Jess Franco may have had high hopes for this women-in-prison (WIP) film. The cast which includes Herbert Lom, Luciana Paluzzi, Maria Schell and Mercedes McCambridge certainly suggests that Franco meant business. The end result though, falls short. Made in 1969, perhaps Franco was hampered by censorship constraints. Compared to his later films, this one is rather tame.Herbert Lom gives it his all as the corrupt and lascivious Governor Santos but the rest of the cast could have done better. There is not much of the sleaze factor in this film. Nudity, hot Sapphic action and lathering-up in the showers are in short supply, as are torture and whippings, surely the mainstays of WIP films. Franco seems to have gone for the mainstream cinema, with attention to the new warden, the attempts to get rid of her and the escape of three inmates which all goes horribly wrong.There is a so-called notorious French edition which includes some hard core action but these clips have been clumsily spliced in. In one scene, the inmate with short red hair is replaced by a blonde with long hair for the hard core action. How crass is that? In my opinion, the one to go for is the Director's Cut. If you want hard core sex action get a proper porn film.

99 WOMEN gets off to a bad start by having a theme tune that belongs in another movie and when you've got an inappropriate soundtrack that belongs in another movie you're getting one out of ten there and then . That said it is directed by Jesus Franco so you have a rough idea what expect - not much As you can imagine with a Jesus Franco movie set in an all female prison so pious celibacy is not on the agenda and the director deserves some credit for casting some very attractive actresses . It's a film of two distinctive halves where the first half introduces the characters and gives an excuse to show their sleazy back stories and their bi-curious lifestyle while the second half revolves around an escape attempt which resembles an exploitative female version of PAPILLION Neither half is all that good and fail to work as a coherent story , just a series of scenes strung together with no great thought put in to the wider picture . It also suffers from several scenes where people talk in French without the benefit of English subtitles . That said one has to look on it of the context of when it was made when people would be still used to the rather repressive Hays Code in American cinema and this must have been a very subversive not to mention titillating film when it was released in 1969 but at the end of the day it's still exploitation cinema

Welcome to hell. The prison is nicknamed "Casa de la muertez"(Castle of Death)and is ran with an iron fist to the chops by superintendent Thelma(Mercedes Mcambridge) . We are introduced to three young women who are being boated to this godforsaken place, sentenced to a female prison built by Spaniards overlooking an ocean, seemingly cut off from civilization. McCambridge is wonderfully lecherous as the strict disciplinarian whose abuse has trouble brewing due to a couple murders thanks to the harsh acts of those in charge. The prison itself looks as if it were cut out of stone, cells with cavernous walls, voices echoing when those within even speak in a normal tone. The salacious Spanish governor, with a doghead cane, (Herbert Lom) is always granted permission to have his way with the girls. During Franco's era with Harry Allan Towers he made some pretty successful pictures with the British producer's wife Maria Rohm(Venus in Furs). "99 Women" has Rohm as a sniveling weakling, Leonie, who is pushed around by the luscious Zoie(Rosalba Neri), with a pair of magnificent legs, quite open about her sexual desire for the new inmate. For a fan of lesbian erotica, I must say that I was more than a bit disappointed in the Neri/Rohm sequence as Franco's camera remains out of focus and never centered properly on the action..this is especially disconcerting when you have two such lovely creatures making love to each other. I could nit pick about how even when Rohm supposedly suffers in the punishment cell for "repeated insolence" she looks like a million bucks, only her hair a little out of sorts. I don't mind such things because women-in-prison flicks rarely depict such scenarios involving female inmates persecuted in the harshest ways with it showing in a realistic manner. A welfare worker, Ms Carol(Maria Schell, given star treatment), may be the only hope for the inmates under Thelma for she is appointed to see that they are treated with a reasonable care. But, despite her good will, Carol finds the task of helping the inmates difficult because they don't trust that she can make a difference.The movie establishes later that Rohm was possibly falsely accused of prostituting herself before being charged with murder when she claims to have merely defended herself against those who were trying to rape her. Staples of the genre are present such as catfights and a planned prison escape. Inmates are recognized by their assigned numbers not by name..there's a great scene where McCambridge slaps a new inmate for saying her name when asked, not her "new name", Number 98. I had always read and heard that Towers was a penny-pinching cheap producer constantly balking about having to spend money but Franco's movies in that partnership looked decently budgeted..at least he had a better camera and his movie looked to have had good production value. Interesting enough, there is a protracted jungle escape which takes up the latter portion of the movie detracting from the storyline regarding Carol and her troubles with the governor and Thelma..it worked for me because as Helga(Elisa Montés) and Marie are on the cusp of freedom, after surviving a hot, sweaty jungle and all it's many dangers(including male prisoners longing to rape them), we see that escape from their situation is pretty much hopeless. Carol's honorable intentions fall to the wayside and the denouement presents the fact that behind the walls of a cruel prison system humanity seems not to exist. I have a hard time not enjoying Franco's seductive camera capturing the ravishing bodies of his scantily clad ladies in nothing more than prison shirts and panties..color me an easy guy to please. I was impressed with Franco not going overboard with the zoom lens, although I like the use of the technique when you have interesting faces in frame. I really dug this cast.

