THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972)

I do not know how I managed to get away with seeing this. COFFY and FOXY BROWN have enough nudity in them to push the already pretty lenient limits around my house, but sometimes being friendly with the comic book store manager is worth it. My dad was pretty shocked when he found out I’d watched this, but he figured that as long as I’d seen it, nothing he could do would make me unsee it, so we had to have a big long talk about it. Yes, dad, I know that it’s not serious. Yes, dad, I know that they’re kind of making fun of the clichés in “Women In Prison” flicks. But it still kicked ass. Just like FOXY and COFFY, this was directed by Jack Hill, whose filmography is full of GREATNESS. Pam Grier gets herself arrested and teams up with a woman on the inside to bust all the women out of prison. Pam’s boyfriend – the always amazing Sid Haig, who is fall-over funny in this! – is a revolutionary who works from the outside to help with the escape. There’s lots of over-the-top violence, really in-bad-taste gay jokes (it was ’72, though, so I can let it slide), LOTS of nudity…and Anitra Ford, who I need to learn more about. Because she’s crazy hot! It’s not as much fun as FOXY or COFFY, but it’s still good.