Although there have been a few prison-set comedies, such as the British "Porridge" (based upon a popular TV series), most films about men in prison have been made with a serious purpose ("Cool Hand Luke", "Brubaker", "The Shawshank Redemption", etc.). At one time this was also true of the smaller number of films about women in prison; the American "Caged" and the British "Yield to the Night" are well-known examples from the fifties. The late sixties, however, saw the birth of a new genre, the women in prison exploitation film. Jesús Franco's "99 Women" is an early example of the type. Films like this were made as entertainment catering for male sexual fantasies rather as serious drama about crime and punishment, but in their early days they were not explicitly pornographic. Even in the swinging sixties there was a limit to what the censors would permit. (A film on this subject made ten, or perhaps even only five, years after this one would doubtless have been considerably more sexually explicit). We know that "99 Women" will turn out to be an exploitation film as soon as we see that the inmates of this particular jail- all 99 of them- are young and attractive and that the prison uniform consists of little more than a very short mini-dress. The actual plot storyline does not matter too much- it includes the punishment and humiliation of the women by a cruel female warder, the attempts of a relatively liberal new governor to reform conditions and a jail break- but the film features several recurrent clichés of the women in prison genre. These include cat-fights between prisoners and physical abuse of the prisoners by sadistic guards. There are, however, no real sex scenes and no full nudity. Those mini-dresses may get ripped, but the girls' underwear always stays intact. Any lesbianism remains implied rather than explicit. "99 Women" was a box-office success when it first appeared in 1969, but by the standards of anyone other than the titillation-hungry young men of the late sixties it is a very poor film indeed, with a hackneyed plot, a villainously written script and generally low standards of acting. The film was originally shot in French and dubbed into English, but in the version I saw the dubbing had for some reason been omitted from several scenes, which remained in the original language without subtitles. In most of Franco's films the cast is made up of long- forgotten porn stars, but this one features several well-known names, not only the former Bond Girl Luciana Paluzzi but also actors as distinguished as Herbert Lom and the one-time Oscar-winning Mercedes McCambridge, neither of whom can be said to have enhanced their reputation by appearing in it. The film is today of no more than historic interest except perhaps to those who subscribe to the idea that Franco was some great "cult director". To my way of thinking he had more talent for arousing controversy than he did for actually making films and the only "cult" that grew up around him consisted solely of those attracted to his brand of soft-core erotica. 3/10

99 Women starts as a small boatload of women arrive at an unnamed island to be become prisoners of Governor Santos (Herbert Lom) & chief warden Madame Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge) in a state prison known as the 'Castle of Death', amongst them is the pretty blonde Marie (Maria Rohm) who pleads her innocence. Branded inmate number 99 this is how Marie is to be known from now on, after trying to help a fellow inmate the warden decides number 99 needs punishing, meanwhile a kind hearted investigator from the mainland named Leonie Carrol (Maria Schell) is sent to the prison to root out corruption & abuse but Governor Santos is on to a good thing & doesn't intend to let Carrol spoil it. Marie decides to escape & along with another couple of inmates manages to make it into the harsh jungles but things aren't much better out there than inside the prison...This English, Lichtenstein, German, Italian & Spanish co-production was written & directed by the prolific Jesus Franco whom I consider to be one of the two worst filmmakers in the horror & sleaze genre, I'm sorry but I just find virtually all of his films absolutely worthless & even worse mind numbingly boring & badly made. Lets take the abomination that is 99 Women as an example, at almost an hour & forty minutes this feels twice as long & for a film where virtually nothing happens 99 Women is slow going & I was throughly bored by it. Hell, I started to play some games on my phone about an hour in I was so bored. The story is crap, the dialogue is awful & the character's are cardboard thin. As an early example of the Women in Prison genre 99 Women really doesn't hold up, the location used looks more like a vineyard, there's no shower scene & little in the way of genuine sleaze. The script tries it's hand at a bit of drama with the plight of the abused women & the most dull prison escape ever filmed. People just don't act like people, people don't talk like people & there's not enough sleaze here to make this watchable, another worthless piece of crap from Franco who has his admirers & fans but for the life of me I can't see why.The whole look of 99 Women is dull, some of the locations are nice but do not look anything like a prison & the way the women wear shirts but not much else means I never got the Women in Prison vibe from this at all. Surprisingly light on nudity & sex there's not a great deal of violence either although Franco manages to include a scene where a woman attacks & stabs a Snake despite it just laying on the floor doing no-one any harm, it would have been quicker & easier & safer is the woman had just stepped over it or walked around it, you know? To be honest I can't really remember much about this, it just sort of went in one ear & straight out the other if you know what I mean with no impact on me at all. The mythical French version includes hardcore sex scenes featuring people not in the rest of the film having sex in places not in the rest of the film.Apparently filmed in Valencia in Spain this cheap film features lots of ugly zooms & really boring shots that Franco holds for ages, the editing is also bad with character's jumping around all over the place with the final riot at the end the best (or worst) example of this. The women here really aren't that good looking although a couple are attractive enough I suppose, Herbert Lom deserved better than this.99 Women is more crap from cult director Franco but this time there isn't even any sleaze or violence to make it bearable (unless you watch the badly edited French hardcore version) & is yet another film by Franco that I can honestly say I hated. The sort of film that makes me want to give up watching films altogether.

