Terminal Island (1973)

Curiosidades

Terminal Island, released theatrically in the UK as Knuckle Men, is a 1973 American action–drama thriller film directed by Stephanie Rothman. It features early screen performances by Tom Selleck and Roger E. Mosley. Although an exploitation film, it has been treated with much serious discussion by critics and academics over the years. It is regarded as a cult film.

Production

Stephanie Rothman started directing films for Roger Corman at New World Pictures, The Student Nurses and The Velvet Vampire. She and her husband Charles Swartz received an offer from Larry Woolner to join a new company, Dimension Pictures, for which Rothman made Terminal Island. Rothman says Woolner wanted to make a "woman's prison" film, which were popular at the time, e.g. The Big Doll House.

Rothman turned down the chance to make The Big Doll House for Corman, but agreed to make Terminal Island as "I would be in control of how the subject matter was treated, and while I had to put in the usual elements of sex and violence, I also could introduce ideas about how prisoners were treated, and how they could treat each other, that were not necessarily in these other films.

She decided to make it a "Devil's Island picture"; "...we didn't have to shoot it on a set, you know, in a very confined space. To build a set and to rent a stage would be very expensive; shooting it in the outdoors would be much more economical and visually much more interesting."

Rothman said she wanted to make "a story in which a group of men and women needed each other for survival, and therefore could not afford the luxury of stereotyped sex-role behavior.” She added, the film "is not the story of a utopian community built on a bedrock of ideology, but of how a group of antisocial people rediscover their own social needs, needs for companionship and cooperation that exist within us all."

The original script was written by Jim Barnett, whom Rothman and Swartz knew and who had written some prison films. Rothman was unhappy with the draft, saying "His treatment of the women was just unbelievable. I mean they were so passive and so empty." They hired Henry Rosenbaum to rewrite it; Rothman says he "did a very good job" but he elected not to take credit. Rothman and Swartz then did another draft.

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