You think, cause it's a true story, this won't be like those other sexploitation women's prison flicks. You very well know, where the guards and staff are as corrupt as the ones doing time, where there's hardly a good soul in the house. This movie starts off, giving a false impression, as if it's to be different, of good quality, but soon, when our little patsy is convicted, and we hear those bar doors slam shut, we fall back into the same path of sleaze, this prison infested with bad eggs. But we already know this, judging by the cover, what have you. Not surprisingly a few stars from Chained Heat return in this. Young and Restless star, cutie pie, Bregman, a woman who's got class, is set up unknowingly, when bags of snort are found in her ski's. Now her real nightmare begins in the cold confines of those four walls, where we meet some more nasty pasties, and we've got to have a queen b..ch here, that replaces Danning. Her name here is Margo, but this one's really evil, and if you cross her, you pay. One drug dependant woman, threatening to blab on her, ends up a statistic, shot up from air in a needle, and we know what that means. We again have many similarities here, as compared to Heat, like lesbianism, evil female governors, horny corrupt guards, and an investigating and sympathetic warden, determined to get to the bottom of this corrupt filled prison, and no surprise, it's again played by Nita Talbot, her character very much like the one in Heat, but I think here, she's a more stronger force. Now the sexy Bregman is an idiot. Why must you ask? Cause she's protecting her scum boyfriend, (Peter Brown) who has the balls to come in and visit her, saying he was doing it for him and her, to build a new life. Bologne, the drugs we're stashed in her ski's. So for the whole movie, she keeps her mouth, until she can't no longer, in light of all the madness around her. Talbot makes a deal with, an exchange, and she then walks out those gates, a free woman, until she's a blip in the distance, played against a great 70's song. If a fan of these film's, you'll enjoy this as much as the others. Performance wise, everyone holds their own, Bregman, strong, proving she can carry a movie, while Jill St John excels with a real nasty piece of acting as a female governor, better than Stella Stevens in CH.

I remember watching this on HBO back in the mid-80's. I thought Tracey E Bregman (who apparently took a summer break from Young & Restless) was mostly believable as Elizabeth. I say 'mostly' because there were moments she is just too glamorous to be believable as the hard-luck prisoner. Barbara Luna is quite notable as QueenBee "Cat"; a role she was almost born to play. Jill St. John mostly skirted around her warden role, in which I gave a C+ rating, if that. The best performances, ironically, were the female prisoners, and Robert Miano (Stone).I had been a young fan of U.K.'s 1970's series, 'Prisoner, Cell-Block-H'. While I don't compare this film to that series, some of the action bears reflection on surreal existence within actual prison life.

The Concrete Jungle is the gold standard in movies about women in prison. Since then, a dozen of "late night, Cinema like" prison films with naked women trying to survive behind bars. For 1982, the Concrete Jungle made headlines for being the first of its kind. Today, it is far from being taken seriously. I felt bad for Camille Keaton rape scene. Not only was she not a leading actress in this film, nor did her character have any real importance to the story, her role was a quick flashback to her only famous role as the rape victim in the "classic" horror movie I Spit on Your Grave. I think it's time to call your acting career quits once you keep getting only rape roles.

Regardless of what anyone says, I still feel this movie should be classified as "comedy". Just about everything that goes on in this women's prison is hilarious.The title of the film, "The Concrete Jungle" refers to the women's prison where the main character, Elizabeth Demming, is sent to after she is found guilty of smuggling cocaine that was planted in her snow skis (thanks to her scumbag of a husband). Of course, her character being written as 'naive', her husband conjoles her through the prison glass windows via the conversation phone that he is doing his best to get her out of there, but she has to "remain strong" while he sorts this mess out. It doesn't take a genius to see through his guise that he's gonna let her take the fall and then let her rot in the slammer.Needless to say, we cut to scene 2 and she's in the slammer whereupon she meets a variety of stereotyped characters. There's the jittery crackhead mean sistah, "Icy", the gone-cold-turkey-yet-sweet chick, "Sweets". The evil head honcho, "Cat", the ex-evil-head-honcho, "Margo", and then there's the prison warden Fletcher who knows all the evil going-ons within the concrete jungle yet doesn't care and is as corrupt as about every other prison warden in film history. There's a bunch of other hilarious characters with stupid names such as "Eyes" and "Breaker". They just add to the backdrop.When our heroine, Elizabeth Demming, moves into the concrete jungle, Cat immediately takes a shine to her and brands her with the name, "Cherry". From thereon in, Cherry learns the horrors of rape, drugs and lesbianism from within the walls of the prison. Cat is running a drug operation within the prison and uses her lapdogs, Sweets and Icy, to make sure everything runs smoothly. Apparently, in this prison, drugs will get you anything, if not everything. We never get to find out where Cat gets these drug contacts in the outside world from, but hey, this movie stopped making sense from the opening credits!In the meantime, we see the obligatory lesbian sex scenes in the dormitory, chicks getting high on crack and rape scenes committed by the sadistic prison guard.Scooting forward, Cherry learns the ropes and in a final showdown between her and Cat for the crown of the prison, she pushes her onto an electrical fuse box where she does a happy dance and dies. Warden Fletcher's schemes are exposed and there are no points for guessing what happens to her (oh the irony of the situation!). Cherry's boyfriend is busted by the FEDS for drug smuggling and Cherry is finally released from prison, a much brighter and smarter girl (one would hope).Some hilarious things to look out for in the movie:-The toilet door behind Cat reads, "LATRINE" (!!!!!)Icy blurting out, "Sure thing... Cherry!"Warden Fletcher assuring, "Are you sure Margo?!?!"Cat's happy dance when she gets pushed onto the electrical fuse box! (This scene is timeless!!!)Anyway, that's my review of The Concrete Jungle. This is a pretty obscure run-of-the-mill early 80's women's prison exploitation flick. You'd be lucky if you found it at your local video store. Thank God I own a copy of this!Enjoy!