I've seen a lot of these women in prison films, but I don't know why I keep watching them because I've hated every one that I've seen. Jess Franco seemed to enjoy making them, however, as this trash makes up a large proportion of his filmography; and women in prison flicks are probably one of the main reasons why a lot of people's overall impression of the prolific director is not good. 99 Women came fairly early on for this genre, being released in 1969, and as such the film is not as racy as some of the other genre entries. This is not really a benefit or a hindrance, however, as 99 Women is just as boring as most of these films anyway. The plot is just your usual women in prison theme - bunch of girls in jail trying to escape from the awful prison guards etc. It's a shame that this is just another entry in an overpopulated genre too, as the film features a good cult cast - Rosalba Neri is one of my very favourite actresses, and the film also features the likes of Maria Schell and Maria Rohm, as well as the great Herbert Lom; but the cast considered, this is still a rubbish film and I wont be recommending it!

"99 Women" starring Oscar-winner Mercedes McCambridge as a sadistic prison warden and Maria Schell as a super-intendant with lesbionic tendencies towards one of the female inmates, who'd have thought that you could have gone wrong with this one? Apparently not me as I was quite excited about my purchase of this movie. It was pretty horrible as expected, but not in a good way. I was hoping this was going to be one of those hilarious women-in-prison exploitation flicks that were high in camp value. Hell, Mercedes McCambridge is in it! First off, the movie started off positively. We have three broads arriving on a boat, still in the clothes they were apparently arrested in, tried in Court, and then literally, sent up the river in! We are introduced to the blonde starlet, Marie, the black-haired stripper, Helga, and some other brunette who dies from some sort of "accident" that required medical surgery.The camp factor needle hits "HIGH" as soon as we are introduced to Mercedes McCambridge appearing in a warden's uniform, barking orders in a faux-German accent (even though her name is Thelma Diaz) and giving Marie a backhand across the face for using her name instead of her number, "99".However it only gets worse from here. While there are certainly some entertaining cat-fight scenes (ie hair-pulling, clothes being ripped off, face slapping, etc), the rest of the film is incredibly boring. There is a sadistic male warden (Herbert Lom) who coerces one of the female prisoners into seducing Marie for his pleasure, and there is one un-named prison guard who has the most hilarious facial expressions when introducing guests to McCambridge, but the rest of the film falls flat.Maria Schell is not in the film nearly enough, and when she is, it's hard to determine what her true agenda is. It seems like she has a thing for Marie, but they never explore it.When the girls finally break out and trek through a "jungle", there are a few more camp moments, such as the scene with the harmless snake where upon spotting it and instead of running around it, the girls proceed to scream, grab it and cut it with a knife (LOL). The other semi-amusing moment was watching Marie and Helga make a dash for the fishing boats, hand-in-hand and wearing nothing short of see-through panties and torn jumpsuits.Mercedes McCambridge was the movie's only saving grace. Her accent border-lined German and Spanish, and she had some pretty hilarious one-liners such as, "She was put in the punishment cell... for repeated insolences!" At various moments, her voice deepened into that same voice she used as Pazuzu in "The Exorcist", I thought maybe she was going to morph into Satan at any moment.The most interesting thing that I heard about this movie was that there is an X-rated version out there. I watched the un-rated version which had no explicit sex scenes, only some gratuitous breast shots and a glimpse of bush. I shudder at the thought that Mercedes McCambridge might have filmed a scene not knowing that at some later point her body double would be enjoying an explicit lesbian sex scene with one of the female prisoners.I would not recommend this movie to any women-in-prison enthusiasts out there. In fact, I would only recommend this movie to Mercedes McCambridge fans as she is the sole reason I gave this movie "one star". Don't waste your time with this one folks.