Violence in a Woman's Prison
Italy/France 1982. Director: Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei)
Cast: Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Lorraine De Selle, Franca Stoppi
Aka: Violenza da un Carcere Femminile

Shot back-to-back with Blade Violent, Violence in a Woman's Prison is plotwise more of a straight women-in-prison melodrama in the lines of The Concrete Jungle and such. Laura Gemser plays yet another Emanuelle, a reporter after a scoop about the bad conditions in a prison run by sadistic warden Lorraine De Selle. She is exposed, locked up in a cell together with hundreds of hungry dirty rats and eventually manages to escape with nice doctor Gabriele Tinti. Extremely kinky as expected with Mattei (credited as his usual "Vincent Dawn") managing to stage a somewhat bizarre art rape-scene which looks like something from a Tinto Brass movie, where the warden and her lover gets horny while watching a girl being raped and beaten up by male inmates. Oh yes, there are male inmates here too. There are some funny scenes, mostly involving the gay males, but for most of its running time Violence sticks to the old clichés of the genre. There is, though, a degrading, strangely dirty tone throughout the film that I don't feel comfortable with, perhaps it reminds me too much of Jess Franco's similar movies. On the plus side Lorraine De Selle is great as the evil warden and there's another loud good soundtrack by Luigi Ceccarelli. All in all, though, not one of Mattei's best films. If you can choose, go for the more entertaining Blade Violent instead.