THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971)

"One of these days, I'm gonna come in here, and ZAP!" "Zap?" "You know, Zap. R-A-P-E: "zap"

While, technically, there were women-in-prison flicks before this one this is the movie that really kick-started the whole cycle thanks to it being a huge drive-in hit when originally released. It was made for Roger Corman's New World Pictures company and he was pretty much disgusted by the more gratuitous content. But you can't argue with success. Pam Grier plays lesbian inmate Grear and Sid Haig plays a sleazy salesman who dreams of getting raped by an inmate some lucky day. You get some mild torture scenes, junkie-dancing, full cavity searches, shower scenes, mud-wrestling and lots of other cat-fighting. Also all these type of movies after this had to have a big food fight scene. Compared to the later WIP pictures, by the likes of Jess Franco and similarly low-brow Italian directors, it is all pretty tame stuff but done well enough by director Jack Hill to be entertaining.  There's a nonsensical bit of dubbing at the end to give the whole movie a sorta happy ending which was apparently forced on the filmmakers for some strange reason. AKA WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY III (VHS release)