Sid Haig Week: The Big Doll House

Well hello there folks and welcome to Sid Haig Week and what say we start this off right and classy??   So of course as we should kick this week off with a women in prison flick of course.  Yes the delights of a tropical locale of unknown origin, lesbian forceful guards, corrupt warlord and the horrors of addiction and political affiliation.   This is The Big Doll House.

Girl, you know I'm foxy.

Grear: You son of a spoiler! This is for Bodine,  You're rotten, Harry.  You know why?  'Cos you're a man.  All men are filthy.




This film is typical one of the cliche filmed in the Phillippines and yet held in some republic in South America.  Collier (Judith Brown of Threesome, Women in Cages, Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, Willie Dynamite, A Woman for All Men, International Assassin and House Calls) arrives to the prison with four other women as she is in for killing for her husband.  With the different personalities, cultures, and races there are constant fights during dinner which constantly tortured or disciplined lead guard Lucian (Kathyrn Loder of A Cry of Angels, The Big Doll House, Night of the Witches, Foxy Brown and Far Out Space Nuts) and Miss Dietrich (Christiane Schmidtmer of Stop Train 349, Ship of Fools, Boeing, Boeing, Scream, Pretty Peggy, Airport 1975, The Specialist, Half a House and The Giant Spider Invasion) the head warden couldn't be bothered to care one iota.

Damn girl, why ya gots to be cruel?

They have had enough of the abuse.  Her cellmates Alcott (Roberta Collins of Women in Cages, Sweet Kill, The Unholy Rollers, The Roommates, Wonder Women, Caged Heat, Three the Hard Way and Alias Big Cherry) and Bodine (Pat Woodell of 77 Sunset Strip, Petticoat Junction, Bunny and Claude: We Rob Carrot Patches, Class of '74, The Roommates and The Woman Hunt) agreed to help break out.  They need the aid of Grear (Pam Grier of Women in Cages, Cool Breeze, The Twillight People, Hit Man, Black Mama White Mama, Coffy, The Arena, Foxy Brown, Bucktown, Miami Vice and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) to coerce the other guards and use these two men who brought market produce and Fred (Jerry Franks of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and The Big Doll House)  and Harry (Our boy Sid Haig of Forty Days of Musa Dagh, The Fall Guy, Misfits of Science, Commando Squad and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II) end up reluctantly helping them escape with arms.

A few comments to make at this time.

Jack Hill brings $125,000 as a budget and managed to gross over ten million dollars and amusingly 3 million in VHS rentals.  This was Pam Grier's first big acting role.   Because Brooke Mills (Harrad of The Big Doll House) was a trained ballet dancer. Hill added a dance sequence just to capture her on film.

 The infamous line "Get it up or I'll cut it off" line was improvised by Jack Hill and Robert Collins making this psychotic glance in her eye wielding a knife and nailed it. The line that is.

Hey, I am talking to you!