Review: Sweet Sugar

Phyllis Davis is Sugar, a tough young woman on a trumped-up dope charge who is sent to cut sugar cane at some nasty prison plantation deal. There she will lock horns with chief warden Cliff Osmond and a lunatic prison doctor (Angus Duncan) a sadistic pervert conducting bizarro experiments on the women prisoners. Needless to say, escape is on her mind instantaneously. Ellaraino (credited as Ella Edwards) plays a fellow prisoner whose boyfriend (Timothy Brown) is a male prisoner with supposed voodoo powers (!).

 

While it may not overly please fans of the more harsh films in the Women in Prison genre, for me this 1972 Michel Levesque (mostly an art director he also helmed the dreadful “Werewolves on Wheels”) WIP film is one of the better ones. I will admit that some of it makes no sense, security seems wildly uneven at the prison, and Angus Duncan’s experiments seem far too reckless. However, one doesn’t go into a film like this for logic so it’s probably silly to carp that the prisoners get away with too much. Scripted by Don Spencer (“The Big Doll House”) and R.Z. Samuel (no other credits), it’s bizarre and never dull.

 

The key here is Phyllis Davis from “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”, her bitchy attitude makes for an hilariously unlikeable protagonist. The supporting performances by Jackie Giroux (as one of the prisoners) and Angus Duncan are quite stiff, but the latter nonetheless plays one of the more compelling – and completely bonkers – characters in the film. Look out for the hilarious bit where he experiments on cats to bring out their feral side and throws them at the girls. Aside from those two, everyone else is a cut above here, with Cliff Osmond from “Invasion of the Bee Girls” well-cast as the warden, and fun performances by Timothy Brown and sassy Ellaraino.

 

The WIP staples are all here, but this one’s so batshit insane that it stands out among the pack. Good work by Phyllis Davis in the lead helps, too. I kinda liked this one, but I wouldn’t attempt to call it a good film. It’s a good time, though.

 

Rating: B-                       

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