Digi-Schlock: THE WOMEN IN CAGES COLLECTION (Shout! Factory 2-DVD Set)

The deeper Shout! Factory gets into the Roger Corman/New World Pictures library, the more they favor releas­ing titles in multi-film sets.  It’s a savvy tac­tic, as it appeals to fans by giv­ing them plenty of bang for their buck and also min­i­mizes risk for the com­pany (bundling pop­u­lar titles with lesser-known items ensures fans will pick the set up for the pop­u­lar ones).  When this con­cept is done well, it can be art­ful — and art­ful is a nice descrip­tion for Shout! Factory’s excel­lent Women In Cages Collection.

This set gath­ers together a trio of sem­i­nal New World Pictures releases, all united by their women-in-prison theme: The Big Doll House, Women In Cages and The Big Bird Cage.  Each film has been given a new anamor­phic trans­fer and the results are jaw-dropping: every film pre­sented here is burst­ing with color and detail and boasts a sharp level of detail that effort­lessly sur­passes the old open-matte trans­fers of these fllms.  Even vet­eran fans will be sur­prised by how good these films look on this set.

The audio qual­ity is mostly good, which is quite an achiev­ment when you con­sider the lim­i­ta­tions of the source mate­r­ial.  The Big Doll House has a few spots where ambi­ent audio drops out between lines of dia­logue (no lines are lost) and Women In Cages sounds like it was never given a proper mix as the dif­fer­ences between ADR and set audio are jar­ring.  That said, such quib­bles have to do with the way these films were orig­i­nally recorded and mixed, not to men­tion their age.  The pro­duc­ers of this set have done a fine job and the films sound quite good given the nature of their mixes.

Better yet, there is an array of extras on these discs.  This set includes the Jack Hill com­men­tary tracks heard on pre­vi­ous edi­tions of The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage — and both are amongst the best com­men­taries you’ll ever hear on an exploita­tion film.  Hill has an impres­sive recall of each film’s shoot as well as the per­son­al­i­ties involved and he weaves these mem­o­ries into engag­ing, scene-specific nar­ra­tives that are as punchy and col­or­ful as the films themselves.

Hill cov­ers all phases of each film, from pre-production to recep­tion, and is free with praise for his col­lab­o­ra­tors (espe­cially Sid Haig).  The Big Doll House’s track is par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing, as Hill sheds light on the film’s trou­bled devel­op­ment phase and points out the scenes that were rewrit­ten or impro­vised.  Simply put, each track is nec­es­sary lis­ten­ing for any stu­dent of exploita­tion cinema.

Trailers are also included for each film, plus a few still gal­leries and a brief inter­view with Judy Brown in which she tells a mem­o­rably scary tale of on-location peril.  However, the best extra is a new doc­u­men­tary pro­duced espe­cially for this set: it’s called From Manila With Love and runs a whop­ping 50 min­utes as it incor­po­rates inter­views with Hill and Roger Corman as well as on-set pro­ducer Jane Schaeffer and a vari­ety of cast mem­bers, includ­ing such rarely inter­viewed fig­ures as Anitra Ford and Teda Bracci.

From Manila With Love focuses on The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage, with direc­tor Elijah Drenner sharp­en­ing the inter­view footage into a com­pelling sound-bite nar­ra­tive.  He also uses film clips to cre­ate a cheeky coun­ter­point to the par­tic­i­pants ret­ro­spec­tive com­ments — the fun­ni­est bit is the cre­ative visu­al­iza­tion for Jack Hill’s check­list of scenes that must be included in a women-in-prison film -  and it even incor­po­rates a few bits of orig­i­nal retro-style music score by co-editor Dan Greene.  All the par­tic­i­pants have cool/interesting things to say, with Bracci and co-star Candice Roman threat­en­ing to steal the show via their viva­cious com­men­tary (Ford is also quite impres­sive, but she’s more intro­spec­tive in tone).  There’s even a lov­ing trib­ute to departed costar Roberta Collins.  It’s a great lit­tle doc­u­men­tary and fans will eat it up.

In short, the Women In Cages Collection works both as enter­tain­ment, a work of schlock edu­ca­tion and an excel­lent value for fans.  The com­bi­na­tion of clas­sic flicks and killer sup­ple­ments make it one of the must-buys of 2011 for any cult movie buff.

The Women In Cages Collection [Triple Feature] The Women In Cages Collection — Triple Feature       Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) joins a group of sexy, young female pris­on­ers in their strug­gle against a sadis­tic war­den in Big Doll House. This shock­ingly real film is per­haps one of the most influ­en­tial of all women-in-prison films! Also star­ring Judy Brown, Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000) and Sid Haig (House Of 1,000 Corpses). Directed by Jack Hill (Spider Baby, Foxy Brown).Innocent Carol Jeffries (Jennifer Gan, Naked Angels) is framed by her drug-dealing boyfriend and ends up in a tough prison in the Philippines jun­gle in Women In Cages. She must face off against the sadis­tic war­den, Alabama (Pam Grier), who takes great plea­sure in alter­nately seduc­ing and tor­tur­ing her pris­on­ers. Also star­ring Judy Brown and Roberta Collins. Directed by Gerry De Leon (Mad Doctor Of Blood Island).Inside the hell­ish women’s prison called The Big Bird Cage, inmates like Terry (Anitra Ford, The Price Is Right) strug­gles to sur­vive. They get their chance to escape when schem­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary Blossom (Pam Grier) engi­neers a prison break … from the out­side in. Also star­ring Carol Speed (Abby). Directed by Jack Hill.

The Women In Cages Collection [Triple Feature] (Blu-ray) The Women In Cages Collection — Triple Feature       Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) joins a group of sexy, young female pris­on­ers in their strug­gle against a sadis­tic war­den in Big Doll House. This shock­ingly real film is per­haps one of the most influ­en­tial of all women-in-prison films! Also star­ring Judy Brown, Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000) and Sid Haig (House Of 1,000 Corpses). Directed by Jack Hill (Spider Baby, Foxy Brown).Innocent Carol Jeffries (Jennifer Gan, Naked Angels) is framed by her drug-dealing boyfriend and ends up in a tough prison in the Philippines jun­gle in Women In Cages. She must face off against the sadis­tic war­den, Alabama (Pam Grier), who takes great plea­sure in alter­nately seduc­ing and tor­tur­ing her pris­on­ers. Also star­ring Judy Brown and Roberta Collins. Directed by Gerry De Leon (Mad Doctor Of Blood Island).Inside the hell­ish women’s prison called The Big Bird Cage, inmates like Terry (Anitra Ford, The Price Is Right) strug­gles to sur­vive. They get their chance to escape when schem­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary Blossom (Pam Grier) engi­neers a prison break … from the out­side in. Also star­ring Carol Speed (Abby). Directed by Jack Hill.