Caged Heat is a genre film that explores the oppression of women through the lens of prison life. Through this microcosm, Demme's film offers subtle social commentary on gender inequality and the inability of the prison system to properly rehabilitate its inmates. At the time, the women-in-prison sub-genre was going out of fashion, but Demme elevates his B picture with his ingenuity and attention to detail. Caged Heatis firmly tongue-in-cheek with all the elements that made the classic Corman formula: nudity, violence and action. It's voyeuristic with the women in various states of undress, and it depicts horrifying forms of physical and mental torture including solitary confinement, electroshock therapy and lobotomy, making the prisoners' eventual mutiny all that more satisfying.
The movie boasts an almost all-female cast and stars Erica Gavin as Jacqueline Wilson, a new inmate serving jail time for being an accessory to a crime during a drug bust. Her fellow inmates include Maggie (Juanita Brown), who sits atop the prison's social hierarchy; Belle (Roberta Collins), the resident kleptomaniac; Pandora (Ella Reid), an inmate put into solitary confinement under harsh conditions; and Lavelle (Rainbeaux Smith), a lifer accused of killing the son of a government official after he raped her friend. The prison is led by a sadistic, wheelchair-bound superintendent McQueen (Barbara Steele) and a deranged and sex-obsessed Dr. Randolph (Warren Miller). The cast is primarily made up of B-movie and genre actresses who had short careers in Hollywood. The film's star Erica Gavin made only six films, including the genre classic Vixen! (1968), and left Hollywood for good after making Caged Heat to become a stylist and personal shopper. Barbara Steele, best known for making Italian horror films, had taken a break from acting and Caged Heat was her return to movies.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Demme said, "I asked Roger [Corman] if there was any chance of directing, and he said, 'Okay, write a women's prison movie.'" At New World Pictures in those days, the titles and release dates were set before there was even a script. Roger made sure that he could book a women's prison movie in thousands of theaters, and then he'd say, "Okay, we better make this." Caged Heat was made on a tight schedule and for a budget of $180,000, much of which Demme raised himself. Originally called Renegade Women, the final title was inspired by two classic movies in particular: director John Cromwell's women in prison drama Caged (1950) starring Eleanor Parker and director Raoul Walsh's film noir White Heat (1949) starring James Cagney. Demme and Corman would go on to work on a few more projects together but eventually Demme graduated from B-movie production. The two stayed lifelong friends and Corman played small roles in Demme's films: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director, Philadelphia (1993), The Manchurian Candidate (2004) and Rachel Getting Married (2008).
Caged Heat was a success for New World Pictures. According to Demme biographer Michael Bliss, "In a somewhat formulaic women's prison picture, Demme is aided by the fact that the genre brings with it so many ideas concerning oppression and sexual exploitation that he has a firm base on which to structure his film." Caged Heat offered viewers all the classic elements of an exploitation film they enjoyed, in particular sex and sadistic violence, and added social critique that was both timely and relevant. It doesn't take itself or its audience too seriously and in the decades since, its release has become a cult classic among genre and exploitation film fans.
By Raquel Stecher
