FURY IN THE TROPICS/OUTLAW WOMEN (Jess Franco, 1983-1986)

FURY IN THE TROPICS (1983) was Jess Franco's final attempt at a Women-In-Prison film, a genre which proved commercially successful for him with the release of 99 WOMEN (1969), written and produced by Harry Alan Towers. A hit in America and other territories, it spawned numerous imitations from Europe and other territories, including from Franco himself. It was sometimes double billed with Robert Altman's psycho-thriller THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK (1969) in North American Grindhouses and Drive-ins. Even a decade and a half later both FURY IN THE TROPICS and its reworked version OUTLAW WOMEN (1986), would exhibit numerous plot elements and characters introduced in 99 WOMEN. There were three distinct versions of this film, including the re-edited OUTLAW WOMEN (1986), and a hardcore porn version, ORGASMO PERVERSO, another reworked version which included hardcore material for that market and was released in Spain on video by Valfer Video, according to OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO. According to FLOWERS OF PERVERSION, VOL.2 THE DELIRIOUS CINEMA OF JESS FRANCO neither of the non-hardcore versions found any theatrical release in Spain or anywhere else. In other words, give up all hope of any versions of this obsure project coming out on DVD or Blu-ray. Nonetheless, both of the non-hardcore versions have been available on bootleg VHS from such companies as EUROPEAN TRASH CINEMA VIDEO in the U.S..

The corrupt, sadistic prison Governor (Ricardo Palacios), the even more sadistic prison matron, modeled on Mercerdes McCambridge in 99 WOMEN, the guard who sides with the inmates (Antonio Mayans), they're all here. The huge Palacios has a bestial quality and enjoys raping the inmates in his private office. Not the most brutally sadistic of Franco's WIP's, that would be THE WOMEN OF CELLBLOCK 9, which focuses on sexual torture, or GRETA, HAUS OHNE MANNER, featuring Dyanne Thorne as a pathological fan of torture. Both of the 1977 films were feeding the torture porn cycle of the mid 1970s which included Nazi-xploitation items mostly made in Italy. Franco continued on with SADOMANIA, EL INFIERNO DE LA PASION (1980), featuring Ajita Wilson as Magda, the lean, mean administrator of the Hacienda Blanca, where female inmates are forced to work under the hot sun clothed in tight shorts and topless. This one is probably the most "entertaining" of the bunch simply due to it's surreal outrageousness, including an inmate raped by a dog.

The most interesting aspect of FURY IN THE TROPICS is its non-linear structure. It opens with the prison escape of Marga (Lina Romay), who has murdered the lesbian prison wardress. The rest of the films is flashbacks to her arrest and abuse by the wardress, focused mainly on her private parts. These graphic scenes are trimmed from the 1986 reworking, OUTLAW WOMEN. This version flips the the "happy" ending of FURY IN THE TROPICS into a downbeat, poetically edited climax as Marga, revealed as a contact of a revolutionary padre, is shot dead on the orders of the Governor while the priest's demise is represented by a final montage of streams of blood flowing toward a crucfix intercut with the sun being covered by dark storm clouds. A much more memorable closing than the one in FURY IN THE TROPICS. Another "Franco" moment occurs during a brief montage of a very Catholic display of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the home of Father Rodrigo. These are very minor, very guilty pleasures which may or may not be compelling to those outside the circle of Franco completists. The atmospheric cinematography is the work of Juan Soler Cozar, according to OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO.

A Franco related WIP would appear in the 21st Century with the 2007 release of WOMEN BEHIND BARS 4, ANGEL OF DEATH 2, PRISON ISLAND MASSACRE, produced and directed by Franco friend Andreas Bethmann. Filmed in the Dominican Republic, Lina Romay is top billed as a twisted prison wardress, dressed in military fatigues, who orders hideous tortures of inmates. Jess Franco has a small role as inmate/janitor. Romay sports of military buzz cut while overseeing forced sex between two female inmates in one scene, masturbating with her pistol with which she finally shoots one of the inmates in the forehead. Another grisly scene shows the torture of a male inmate by another male who anally rapes him before pulling out his teeth with pliers. It also features hardcore sex scenes such as the opening in which a female hitch hiker is forced to peform oral sex on a prison associate. It's all rather nauseating Eurotrash of the lowest order. The gore effects were skillfully designed by the notorious Olaf Ittenbach. How Jess and Lina decided to partner with Bethmann is a profound mystery.

(C) Robert Monell, 2025