Caged Heat [DVD] [1974]

Considered the quintessential "girls in prison" flick of the 1970s, novice director Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat is set in a hellish American woman's penitentiary run by vicious, wheelchair-bound Barbara Steele. Statuesque convict Erica Gavin is forced to undergo horrible (but legal) tortures when she is falsely accused of trying to escape. Gavin and fellow con Juanita Brown decide to make a real break, but return to prison to rescue a friend who is about to be lobotomized by the sadistic prison doctor. Then they stage a robbery, only to find a group of male robbers at the bank ahead of them. A final shootout in the prison yards brings the film to a bloody climax. Caged Heat was also released under the title Renegade Girls.~Hal Erickson