Susan Dey plays an incredibly naive teenager who hitches a ride with a disturbed boy she barely knows and ends up in a girls' reform school after a botched robbery. As her parents and her lawyer fight to free her, she resists joining either of the two main gangs, but gravitates toward the "good" gang led by Edith Diaz. She incurs the wrath of the other gang led by Suzie Elene, a seemingly sweet Asian girl, who besides being an inveterate brown-noser and snitch, is also a vicious killer. A ridiculous number of the young inmates are killed and maimed before the authorities finally take notice of what is going on.
This is made-for-TV women-in-prison (WIP) movie, so naturally it is not as sleazy as the theatrical women-in-prison flicks--there are no shower scenes or lesbian scenes and the cat-fights all have fully-clothed combatants. This is not even as sleazy as the contemporary Linda Blair made-for-TV WIP movie "Born Innocent" (where Blair infamously gets assaulted by a toilet brush). Of course, some of these American made-for-TV movies like "Nightmare in Badham County" were released in a somewhat stronger version in Europe, so I'm still looking for a lost "European version" of this where Dey gets thrown naked into the "hole" with special guest star "Marcia Brady" and they have to drink the sweat off each others bodies just to stay hydrated. . .
Seriously though, this movie does have several things going for it. Dey was never known for lighting up the screen with her acting, but she was about the prettiest girl on American TV in early 70's (I suspect she was cast on "The Partridge Family" mainly because she was one of the few girls around prettier than David Cassidy) and she makes an appealing heroine. Suzie Elene is also a very nice surprise, considering she is mostly known for a particularly sleazy appearance in the sleazy 70's sexploitation flick "Revenge of the Cheerleaders". And the supporting cast includes the ill-fated Lani O'Grady ("Eight Is Enough") and future comedienne Anne Bloom. This definitely worth seeing if you like WIP and/or 70's made-for TV movies.
