The Big Bust-Out

I recently watched the Italian 🇮🇹 women-in-prison drama The Big Bust-Out (1972) on Prime. The storyline follows a group of incarcerated women who hatch a plan to escape, only to discover that life on the outside may be even tougher than life behind bars.

Directed by Ernst Ritter von Theumer (Jungle Warriors), the film stars Tony Kendall (Kill Me Gently), Vonetta McGee (Repo Man), Gordon Mitchell (Atlas Against the Cyclops), and Margaret Rose Keil (The Police Are Blundering in the Dark).

This is one of those films where you quickly sense the storyline is recycled-and done better elsewhere. The acting and dialogue do just enough to carry the film from one nude scene to the next, but there's little emotional depth, leaving you uninvested in the characters. The breakout sequence is serviceable, and the ending and action scenes are underwhelming. There's plenty of nudity and attractive women, as expected for the genre, but little else to recommend.

In conclusion, The Big Bust-Out is a below-average entry in the women-in-prison genre. I'd rate it a 4/10.

At a women's prison (presumably in either Algeria or Morocco) seven female convicts decide to escape due to the abusive treatment they receive at the hands of their jailers. So they eagerly accept an offer from a nun named "Sister Maria" (Monica Teuber) to work at the local convent. Once at the convent they overpower the guards and take the nun with them to a local house where one of their friends named "Nada" (Vonetta McGee) has agreed to house them temporarily. Unfortunately, Nada's boyfriend betrays them and sells all of them (including Nada) into slavery. However, once they are transported to the coast the pilot of the ship "Jeff" (Tony Kendall) refuses to have anything to do with it and after a gunfight he and the eight women escape by truck into the desert. From here on out they are hunted by the police, the nearby French army garrison, slave traders and Arab bandits who all want the women for one reason or another. So much for the plot. As far as the movie is concerned I liked the overall premise and I thought Margaret Rose Keil (as "Gail"), Nuccia Cardinali (as "Inga") and the aforementioned Monica Teuber and Vonetta McGee, were quite attractive. However, I must admit that the film was badly edited and the action scenes could have used more attention to detail. I should also add that there is quite a bit of violence and nudity in this movie in case anybody might need to know. In any case, while this certainly isn't the best "women-in-prison" movie ever made it managed to pass the time and I rate it as about average.

Also known as, Crucified Girls of San Ramon, although I don't know why and 3 bastards and 7 Sinners on my copy, this had great trash potential but was ultimately just too much for director, Ernest R von Theumer, who was more used to producing. Much is seemingly filmed on exotic locations which are presumably Middle Eastern but certainly a mix of beautiful and bleak and with numerous extras and a pack of horses to deal with this must have become quite an enterprise. Anyway, apart from the arduous scenes as an excellent, Tony Kendall leads his ladies across the inhospitable landscape, there is time for naked frolics, rape, torture and flogging - so its not all boring stuff! Gordon Mitchell is effective, though somewhat over the top, as his arch opponent and there is much fighting and shooting. The girls get a go with the guns too so plenty of variety as the story which had begun in a prison, pops into a nunnery skirts the spaghetti western genre and toys with the white slave trade, really just ends up one big punch up.

I am not a great user of this kind of European crap. But, honestly, I have already seen worse. There is no real length in this fast paced and action packed yarn. But it's senseless and totally unbelievable. You can find, in this one, nudity, sadism, brutality; all gratuitous, of course.

I like girls with guns stories, and this one is rather effective. Even if I may prefer A GUN FOR JENNIFER or SET IT OFF.

Don't forget it's a film made in 1972, and produced between Italy and Germany. This kind of features, there were hundreds of them.

You've understood that it's not my cup of tea to talk about movies like this. I just do it because I had it in my hands and it seems no user had commented it yet. So, it's done.

But if you may like this kind of films, don't hesitate. Get it.

(1972) The Big Bust-Out/ Io monaca... per tre carogne e sette peccatrici DUBBED Italian sleaze movie to which the dubbed American version is 20 minutes shorter, the version I saw had a running time of 1hour and 10 minutes.

Upon reading the synopsis, it says 7 different women escaped, but it is like upon watching it, it was sometimes 7 and sometimes 8 different women who managed to escape- first away from authorities/ prison, and then from a human trafficker named Bob. Co-written and directed by Richard Jackson aka Ernst Ritter von Theumer that opens with a group of women selected from a middle eastern and Arabian women's prison to help and aid a nun, Sister Maria (Monica Teuber). And while the army was there, some of the guards take advantage of the situation by attempting to assault some of the women. It was at that point, they would then steal their weapons and escape to a human trafficker, )Bob (William Berger). And while the women are bathing naked in the gigantic bath pool, they are then taken hostage before they manage to escape again. And this time, the escaped women manage to be helped and supported by an idealist, Jeff Robinson (Tony Kendall). To which he promises them to lead them across the border, and during their journey he builds the most rapport with a young escapee, Inga (Nuccia Cardinali).

As I had mentioned earlier, some parts of the movie is inconsistent where, there were scenes where there were 7 different women escaping and then their were other times there were eight. Other examples, is when some of the women were heavily armed and then the next thing we know only one of them had a machine gun on them. And although their is plenty of nudity, it was non erotic nor did I think the women were attractive. The ending was one of the most inconsistent where viewers are given the presumption Bob was just after the money and then went nuts! Go figure!