"99 Women" is a decent if uninspired example of the genre.**SPOILERS**Taken prisoner, Marie, (Maria Rohm) is assigned to the women's Castillo de la Muerte Prison, overrun by the harsh warden, Thelma Diaz, (Mercedes McCambridge) and her troupe of lesbian guards. Immediately upon her arrival, Marie is stripped of her clothes and issued a ratty prison uniform and a number, and quickly learns that the prison is in a rather poor state, lorded over by Diaz who sells the girls to the corrupt Governor Santos, (Herbert Lom) who also heads the island's male prison. After being thrown in solitary confinement for helping a fellow inmate and raped by her cell-mate Zoe, (Rosalba Neri) the arrival of a new inspector, Leonie Carroll, (Maria Schell) is sent to oversee the prison. Tired of being held against her will, attempts to escape with some fellow inmates, but the surrounding locales make it a difficult one.The News: This here is a really mediocre film, but there is a lot to like about it. One reason for this is the mystery behind the main character for, in having her tell her own story, it is impossible for us to tell whether or not she is guilty. Marie certainly makes herself out to be innocent, but we can never be completely sure, and, after all, why would she be convicted by a system that, for once, isn't being portrayed as particularly unjust. The screenplay is relatively simple and straightforward, and within its somewhat crude framework, it is imbued with a sense of drama and emotion. He especially revels in the sequences that depict the past crimes of the inmates. The visual aspects is at its best here. The film drifts with ease from very classy, classic professional cinematographic set-ups to "typically-Franco" scenes of delirious, poetic beauty, like soft-focus, over-zoomed sex scenes and the best is a hallucinogenic striptease before a high society crowd that plays in a large manner of moods, noticeably erotic, charged with class schisms and the toll of exploitation on all women that's reminiscent of Argento in its use of sumptuous colored lighting. There's also some really good scenes emerging that later form the basics of the entire genre. With the sadistic lesbian guard in charge events, the sleazy politicians in-cahoots with it all, the veteran that comes to like the innocent inmate, and the unfair punishment for a humane act, the conventions are here and well-established. In a rather shocking turn, the new inspector actually seems genuinely interested in the prisoners' treatment, making sure they are fed decently, treated humanely, and punished fairly. It's problems, though, come in the form of the X-Rated Version, which is about fifteen to twenty minutes longer and consists of hardcore footage that has been jammed in with almost no regard for continuity, logic and setting. There's just something bizarrely amusing about the fact that the porn shots have been so poorly inserted, as they are generally massively inappropriate for where they're being placed, and it seems like only the most passing attempt was made to get them to match the scene they're being stuck into. It's quite hilarious to see the new footage shot, as they quite alter the film drastically. The main flashback, which is supposed to be her being raped by four men, is replaced by some blonde girl and an old guy struggling in a dirt-patch. The earliest insert sets things off right away. It comes with a prisoner sleeping in their cell and cuts from her lying on the ground to a couple of women being together in what looks to be a suburban bedroom. Is this supposed to be a dream, a flashback, or is it just a really bad stand-in for the cell? A blonde woman has been thrown in, seemingly to stand in for the original performer, yet it's quite clear she isn't her, and no attempt is made to hide this fact. Best of all, the scene in which she spies on the redhead and her dead lover's friend's sexual counter now continues, with a couple of different women standing in and then a third escapee making love out in a forest. What makes this scene so fantastic is the fact that the two girls' prison uniforms are simulated by a couple of bath towels that mysteriously appear out of nowhere, with their ensemble being perfectly completed by matching fuzzy slippers. It also could've been a little sleazier, as it's quite tame and really not that exploitative, considering the theme and talent involved. The snake is quite laughable and doesn't even look right, coming off badly and making it's scenes a disappointment. Otherwise, this one wasn't that terrible.The Final Verdict: If the hardcore footage would've been inserted into it with any attempt at coherence, this might've been knocked up a couple notches on the sleaze scale, but it's still a fun, watchable Women-in-Prison film that offers up enough elements of the genre to allow fans a chance to enjoy it.Rated UR/NC-17: Several graphic sex scenes, Nudity, a Rape, some Language and Violence