Caged Heat

On its original 1974 release, Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat became an immediate favorite of Marxist-leaning cultural theorists, who detected a left-wing, revolutionary agenda just under the surface of this steamy women-in-prison exploitation flick: the lumpen gals are multicultural, the honky prison officials (including British cult actress Barbara Steele, in a wheelchair) are insidious behaviorists. Even the apolitical Hollywood Reporter, weighing in on Caged Heat, came on like Foucault: "Prison is a ready metaphor for the repression of modern life, and the women who break their way out . . . suggest a positive, even militant reaction to sexist victimization."

Maybe so. But a quarter-century later, the genre stuff in Caged Heat prevails mightily over the Demme deconstuction of the genre. Comely damsels in jail being strip-searched and showering so that the audience can peep at tits and ass -- that's what the movie is about. Still, Caged Heat is definitely entertaining in a trashy way, because Demme, years before The Silence of the Lambs, is a talented filmmaker, Tak Fujimoto is a top-line cinematographer, and there's an energetic soundtrack by ex-Velvet Undergrounder John Cale. Also, there's an unusually fine ensemble of incarcerated hussies, including rough-and-ready blaxploitation actress Juanita Brown and, my absolute favorite, the ever-disrobing blonde starlet (where is she today?) Rainbeaux Smith.

-- Gerald Peary