The Big Doll House

The Big Doll House (1971)

Their bodies were caged, but not their desires. They would do anything for a man - or to him.

Female prisoners in a Philippine jail are being subjected to sadistic torture. Five of the women, along with the help of two men, plot an escape.

Date of release
1971-04-30
TMDB
5.6 / 10 (83)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Action, Drama
Director
Jack Hill

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Philippines

The Big Doll House is a 1971 American women-in-prison film starring Pam Grier, Judy Brown, Roberta Collins, Brooke Mills, and Pat Woodell. The film follows six female inmates through daily life in a gritty, unidentified tropical prison. Later the same year, the film Women in Cages featured a similar story and setting and much the same cast, and was shot in the same abandoned prison buildings. A nonsequel follow-up, titled The Big Bird Cage, was released in 1972.

Production

This was one of the first films made by B movie giant Roger Corman for his company New World Pictures. Jack Hill said Corman and Barney Woolner, who helped set up New World Pictures, were inspired to make a women in prison film by the success of 99 Women by Spanish director Jesús Franco. Jack Hill knew James Gordon White had written a film in this genre and arranged for Corman to purchase it for Hill to direct.

According to Stephanie Rothman, Corman asked for White's script to be rewritten. Rothman says her husband Charles S. Swartz, New World story editor Frances Doel, and Rothman pitched story proposals to Jack Hill, who did not like any of them. They then plotted a new storyline themselves and hired Don Spencer to write the screenplay.

Rothman had a big success for New World with The Student Nurses and claims that Corman wanted her to direct the picture, but she turned it down, so Corman ended up going back to Jack Hill instead.

Hill says White's original script was not used but elements were re-used in other New World Pictures, notably Caged Heat. Hill says he disliked Spencer's script but he "needed the job very badly" and agreed to direct it, although he says he extensively rewrote the script. "I thought the story was utterly preposterious so I added a lot of humour to it."

John Ashley says Corman originally intended to make the film in Puerto Rico, but he persuaded them to make it in the Philippines. Ashley and his partners went on to put up the above-the-line part of the budget, with Corman providing the rest.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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