure whether or not 10 was going #1 or #2, 41 wipes her culo with a small piece of newspaper. Standing with a priggish air of a woman who is having her culo cleaned by someone other than herself, 10 tells 41 to lick her culo. "It's not so bad, lick it clean," she coos softly to the reluctant culo licker, as 41 struggles to maintain her composure as the entirety of her oral infrastructure soon finds itself fully engulfed within the tantalizingly plump confines of her magnanimous culo. You know what the say? Real sadness is the sight of freshly cried tears coagulating on the edge of a prison toilet seat as a result of being forced to clean a beautiful woman's culo with your lengua. Nevertheless, her sadness quickly turns to happiness as 10 declares 41 to be her friend.

Do you think Greta would ever lick 10's culo? Probably not. In fact, I don't think she realizes how truly special her culo really is. You could say, Greta's decision to underestimate the power of 10's culo is what ultimately lead to her downfall. While she's busy letting a general with a mustache slobber all over her plum pantyhose adorned legs in a sleazy motel room and hosting vile orgies that pit a rag-tag collection of depraved male convicts up against an adorable gang of mildly deformed female patients (poor number 9, how did she wind up in this group? she's way too cute to be violated in such a heinous manner), 10's culo is quietly gaining strength. And a strong culo, is a dangerous culo. If I took anything away from Ilsa: The Wicked Warden, it's that once a person licks your culo, the bond you share with that individual is unbreakable.

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