Caged Heat

I'm getting close to the end of the movies that TCM ran during their programming salute to Roger Corman last July. By now they've expired from my DVR, but I made a point of watching them before they expired and scheduling the posts well ahead of time. I think the last of the movies that I recorded and haven't yet writte a post on is Caged Heat, which was part of a night of movies Corman produced and gave young directors (who would go on to become famous) a chance to start their career with.

The movie starts with an establishing sequence of a couple of undercover cops driving up to one of those crappy motels that you wouldn't want to spend a night in if you can avoid it. In this case, the reason to avoid it is because there are drug deals going down in some of the hotel rooms, and that's also why the cops show up. Jacqueline Wilson (Erica Gavin) is a low-level member of the organization producing and selling the drugs. Unfortunately for her, during the operation, one of the cops gets shot. Jacqueline won't name names, so she's given a particularly harsh sentence at one of the women's prisons.

Cut to a prison and a scene where one of the lady prisoners is experiencing some nasty depredations involving violence and nudity. This turns out to be a dream sequence and clearly just there to show some female flesh. Jacqueline gets transferred to that prison, where Maggie (Juanita Brown) strikes up a conversation with her and shows her the ropes, which includes mentioning a prisoner who had claustrophobia and screamed and screamed, at least until she was taken to the "clinic". Now, she appears to be much more docile.

McQueen (Barbara Steele) is the warden of the prison, and needless to say she's fully aware of the prison clinic, euphemistically called "behavioral therapy". It's manned, pun intended by Dr. Randolph (Warren Miller), who seems as sadistic as McQueen. Jacqueline and Maggie have to figure out a way to escape, with their life as fugitives from justice taking up the second half of the film.

To be honest, you don't watch a movie like Caged Heat for the plot. Unsurprisingly, it's somthing you watch for the titillation and shock value. Needless to say, Jonathan Demme, directing his first film, succeeds in providing that shock value along with providing a good deal of mindless entertainment. Nobody will ever mistake Caged Heat for a masterpiece, but if you're going into a movie like this expecting a masterpiece, you're watching the wrong sort of movie.