Ray Sawhill

A Jess Franco Women in Prison Euro-sexploitation film from 1981, starring the slim black transsexual Ajita Wilson as the lesbian warden of a Spanish prison peopled by nothing but topless gals in Daisy Duke denim cutoffs, captives and guards both. An impotent local grandee and his eager, sexy blonde wife conspire with the warden in exploiting the prison's talent. Jess Franco himself plays a gay English pimp.

It's all very dubbed and low-budget, and sleazy to the point of near-hardcore. The camera seems especially fascinated by the thick and vigorous late-'70s bushes the women and Ajita Wilson show off.

Recommended? Well, you may experience "Sadomania" as a tacky, at-best-semi-competent, "adult" ripoff of a 1970s adventure TV show. Most of the actors are amateurs, some of the guns are plastic toys, an alligator or two are clearly rubber, and the grandee drives what looks like a Yugo. On the other hand, it's just as possible that you'll experience the film as an anarchistic, dreamy, and sophisticated collection of flamboyant and poetic erotic reveries on the themes of power, violence and rape.

The film worked in both ways for me, plus it had a better-rounded plot than most of Franco's movies, so I was a happy camper, content to play with the idea that Jess Franco might really be the Cocteau of sleazy bad taste. Polly, though, snoozed off pretty quickly.

Fast-forwarding score: Nothing for me, 3/4 of the movie for Polly.