99 Women Movie Review 205

   

99 Women is a 1969 thriller/drama directed by Jesus Franco who is better known for his horror movies. It stars Maria Schell, Herbert Lom and Maria Rohm.

The movie begins with prisoners being brought to an island prison. It is called Castello De La Muerte and three women have been sentenced to serve their time there. The warden is Thelma Diaz(Mercedes McCambridge) and she is one tough mama. The governor is Santos(Lom) and he has fun with the girls when he comes to visit. Some of the women die under mysterious circumstances. Diaz tells him that he might like the new prisoner- number 99 Marie(Rohm). When one of the new prisoners dies from withdrawal  the doctor comes and he is not happy with what he sees. The conditions are not good. Prisoner 99 and prisoner 76 fight and they are in the hospital together. The governor comes in and they all have some fun!

An observer comes to the prison to see how it is run and what is going on behind closed doors. She is Leonie Caroll(Schell) and she tells Diaz that she wants to see everything. Diaz is not happy. She and the governor have to make sure that she does not see anything they don't want her to. Marie meets Miss Caroll and they talk. Marie tells her about her crime. The governor and Miss Diaz conspire to get Caroll kicked off the island. They write a bad report about her. When there is an escape, everything goes wrong and the girls are brought back to the island minus one who died. They are punished severely and Miss Caroll is appalled but she cannot do anything about it.

There is a full scale riot and Miss Caroll tries to talk to the prisoners but they will not give her the time of day. They don't realise that she is there to help and this plays right into the hands of the governor and Diaz. The movie ends with Miss Caroll having to leave the island after everything. She has failed in her mission to help the women and she cannot win with the evil governor or Diaz. She passes the women on her way out and it is business as usual. Nothing has changed. End of movie. This was an average movie. It wasn't bad or it wasn't great. Just okay. There were some good actors in it and they made the best of what they were given. It is worth seeing if you like women behind bars movies. I am going to give it a 5/10.