garyldibert TITLE: THE BIG DOLL HOUSE was release in theaters in the United States on January 1, 1971 and it will take you 101 minutes to watch this movie. 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.SUMMARY: Collier (Brown) enters prison, having been found guilty of killing her husband. She is loaded in a bus and taken to a new part of the prison. I this prison the woman where orange jump suits. When they arrive at the prison s front gate woman prisoner hanging above the ground in a cage greets them. After the women get a walk through the place, they are placed on a table for a complete nude body search. Collier then goes to see the doctor where she bares all in front of the doctor. The Guard comes along and tells collier it's time to go. 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. Later in the night, one of the inmates while Collier is sleeping starts a fire beside her bed. One of the girls thinks she is a spy. Therefore, Grier and her cell mates decide to break Collier down only to have Bodine come to her rescue. Later 2 guys named Fred and his friend show up in a truck loaded with vegetables and other sorts of supplies. Fred offers Grear some cigarettes and all she has to do to get them is let Fred touch her. 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 cellmate Grear (Pam Grier); though there are doubts, Grear's heroin addict girlfriend Harrad (Brooke Mills) will be equipped to escape.QUESTIONS: Who was the person in the chair while the girls were tortured? What were the girls fighting about in the fields? Why did the girls want to escape? Why did the girls get into a food fight? How did the guards stop the food fight? Who was snooping around the guard's office? MY THOUGHTS: I thought this movie was great. It had action and drama right from the start and it kept you guessing as the movie went along. Pamela Grier role as Grear was good. The movie was able to show you some of here good looking body. Pat Woodell role is Bodine was good also. Roberta Collins was bad in her role as Alcott. However, the star of this movie to me was Judy Brown. With beautiful body and that, gorgeous red hair made her the star of the movie. Brown role as Collier was excellent and she the reason I give this movie 10 weasel stars.

Woodyanders The female inmates at a women's prison suffer severe mistreatment at the brutal hands of wicked warden Miss Dietrich (a nicely icy turn by Christiane Schmidtmer) and sadistic head guard Lucian (a gloriously florid and theatrical portrayal by Kathryn Loder). Director Jack Hill, working from a compact script by Don Spencer, relates the fun story at a constant brisk pace, stages the action set pieces with real aplomb, and keeps the tone cheerfully seedy and tongue-in-cheek throughout. Moreover, Hill injects plenty of wickedly funny brash humor which keeps this picture surprisingly breezy and entertaining throughout. The cast have a grand time with the sordid material: Pam Grier as the sassy Grear, Judy Brown as the feisty Collier, Roberta Collins as the hard-boiled Alcott, ravishing redhead Brooke Mills as pathetic strung-out smack addict Harrad (Mills' crazed and sensuous little stoner dance rates as a definite highlight), Pat Woodell as the formidable Bodine, Gina Stuart as slinky minx Ferina, and Jerry Franks as the amiable Fred. The always great Sid Haig almost steals the whole show with his wonderfully robust and engaging performance as happy-go-lucky merchant Harry. Of course, this film covers all the satisfyingly sleazy grindhouse bases: a generous amount of tasty distaff nudity, a group shower scene, a fierce catfight (in the mud, no less!), rape, torture, a messy cafeteria food fight, and an exciting last reel breakout. As an added plus, the divine Ms. Grier heartily belts out the groovy theme song "Long Time Woman." Both Fred Conde's reasonably polished cinematography and the funky syncopated score by Hall Daniels are up to speed. Essential viewing for exploitation cinema aficionados.

Django-21 What a great movie! An entertaining female "Great Escape"! Roberta Collins, Pam Grier and Sid Haig in particular are real hoots with some great moments and dialogue. Bodine (Pat Woodell) is a great character too (introduced as someone not to be messed with), especially letting loose with twin machine guns in the final gunfight. Lots of fun to be had in Jack Hill's Women In Prison exploitation classic. See Matilda The Hun and Foxy Brown themselves duke it out and mud wrestle. Ponder as to how someone so skinny (whereas the resident junkie is quite healthy) got to be head guard. The obligatory prison breakout relies on the help of one prisoner's pet cat to come through at the right time. The scenes with the junkie being completely out her tree are hilarious, although she also gets to show her creepier, more deranged side too in some scenes. The prison break attempt and the final gunfight with the authorities are fun and exciting stuff and for me Roberta Collins steals the show. Not content with the aforementioned mudwrestle with prison bully Pam Grier, she gets some male action at knifepoint and gets great revenge on the evil prison governess. Roberta has some great dialogue too in "Get it up or I'll cut it off!" and "Bye bye lardass!" The head guard has a slight Barbara Steele resemblance. The ending is a bit rushed, some character's fates are left up in the air and the dialogue that seals Judy Brown's fate was a dub forced on the film but it's still great fun and was a groundbreaking hit for AIP. Roberta, Pam and Judy had all just been in "Women In Prison" beforehand and Jack Hill later also directed Pam Grier in some of the blaxploitation flicks that made her an icon. Roberta Collins would of course go onto starring in the masterpiece "Death Race 2000" and the inferior (in my opinion) prison classic "Caged Heat". As you'd expect from this type of movie, there are chances to see attractive women getting naked or scantily clad and you get amusing foodfights and catfights. The female leads are obviously in on the joke though and have fun with it. There's some amusing moments and unlike the "Charlie's Angels" tv show, these resourceful, smart women really do get a chance to kick ass and get tough. Classic feelgood exploitation!

Infofreak 'The Big Doll House' may not be the first women in prison movie of the 1970s but it was one of the most influential, kicking off the short lived but legendary Made-in-the-Philippines-but-set-in-some-nameless-Banana-republic cycle. The tape I watched was part of "The Pam Grier Collection" but to say Grier is the STAR of this movie is an exaggeration. Judy Brown is the star and Roberta Collins is equally important as Grier. But Brown didn't do all that much after this, and Collins is only remembered by exploitation buffs (for 'Caged Heat', 'Death Race 200' and 'Eaten Alive'), while Grier became a blaxploitation icon. That's cool, but let's not fool ourselves here. As enjoyable as it is watching Pam in this one she really doesn't do all that much. Jack Hill regular Sid Haig ('Spider Baby') has some memorable and amusing schtick with her. He plays a horny guy who brings the female prisoners food and other treats for cash. Grier and Haig obviously made a great team, and Hill would exploit this in his even more enjoyable 'The Big Bird Cage', which isn't a sequel to this movie as many seem to think. 'Bird Cage' is the better movie, but 'Doll House' is still a pretty good movie that any fan of 1970s b-grade movies will get a kick out of.