GIRL ON A CHAIN GANG (1966) **

Three idealistic college students go down south to help promote voter registration.  The corrupt redneck sheriff, Sonny Lew (William Watson) and his deputies don’t take kindly to “integrated scum” interfering in his hick town and proceed to hassle them.  When the trio refuse to leave town, the sheriff eventually has them arrested on phony charges and throws them in jail.  He then “allows” the two men to escape and guns them down in cold blood, giving him plenty of opportunity to have his way with the lone coed, Jean (Julie Ange).  After a farce of a trial, she is (FINALLY) sentenced to serve time on an all-male chain gang.  

The question here is, do I review this movie based on what it is, or what it promises?  The title, Girl on a Chain Gang, implies that it’s going to be a Women in Prison picture.  The titular girl does go to prison, although it’s a county jail.  However, it takes her nearly the entire running time to get on the goddamn chain gang.  In fact, she doesn’t even get shackled until the last ten minutes or so, and when she does, she doesn’t spend more than thirty seconds on it, as she escapes almost immediately with another convict in tow.  All of this happens in a span of a jump cut, which leads me to believe that much of the footage for the climax was never shot, was lost, or got ruined in the lab.  It’s funny because the first 85 minutes or so are slow and sluggishly paced, but the finale is so all over the place that it’s hard to tell what's happening sometimes.  (The most glaring bit:  The sheriff’s demise.)

Ultimately, Girl on a Chain Gang is more of a deep-fried southern hicksploitation flick than out-and-out Women in Prison movie.  It’s not an altogether bad one either.  It remains watchable, even though it’s wholly predictable.   Too bad it’s never quite sleazy enough to work as exploitation.  

Basically, what we have here is a bait and switch.  I guess that’s to be expected since it was directed by Jerry Gross, a man who made movies like Teenage Mother that had lurid titles and ad campaigns that promised way more than they delivered.  He later famously changed the title of Day of the Woman to the much more exploitative I Spit on Your Grave, gave it a sleazier advertising campaign, and made a killing.  Unfortunately, Girl on a Chain Gang hews closer to Teenage Mother than I Spit on Your Grave in terms of quality.