Terminal Island (Stephanie Rothman, 1973)
Three months into the year and there still hasn't been a 2022 film to have me geeked for (did quite enjoy Hellbender, though). However, an oldie but goodie which I happened to discover this year is Stephanie Rothman's Terminal Island (1973), aka Knuckle-Men. The only other Rothman film I had seen prior to this was The Velvet Vampire (1971); a desert set vampire tale for New World Pictures. Rothman was a talented film maker and much like some of New Hollywood's notable directors, caught her break under the umbrella of producer Roger Corman. Disillusioned with the trappings of working on exploitation film, she went to Dimension Productions, Inc. with the assumption she would get the opportunity to make more intellectual films; turned out she was wrong, but we did get Terminal Island in the process.
Released in the very same year as Franklin J. Schaffner's Papillon, the prison island movie was hardly a new concept, but a draw to movie going crowds, nonetheless. Aside from a bunch of buxom women in daisy dukes, what appealed to me the most about Terminal Island were the two communities vying for power: one large camp ruled by Bobby, a tyranical despot, played by the actor who happened to be the disfigured Christopher Pike from the O.G. Star Trek (1965-1969), while the other camp consists of a nomadic handful of hippie blokes. In terms of writing, Terminal Island does have some notable similarites with the likes of John Carpenter's Escape From New York (1981) and Escape From L.A. (1996), even more so with Martin Campbell's underrated No Escape (1994). It's concept of a not too distant future where capital punishment no longer exists and thus murderers are sent to spend their rest of their lives to survive in the bush on a remote island, piques my interest greatly.
The film's cast is mostly composed of past and future cult TV actors: Don Marshal from Land of the Giants (1968-1970); Marta Kristen from Lost in Space (1965-1968); and Ena Hartman from Don August (1970-1971). There's also Elvis' sidepiece, Barbara Leigh, fresh from Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner (1972) and no stranger to prison films, Sweet Sugar (1972) herself, Phyllis Davis. Biggest name of all however is the moustachioed private dick Tom Selleck from Magnum, P. I. (1980-1988), who also happens to have his hench chopper pilot mate, T.C. (Roger E. Mosley) in tow. Kind of ironic how Tom Selleck's character, a junkie doctor wrongfully sentenced to the prison island, also happened to play another innocent man framed by crooked cops and sent to jail in the imaginatively titled An Innocent Man (1989), although not so innocent anymore after the shank scene, innit? A baptism of fire significantly reflected afterwards with Selleck's slicked back hairstyle. The rest of the cast of Terminal Island are your hirsute looking bunch of extras you would expect to see from the seventies; looking like their hair grooming took inspiration from either Tommy Iommi or Peter Sutcliffe as the de facto styles of choice.
Part survival drama, part actioner, this film has plenty to hold me down. With the insurmountable amount of denim on a par with Stezo's Crazy Noise levels on screen and modern day pots and pans, you could be forgiven for thinking it's a post-apocalyptic movie and these are the last vestiges of mankind. Also, prison island movies tend to feel less claustrophobic in comparison to their big slammer counterparts, so they tend to exude a different viewing experience altogether to a degree. It sets itself apart from similar movies that Jack Hill was delivering for Corman's New World Pictures, too. Not that I'm adverse to Hill's prison jungle films, it's just that Rothman's film has a different perspective altogether, despite the obvious visual and contextual similarities between them.
After a violent battle between the two warring factions, which results in a surprisingly high bodycount and a storage hut being blown up, peace finally descends upon Terminal Island. The survivors are now a friendlier bunch and working together. The closing scene of Milford's (Selleck) discovery that he has been acquitted for the crime he was wrongfully sentenced for and his choice to stay on the island, is a similar level of social commentary posed by Carpenter's Escape from L.A; freedom was there all along, or what have you. In the end damnation has become salvation for our motley crew of murderers. Good, innit?
I feel Terminal Island gets wrongfully boxed in with one of the more controversial subgenres in exploitation cinema - the W.i.P. film (aka Women in Prison). They were a popular style of film which usually abided to the formula: new girl is sent to a penetentiary; an alpha female runs the inmates; torture and murder; explicit nudity; possible lesbian romance; a sadistic warden; and of course, the inevitable prison breakout. They may be problematic in today's times, but if Dada Debaser is ever forced to choose a hill to die on, then it might as well go all out with Chained Heat (1983); part of the almost back-to-back Linda Blair classics trifecta from the eighties. Although Rothman's film does contain some nudity, it's rarely for salacious reasons, it's more so to highlight how the female characters are objectified and repugnantly forced into a life of sexual slavery by Bobby to keep his camp running. They're effectively treated as a commodity in his hippie commune. It's worth noting, once they're rescued from the nomadic rival group, the women are placed on an even pedestal to their male brethren - the daisy dukes are no more and bellbottom jeans become the legwear of choice. In any case, I heartily recommend Terminal Island, since it's one of those surprise films that delivered on many levels for me.
EDIT: Can't believe I had to rewrite this review after taking forever to get it done the first time. Blogger auto saved a small change I had made and suddenly the whole review disappeared. F**K!
3 comments:
There is nothing series than a woman's arse in a pair of Levi's Daisy Dukes.
Not seen this but I vaguely know of it from some Time Square grandiose classics book I have.
I've only seen two 2022 movies but I liked them both: Boiling Point and Red Rocket.
Amen to that.
Only liked Hellbender so far, but it's hardly worthy of making any end of year lists, or anything.
Really want to see Ti West's new film X, as it looks promising. Bound to be better than some of the 2022 dreck I've watched so far. Foo Fighters movie being one of them.
The John Carpenter theme he did for the film is pretty cool, though. Makes a brief cameo in it, too.
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