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.
