The Big Bird Cage

The next release, ‘The Big Bird Cage’ is originally from 1972 and once again is also produced by Roger Corman. It stars 70’s blaxploitation icon Pam Grier as Blossom, leader of a pack of revolutionaries hiding out in a jungle in the Philippines. Together with her partner in crime, Django (Sid Haig), she embarks on a bold heist in a tropical nightclub, when scandalous social climber Terry (Anitra Ford) becomes accidentally involved and is thrown into a notorious women’s jungle prison run by sadists.

How did you guess the prison camp is swamped with scantily clad buxom babes who never seem to lose their sex appeal no matter how harsh the treatment and how sweaty the temperatures? As the imprisoned women are subjected to risking their lives operating the ‘big bird cage’ (a towering wooden machine that processes sugar), Blossom and Django risk their lives to liberate the inmates.

Altogether cruder than ‘Big Bad Mama’ and with plenty of corny dialogue and catfights, ‘The Big Bird Cage’ is one of the ultimate chicks-in-prison exploitation flicks. Here, director Jack Hill already displayed talent in directing Grier to great effect, something he would repeat with even more success in his next two films ‘Coffy’ and ‘Foxy Brown’.