Thunder County

The budget for "Thunder County" appears to have been about $100...and most of that went to pay for Mickey Rooney in a very small and unimportant scene. Appearing in craptastic films wasn't unusual for Rooney in the later part of his film career. Provided the check cleared, he'd appear in anything...and this film clearly falls in the 'anything' category!

The film has very little in the way of plot and sets. There are two stories that eventually intersect. The first is a women in prison movie...with the stereotypical women in prison cliches and a prison that looks like it was actually a storage facility or a closet. Well, soon four of the inmates escape and head to the Florida swamps. At the same time, some hoods meet to sell drugs to a middleman...and they end up in the same swamp as the women. What happens next you can see for yourself...but I wouldn't recommend it!

The film looks amateurish throughout and many of the film don't appear to be actors. Oddly, the filmmakers did hire Ted Cassidy (Lurch from "The Addams Family") and Rooney...but Rooney performed what seemed like a walk-on whereas Cassidy was the boss of the baddies. But neither was particularly good and they weren't given a lot to do. The story also is pretty boring and it was very difficult for me to stick with the movie because it was so badly written. In fact, I'm not even sure there was a script!

My father was cast in this movie as Siciliano, which is his real name Warren Siciliano. His primary occupation was in martial arts which he developed the style called Karado Karate. I was very young when he shot this movie and I was thrilled to meet most of the stars in it. A couple of tidbits: The Lincoln Mark 4 used in the movie was his personal car, the car I used when I first learned to drive. He also instructed the actors how to fight in the fight scenes. The woman who flipped the bodyguard in the swamp and some of Chris Robinson's moves as well. He passed away on October 31, 1976

I saw this movie on tv on a Saturday. We all know the quality of movies shown on Saturdays. This one was quite a lot worse even than the ones shot with one hand-held camera in which the cast and crew all (both?) have the same last name.

The best part of the movie is the brief S&M relationship between Ted Cassidy and one of the prisoners. He beats her up, she enjoys it, he kills her.

I didn't say it was a good part. It was horrible.

I don't know why Mickey Rooney was in this movie. He must have been in serious financial trouble.

Don't watch this movie unless you need your stomach pumped and would prefer an emetic.

Thunder County (1974)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Four women break out of prison and make their escape through the Florida swamps. The bad news is that criminal lord Cabrini (Ted Cassidy) and his goons are in the same swamp and soon they take the women hostage but one of the goons (Chris Robinson) begins to have feelings for one of the ladies.

THUNDER COUNTY, which has been released under quite a few names, is your typical no-budget film that would have played drive-in screens throughout the South back in the day. For the most part this is part women-in-prison, part crime drama and part romance but sadly all three are so watered down that there's really not too much here that is overly memorable.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it's all rather predictable and there's not an inch of originality yet this is hampered even more by the fact that there's no violence, no nudity and not too much action. For the most part director Robinson did a good job at making this feel like a professional movie but at the same time the screenplay really needed to have a shot of some exploitation to make it more entertaining.

I really enjoyed the swamp setting so they had plenty of elements that they could have worked with including a crazy rapist redneck but even this sequence is so tame that you have to wonder what the point of even having it was. Cassidy is actually pretty good in the lead role and it's too bad he's not given even more screen time or allowed to become really dark. The supporting players are decent for a film like this. Mickey Rooney gets the second billing and appears briefly in a role that probably had him on set for just a day.

The director's next film, THE INTRUDER, would be lost for over forty-years before being discovered and released. Fans of that film will be interested in this one because it shares a lot of the same cast and crew but there's no question that this is the weaker of the two titles.

The movie starts with four female convicts escaping from a Florida prison and trying to outrun the police as they venture deep into the swamp. There, they meet a redneck who escaped from prison five years earlier and sometimes works for a mobster named "Mr. Cabrini" (Ted Cassidy). As luck would have it, Cabrini is involved in a drug deal and must go into the swamp with two of his men and the courier to exchange heroin for money. When they reach their destination, they discover the four escaped women, and things quickly become complicated. To avoid spoiling the film for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that the premise was good, but the execution fell short in several key areas. First, the character development was weak, leading to confusion about the identities of several female characters. Additionally, poor editing gave the film a choppy feel. In short, this movie could have used some improvements, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.