Director: Oswaldo De Oliveira
Tagline: "Behind bars no one can hear you scream!"
Plot: In a women's prison where the inmates wear nothing under their flimsy, short, easily unbuttoned smocks, sadistic lesbian warden Maria Stella Splendore sets a sybaritic standard for her inmates, who appear to take sexual pleasure in everything from the occasional meager showers to hiding weapons up their asses. The first hour of Bare Behind Bars mostly consists of vaguely connected scenes in which the guards, a delivery man, a ditzy ether-addicted nurse, and assorted inmates engage in unconvincing fights and unconvincing sex, with the occasional jarring hardcore sequence. Eventually, three inmates escape and wreak brief havoc before being recaptured or killed.
Key scenes: In the opening scene, the prisoners play an energetic, cheerful game of "vaguely throw a ball around while squealing a lot," until one woman gets shanked, the guards bring in the fire hose, and wet smocks start falling open. Later, the nurse takes a break from lasciviously slurping runny raspberry pudding, and attempts to take Splendore's blood pressure by wrapping the cuff around her neck. When Splendore protests, the nurse sighs, "I guess I'm not ready yet to take anybody's blood pressure. You see, when I was a kid I always dreamt I would do it one day. Oh! My raspberry pudding! I forgot, I adore raspberry pudding!" This sort of silliness contrasts weirdly with a later scene where the escapees kill a woman, sexually assault her young boy, shoot her husband, and cut off his genitals to feed a barking dog.
Can easily be distinguished by: The insistent, screaming jazz score, which is generally as sexy as a migraine.
Sign that it was made in 1980: The bikini tan lines on every inmate, regardless of how long they've lived in their dank jail.
Timeless message: Women in prison are very, very excitable.
Memorable quotes: Inmate: "You know what I want? I should like to have my razor. You can get it back for me?" Nurse: "Well, maybe. I'll do what I can. But now let's play horsie, okay?"
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