|
Barbed Wire Dolls DVD released: January 2003 Approximate running time:83 minutes Aspect ratio: Anamorphic 1.78:1 Rating: NR Sound: ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono GERMAN: Dolby Digital Mono DVD Release: V.I.P. Region Coding: Region 0 NTSC Retail Price: $27.95
Robert Monell on February 21, 2003 |
 |
| Quick links: [video] [audio] [extras] [overall] |
| The Film |
| BARBED WIRE DOLLS (Onscreen
title: FRAUENGEFANGIS) may not be Jess Franco's most
consistently jaw dropping Women in Prison epic (that honor must go to the
appallingly tasteless ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN with its
"human toilet paper" episode and cannibal climax) but it's certainly the
sleaziest. Franco's first film for Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich, the story is as simple as it is subversive. Young and innocent Maria (Lina Romay) is imprisoned in a fortress-like penitentiary run by a corrupt lesbian wardress (Monica Swinn). Maria is accused of murdering her father (amusingly embodied by Jess Franco himself) but the wardress actually did the deed. She has set up poor Maria and plans to have her murdered in the slammer to cover up her crime. The wardress and Maria's father were actually having an affair. A truly absurd scene shows the nude Maria knocking her father unconscious as he tries to molest her. Both Franco and Romay move in faked "slow motion" (it seems Franco couldn't afford to actually film it in that process) until Franco falls to the floor, obviously breaking his fall with outstretched arms (hey, isn't he supposed to be unconscious?). It rivals the best of Ed Wood. Once in prison, Maria is tortured by being tied nude to metal bed-frame which is hooked up to electrical current. The prison lights go on and off as she screams and writhes. You can just imagine the sadist masturbating in the audience. There's also whippings, starvation, masturbation with a cigarette, lesbian interludes and a close up of one of the inmate's private parts being penetrated by a guard's fingers. Did I say this was sleazy? The prison Governor (Roger Darton) forces female inmates to strip and masturbate before calling his thug Nestor (Eric Falk) in to rape the women. Worst of all is the wardress, who reads Nazi literature as she orders corporal and capital punishments. It's all covered up by the corrupt Dr Costa (another subtle performance by the great Paul Muller from EUGENIE DE SADE), the prison MD who signs death certificates while enjoying the torments of the women. He gets his comeuppance when Maria and another inmate seduce and murder him while escaping... but the wardress is not far behind. The performances of Ms Swinn and Paul Muller are real stand outs. Swinn is totally convincing and loathsome as the wardress who loves to inflict pain and sometimes have it inflicted on her. Muller, seen in EUGENIE DE SADE opposite Soledad Miranda and in BLUE UNDERGROUND'S EUGENIE, HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION, is a veteran of European genre cinema going all the way back to I VAMPIRI. He delivers a professional, low keyed portrayal in one of his trademark squirming-villain roles. A sick masterwork of mid 70s Euro sexploitation, BARBED WIRE DOLLS is a visually ugly film depicting ugly events. Franco shot it himself half out of focus (much to producer Dietrich's displeasure as he relates in the accompanying making-of documentary) and with a flurry of zooms in and out of the various nooks and crannies of the run down location in Southern France. At times it seems like Franco is more interested in the crumbling architecture than in narrative coherence. Hey, but that's OK...it's Uncle Jess just being himself. One interesting method he uses to save money in setting up shots is to shoot scenes in one or two long takes often starting on a detail and ending by zooming in on that same object, a mirror, a sugar jar decorated with a painting of Minnie Mouse or a deck of cards being dealt. Franco really knows how to turn a zero budget into a creative advantage. The director sums up the theme of brutality hidden in the midst of the technologically advanced modern world by a shot of an inmate hanging through the bars as a jetliner flies overhead. A simple yet effective juxtaposition As in all his Dietrich produced WIP titles, the theme is political corruption and hypocrisy. The wardress is a closet masochist who talks of her prison as a model facility for the correction of inmates and she even has connections with the opposition to the police state in which the action occurs. It's a grim, grimy look at the alternate reality of imprisonment within a closed society. |
|
|
|
| Video | 4/5 | |
 |
|
|
| Audio | 3/5 | |
|
|
|
| The throbbing, menacing music and dialogue are rendered loudly and clearly with minimal distortion, hiss or crackling. Language options include German and English dialogue. |
| Extras | 3/5 | |
|
|
|
| Another impressive making-of documentary the highlight of which is director Franco breaking into tears as he recalls happier days when making films with Dietrich in Switzerland. Dietrich and Lina Romay also make some fascinating comments. Trailers for this film and others in the VIP collection are included along with the restoration documentary seen on previous VIP discs. Bios and filmographies for Franco, Dietrich, Romay. |
 |
| Overall | 3.5/5 | |
|
|
|
| Another painstaking restoration from Erwin Dietrich's VIP company. A deluxe presentation of what is perhaps Franco's sleaziest Women in Prison entry To order this disc, check out www.xploitedcinema.com |
| Film Rating | DVD Rating | |||
| Director: | Jess Franco |
|
||
| Writers: | Jess Franco |
|
||
| Released: | 1975 |
|
||
| Cast: | Frieda Altstadt, Madeleine Ammann, Nathalie Chape, Roger Darton, Eric Falk, Jess Franco |
|
||
|
||||
| comment on this review in the forum |
| [Home] [Review Index] [Top of Page] |
| © copyright DVD Maniacs 2001-2002 |
