CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Uriah43 After being wrongly accused of prostitution "Marie" (Maria Rohm ) is sent to an extremely harsh island prison known as the "Castle of Death" which is run by a sadistic director named "Thelma Diaz" (Mercedes McCambridge) and her immediate supervisor "Governor Santos" (Herbert Lom). While there she is subjected to all kinds of abuse which includes both torture and rape. However, her hopes of being treated decently are revived when a new director by the name of "Leonie Caroll" (Maria Schell) arrives and appears to have the interests of the prisoners in mind. Now, rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that as far as Women-in-Prison (WIP) movies are concerned this one wasn't too bad. Admittedly, the addition of several beautiful women like Luciana Paluzzi (as "Natalie Mendoza"), Rosalba Neri ("Zoie"), Elisa Montes ("Helga") and the aforementioned Maria Rohm and Maria Schell had much to do with this assessment but that's an important ingredient with movies of this type anyway. Additionally, having established actors like Herbert Lom and Mercedes McCambridge helped as well. On the other hand there was at least one particular scene which the director (Jesus Franco) probably intended to be artistic but totally bungled as it was much too dark and blurry. Likewise, the film seemed to lack continuity from one scene to another which also lessened the overall quality to some degree. On a side note I should probably add that there are several versions of this movie out on the market and at least one of these has an X-rating. So viewer caution is advised. Along with that I should probably also point out that the movie I saw was filmed in French with English subtitles in case some viewers might need to know as well. In short, while this movie clearly isn't Academy Award winning material it still wasn't terribly bad and I rate it as only slightly below average.

Scarecrow-88 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.

Michael_Elliott 99 Women (1969) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Director's Cut One of the first WIP (Women in Prison) films deals with an innocent girl (Maria Rohm) being sent to prison where she has run ins with the wicked warden (Mercedes McCambridge) as well as a woman (Maria Schell) out to make the prison a better place. This was directed by Jess Franco who was still in his serious film-making days where he was actually producing higher budgeted, better looking films. The movie is decent enough but I prefer Franco's later, more sleazier efforts like Barbed Wire Dolls, Women in Cellblock 9 and Sadomania.

Coventry Does the world really need all these 'Women in Prison' flicks? The legendary director Jess Franco apparently seemed to think so, because almost half of the titles that fall under this category are his. There's also a lot of variation in this questionable sub genre of cult-cinema - largely determined by how old they are - as most of them are really nasty and exploitative whereas some (the pioneers mainly) are more sensual and emphasizing on the drama-elements. "99 Women", at least the original non-hardcore version, got released during the earliest stage of "W.I.P" madness and thus Franco was still clearly 'exploring' how far he could go with inserting lesbian sleaze and brutal whippings. The later ones are a non-stop series of tasteless sex and raw violence, but this film actually has a remotely decent script and an above-average amount of stylish elements. A small island in the Pacific Ocean serves as a gigantic prison, with a fort for women in one corner and one for men in the other. Female prisoners n° 97, 98 and 99 arrive one morning by boat and they immediately meet the sadistic head warden Thelma and the sleazy Governor Santos. The girls are punished and put in isolation cells for no reason and lethal 'accidents' appear to be a regular routine. Just because so many prisoners die, the government sends a new female principal to the island. She makes efforts to befriend the prisoners, particularly the beautiful & innocent Marie, but the wicked old headmistress constantly boycotts her. "99 Women" isn't the most exciting movie ever, as many sequences are dreadfully slow and pointless, and there's a serious lack of continuity. The locations are very nice looking and the photography is occasionally even elegant, but sadly it's all just an empty package. If you don't purchase the X-rated version, you won't have much sleazy goodness to admire. "99 Women" is incredibly tame, with only a couple of scarcely dressed women cat-fighting and some lesbian experimenting. The cast is really good, though, with the ravishing regular Franco-nymphs Maria Rohm ("The Bloody Judge", "Eugenie") and Rosalba Neri ("Amuck!", "Lady Frankenstein") playing likable characters. Herbet Lom is awesome as the fiendish, nudity-obsessed (can you blame him?) governor. Mainly just recommended to Francophiles.