Filipino Exploitation Cinema The Big Doll House (1971)

They Call Him Chop Suey. They Call Her Cleopatra Wong. They also called them cheap trash. Low-quality American-produced ‘70s movies for kids to make out to in drive-ins and small town cinemas. But they were also some of the most fun films ever to come out of the Philippines. Not that any American teen could’ve cared any less where the movies were filmed as long they had the three Bs in them.
Among foreign films shot in the Philippines, Apocalypse Now is, of course, the most highly acclaimed. Born on the Fourth of July, starring Tom Cruise, is a contender. Most, however, didn’t have notable actors or directors attached to them. (Unless you count Chuck Norris, or cult B movie directors like Roger Corman.)
It was cheap labor, access to film crews and equipment and, in Francis Ford Coppola’s case, helicopters and pilots courtesy of President Ferdinand Marcos, which led low-budget movie producers to come here. The fact that American filmmakers weren’t welcome in post-war Vietnam didn't hurt either.
Standing in for other tropical locations, the filmmakers would often, whether by design or not, obscure their actual settings. The jungles of Quezon province and beaches of Baler became the homes of crazed American doctors, the Viet Cong, even Satan himself. Filipino henchmen’s voices were dubbed to sound stereotypically Chinese, female Filipino prison guards were the “best gunslingers south of Pango Pango,” and black pirates attacked remote Philippine islands. Sometimes, Filipinos remained behind the camera, directing American actors.
The Big Doll House is a 1971 American women-in-prison film starring Pam Grier, Judy Brown, Roberta Collins, Brooke Mills, and Pat Woodell. The film follows six female inmates through daily life in a gritty, unidentified tropical prison. Later the same year, the film Women in Cages featured a similar story and setting and much the same cast, and was shot in the same abandoned prison buildings. A nonsequel follow-up, titled The Big Bird Cage, was released in 1972.
Director: Jack Hill
Writer: Don Spencer
Stars: Pam Grier, Sid Haig, Roberta Collins, Judith Brown