Theoretically speaking, nothing should be simpler and more straightforward than (s)exploitation movies from the 1970s! The title should pretty much summarize the entire plot and furthermore there should only be a lot of sleaze, violence, naked women and filthy male pigs. Show the movie poster of "Chain Gang Women" to 100 neutral persons, and at least 99 of them will estimate that it's a by-the-numbers "Women in Prison" (WIP) grindhouse/exploitation effort. But this is where Lee Frost and Wes Bishop fooled us all! "Chain Gang Woman" is NOT a 'women in prison' flick. Heck, it's not even a regular prison thriller but a sort of dreadfully boring prison musical! The seemingly never-ending first half of the film exists of nothing but footage of male prisoners working in the middle of Georgia nowhere to the sound of dire country music songs. Eventually there's an outbreak, but don't start hoping for any action or rancid sleaze just yet. There are only 2 (TWO!) women in this dumb movie and sadly they confirm all the ghastly rape fantasy cliches. None of the male protagonists has any macho charisma, neither of the females has any sex-appeal and the entire film is boring, boring, boring... There are literally hundreds of worthwhile 70s exploitation classics out there, and numerous of them actually feature the stuff that you expected to see in "Chain Gang Women", so please don't waste your precious time on this dreck.

I watched CHAIN GANG WOMEN as part of BCI Eclipse' Drive-in Cult Classics (featuring Crown International Pictures releases) on DVD.From other comments, I'm sure this is the same digital transfer as from Rhino. As such, there is not much to get excited about here. And, as others noted, the title is very misleading.*** SPOILER ALERT, this is the entire premise of the movie *** Boy meets boy in jail. Boys escape; and, boy meets girl.Other boy rapes girl; boys leave girl.Boys find other girl; other boy rapes girl.Girl seduces boy. Husband kills both boys.Girl is miserable.WHAT A STINKER -- though I did like that quad screen effect too.The music was okay; but, it got on my nerves at the end.

Whiny, mellow dope dealer Harris (runty Robert Lott) and moody, scruffy murderer Weed (burly Michael Stearns) are a couple of dangerous no-count criminals. The pernicious pair escapes from a chain gang and go on the lam. Director Lee Frost, who also co-wrote the harsh script, did the fairly polished cinematography (the rousing break out sequence makes inspired use of split screen and freeze frames), and even co-edited the picture, crams a reasonable amount of gratuitous nudity, soft-core sex and raw violence into the flick to ensure that devout grindhouse sleaze movie fans will get their grubby money's worth. In addition, Frost keeps the pace suitably brisk throughout and effectively develops a fiercely hard'n'gritty tone. Porter Jordan's fantastic s**t-kicking hillbilly bluegrass score certainly hits the stirring and spirited spot; the bluesy theme song in particular rates as an absolute hoot. Popping up in nifty secondary roles are Linda York as Harris' lovely, loyal girlfriend Ann, Wes Bishop as trouble-making con Coleman, Bruce Kimball as tubby prison guard Fat Sam, Phil Hoover as a volatile racist Gentry, Ralph Campbell as an ornery farmer, and Barbara Mills as the farmer's lusty, unhappy young wife. Nice downbeat ending, too.

This is a truly dreadful film. Despite its name, it is not a WIP outing. Nor indeed is it a convincing road movie (which I think is what it is trying to be).It takes two guys half an hour to escape their unexciting prison confines, finding their couple of girls- and then that's basically it. Acting is dreadful and unredeemed by any of the usual sexploitation compensations. If you want nudity and violence, then go elsewhere. In fact go elsewhere anyway. On any basis you are wasting your time with this trash.