Review of 99 Women (1969) by Shawn W — 23 Apr 2012

Directed by Jess Franco, whose brand of low-budget horror was always able to attract respectable actors. But, sometimes he just made low-budget, sleazy trash, that also attracted a name or two, and this is one of those films.

It's badly edited and even more badly dubbed as well. Set in a woman's prison on an unnamed island, it begins when new inmate Marie (Maria Rohm) arrives at the prison and is stripped of her name and is given the number 99, the prison is ran by the sadistic lesbian warden Thelma Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge) and the leering, perverse Governor Santos (Herbert Lom) and submits the female prisoners to torture, rape and lesbianism.

However, the Ministry of Justice has Diaz replaced by the kindly and more diplomatic Leonie Caroll (Maria Schell) who disagrees strongly with Diaz and Santos' methods of torture and abuse, and even begins with trying to seek parole for Marie, but when that goes nowhere fast, Marie along with Natalie (Luciana Paluzzi) and Zoie (Rosalba Neri) escape, with prison guards and male prisoners in hot pursuit.

This sort of thing was done much better in Black Mama, White Mama (1973), this is just dull and plodding, and the sexuality, when it comes, is just sickening and softcore at best. Franco's work was cheap and nasty at best, and this is the nastiest of them all.