Apparently so in this exploitation flick from the good old 1980s. You can't help, but feel sorry for the sweet and sugary Elizabeth who gets wrongly convicted for her seedy boyfriend's job of hiding his drugs in her luggage at the airport .As soon as the cuffs are snapped on and the jail guard snaps on a pair of latex gloves, you know where this is heading - survival in jail. There's plenty of fighting (of course) and more injustices than you can shake a stick at. Poor Elizabeth is victimized at first, but finally stands her ground.The film is full of stereotypical prison inmates, but Jill St. John stands out as the prison warden. She's so evil and conniving that it's a treat when everything backfires on her and she ends up locked in jail with the rest of the prisoners. Her nipples will undoubtedly be a popular sight from there on in with the other inmates in her cell block.The climactic finale obviously has a lot of explosive and violent fighting with Elizabeth struggling through it all. She has such a wild and deep determination for justice that you can't help, but root for her and hope she succeeds. She's a survivor and proves it so.I recommend this movie, but only if you're into prison exploitation flicks where boobies are a plentiful sight of the day. Warden Fletcher going to jail herself to become another federal inmate was a major treat - too bad a sequel hadn't been made of that! She'd be "Top Dog" for sure and with the most popular boobs in the penitentiary.

Before 1983's Chained Heat, there was The Concrete Jungle. TCJ does what Chained Heat attempts to do, yet fails, despite its cast of beloved cult stars. What TCJ has that Chain Heat does not is a solid script, solid acting, and characters that you actually want to see prevail. In fact, it is the characters of TCJ that make the movie such a treat. From the innocent Cherry (played by daytime legend Tracey Bregman) to the sexy, but compelling top dog Cat (played by Star Trek and another daytime vet Barbara Luna), these characters take the viewer on a journey of life inside a women's prison. From her harsh arrival to her ultimate release, Cherry guides the viewers on the story of an innocent girl set up by her boyfriend to carry drugs into the county and end up in a prison where the guards are just as bad as the cons. And speaking of authority, Jill St. John portrays Warden Fletcher and what a fantastic character! Brutal rapes, a charming friendship, an obsessed lesbian who happens to be the prison top dog, and a corrupt warden who is running a lucrative drug business with the help of the prisoners, TCJ is a great film and one you will enjoy watching. And what makes it so special is that you will remember watching it and want to watch it again.

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.