Lieux Dressler ("Kingdom of the Spiders") plays Anna, an enterprising sort of woman who runs a prostitution and hijacking business out of a truck stop. And business is definitely good. Good enough that the Eastern mob steps in, determined to have a piece of that pie. Unfortunately, what's working against Anna is that her daughter Rose (drive-in goddess Claudia Jennings, "Gator Bait") is rebellious and making time with the enemy.There is no shortage of colorful and seedy characters in this lively example of the drive-in movie genre. The script by Paul Deason and producer-director Mark L. Lester ("Class of 1984", "Commando") nicely sets up a bunch of stirring action set pieces and a respectable level of sleaze. One can hardly fail to notice how often Ms. Jennings shows off the goods. The film also has a decent sense of humor and is on occasion serious without ever getting TOO serious. It's extremely well shot in Techniscope widescreen by John Arthur Morrill, and features a flavorful assortment of music composed by Big Mack & The Truckstoppers. It begins with a bang - several, actually - and there's rarely a let-up until the abrupt and downbeat conclusion.Jennings delivers a standout performance, but the entire main cast is engaging: Dressler as the fiery Anna, John Martino (Paulie Gatto in "The Godfather") as mafia goon Mr. Smith, Paul Carr ("Brute Corps") as the easygoing Seago, Dennis Fimple ("House of 1000 Corpses") as worry-wart Curly, Gene Drew ("Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw") as the ornery Mac, Jennifer Burton as Tina, Dolores Dorn ("The Candy Snatchers") as Trish, Len Lesser ('Seinfeld') as the playful Winter, and stunt coordinator "Speed" Stearns as Smiths' flunky Rusty.In general, this is agreeable formula entertainment: fast-paced, fairly violent, sexy, and funny. Good fun for fans of the genre.Seven out of 10.

"Anna" (Lieux Dressler) operates a truck stop in rural New Mexico which doubles as a small brothel. She and her daughter, "Rose" (Claudia Jennings) have also taken up hijacking some of the trucks and selling the cargo to some organized racketeers in Los Angeles. However, because they are so successful other racketeers decide to move in and take over. And they won't take "no" for an answer. What they fail to realize is just how adamant Anna is about keeping what is hers and the plans that Rose has for the truck stop once her mother finally relinquishes it to her. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it was a bit heavy on action but rather light on reality. Of course, as a grade-B, drive-in movie it was never meant to be taken seriously anyway so I guess that's okay. Be that as it may, the acting wasn't great and it was clearly lacking in badly needed drama and suspense. Even so, Claudia Jennings looked great and the surprise twist at the end certainly didn't hurt either. Unfortunately, neither of these assets were enough to adequately zero-out the balance sheet and I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.

With her lovely, delicately sculpted face, lustrous long red hair, sparkling blue eyes, slender, shapely figure, ceaseless vivacity, and strong, assertive, engaging personality, the late, great, much-missed former "Playboy" Playmate of the Year turned surprisingly good actress Claudia Jennings was undoubtedly the Venus of delightfully low-rent nickel'n'dime white-trash 70's grind-house grunge -- and quite possibly the Ultimate Drive-In Movie Goddess. Her untimely, unfortunate death at the tragically young age of 29 -- she was hit head-on by a truck while driving her car en route to an audition for a part in a film which might have crossed her over into the mainstream -- has left a yawning void that no other actress could even begin to fill.Luckily, Claudia left behind a most formidable legacy of top-rate Me Decade exploitation bilge, with such gloriously greasy'n'grungy goodies as "'Gatorbait," "Unholy Rollers," "The Great Texas Dynamite Chase," and this choice chunk of righteously raucous'n'raunchy sleaze-ball fun doing their part to keep Claudia's legend alive in $.99 cent two night rental bin eternity. Claudia's in peak spitfire, take-charge, no-bulls**t form here as Rose, a spoiled rotten little strumpet b**ch who wants to take over the highly successful restaurant cum prostitution, car-jacking and smuggling ring that's sternly run by her equally redoubtable, domineering, tough-minded mother Aunt Anna (a rip-snorting slice of fat, juicy, lip-licking prime A-cut ham from veteran soap opera actress Lieux Dressler, who also popped up in the indispensable fright film favorites "Grave of the Vampire" and "Kingdom of the Spiders"). Rose hooks up with a couple of slick'n'slimy Mafia hoods in order to take over Aunt Anna's prosperous, eminently desirable and highly illegal operation, with the whole thing culminating in a bitterly ironic mother/daughter gunslinger-style showdown which actually transpires in a dusty, desolate abandoned ghost town! Spirited, rowdy and immensely good-natured despite its scuzzy subject matter, "Truck Stop Women" makes for an insanely enjoyable affair that's loaded with all the right eager and aiming to please exploitation feature ingredients, namely ample gratuitous female nudity (Claudia in particular looks completely stunning sans shirt), shoot-outs, bloody rub-outs (watch for the scene where two dastardly fellows get trampled to death by irate cows!), double and triple crosses, a suitably lowbrow sense of rollicking, trashed-out humor, a hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-frying-pan "liberated women gleefully stick it to smug sexist oppressive dudes" feminist subtext (almost all the gals in this one use and abuse unsuspecting patsy guys for their own greedy self-serving reasons), deliciously ludicrous plot twists, and more gear-grinding, smoke-spewing, rubber-roasting full-throttle stomp on the gas mondo destructo truck chases than you can shake a rusty monkey wrench at. Highlights include one 18-wheeler taking the almighty plunge off a steep embankment and the corrupt, corpulent gutbucket sheriff having his beloved police car turned into an asphalt flapjack by a speeding Semi.Director/co-screenwriter Mark ("Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw," "Class of 1984") Lester pumps the pace into hyper-kinetic overdrive and allows the infectiously enthusiastic actors to cheerfully emote their crazed heads off. Tubby sourpuss Gene Drew and scrawny goof-ball Dennis Fimple supply hilariously bumbling'n'fumbling comic relief as Aunt Anna's inept flunkies, John Martino lets the smarmy charm ooze freely as an excessively oily sludgewad mobster, familiar 70's TV movie face Paul Carr appears as a character so shady he even gets his own cheesy recurrent spaghetti Western-style twangy guitar theme, and generously over-proportioned Russ Meyer starlet Uschi Digard proudly displays her substantial wares as a perpetually topless truck stop trollop. The steady succession of blow-your-speakers-out boisterous country music from both the fantastic Rod Hart (the theme song's a real doozy) and the simply stupendous Big Mack and the Truckstoppers seriously smokes. All in all, what we've got here is a bona-fide four-star both thumbs way up 70's drive-in celluloid landmark of tremendous cultural importance and artistic integrity, meaning that it's flat-out mindless trash with absolutely no pretense or delusions of grandeur to speak of.

A great piece of early 70's film: this gem has it all.Some special moments:•The beautiful Claudia Jennings in go-go boots or naked throughout most of the film!•The truckin' music video inserted about mid film!•The overt violence peppered throughout (from the opening execution in a bathtub, to the final battle featuring machine gun toting hookers and lots of tragic death)... all set to some great CB-era country music and a few bit that they had left over from "Land of the Lost"!•The southern New Mexico locations that cradle our heroes in their struggle!•The turncoat, Seago, getting trampled by 30 head of cattle in the back of a weaving truck!Any way you slice it, this movie has it all. Sex, violence, bad acting, found locations, and a wacky plot that just keeps coming. I watch it often and inflict it on friends as a sort of, "bad-movie baptism".As long as I can watch Truck Stop Women, Gator Bait, and Unholy Rollers, Ms. Jennings will not be forgotten.