After killing her husband, Collier (Judy Brown) is sent to prison.
She joins a group of prisoners ( Pam Grier, Roberta Collins, and Brooke Mills) who are planning to escape the clutches of the sadistic warden Miss Dietrich (Christiane Schmidtmer).
One of the earliest ‘women in prison’ movies from the genre’s boom years of the 70s, The Big Doll House is also the introduction of Pam Grier as a genre icon. The Big Doll House’s writer-director Jack Hill would go onto cast her in Coffy and Foxy Brown, the movies that cemented her status.
The movie is fairly slow-moving but it lays out the key elements of the genre: Lesbians, mud-wrestling, weird non-consensual sexual situations, an action-packed prison break and a downbeat ending.
And just to balance things out, we get a dollop of social commentary. Here it is also a vague anti-authoritarian message - the film was shot in the Philippines but set in some undefined tropical dictatorship.
The acting is pretty bad - Pam Grier is technically rough but this movie is a prime example of star power overcoming performance.
The one person delivering a real performance is Sid Haig. He makes an impression as the sleazy American who sells trinkets to prisoners and staff alike.
While it includes a lot of familiar pieces, the whole movie feels like a first draft. It also has major pacing problems.
The torture sequence is unique - a jar slowly fills with water, which acts as a weight on a rube goldberg contraption that lowers a deadly cobra toward a writhing prisoner.
The production values are rough, which lend the movie a certain verisimilitude. And the film’s anti-authoritarianism does not feel wedged in (being set in a prison has that effect).
The finale is great and filled with action, but it takes a long time to get there.
The Big Doll House is an important text if you are interested in the history of the genre, and the rise of Pam Grier. However if you really want to watch one of these flicks, there are better examples out there.
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