(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by the end of Tuesday, December 6th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)
On November 13th, TCM Underground aired the 1976 Filipino women-in-prison film, The Muthers! And I recorded it!
Before I say anything about the film itself, I want to acknowledge how much I love the poster above. I mean, that poster promises a film full of actions, thrills, and a healthy dose of girl power. You look at that poster and you think to yourself, “The Muthers must be one the greatest drive-in films ever made!”
You might also think that from reading about the film’s plot. The Muthers opens with Kelly (Jeannie Bell) and Anggie (Rosanne Keaton) sailing the high seas. It turns out that they’re pirates! They forcibly board yachts and rob decadent rich people. They’re good at their job and they have fun, too! Even better, they’re constantly fighting a rival pirate, a blowhard chauvinist named Turko (John Montomgery)! Turko only has one eye, that’s how much of a pirate he is!
If the film had just been Kelly and Anggie fighting Turko, The Muthers probably would be a classic. However, since this is a Filipino women-in-prison film, Kelly soon discovers that her sister has been imprisoned on Get Out If You Can Island. (Seriously, that’s what they call the island.) The island is run by the evil Montiero (played by Tony Carreon, a perennial villain in Filipino cinema) and, if they don’t rescue her, Montiero will sell her into prostitution.
Naturally, Kelly and Anggie go undercover and infiltrate the island. Sadly, the film gets kind of boring after Kelly and Anggie reach the prison. One reason why Filipino exploitation films are so respected and loved by aficionados of grindhouse cinema is because they frequently went totally and completely over the top. There was a shamelessness to the best of the Filipino grindhouse films and it makes them fascinating to watch. The Muthers starts out like a classic, with the pirates and Turko and all that, but once Kelly and Anggie reach the island, the film becomes oddly restrained. There’s little violence, little sex, only one notable use of slow motion, and the film even lacks the radical political subtext that runs through many women-in-prison films. One can’t help but wonder what the late Jess Franco would have done with the same material.
So, sadly, The Muthers failed to live up to the promise of that poster.
It happens.
Through the Shattered Lens 
This one is on my DVR as well. Been meaning to watch it for the past two weeks. I definitely have to get to it this month because every New Year’s Eve I erase everything from my DVR and start the New Year with it blank.
And you make an excellent point about the Filipino grindhouse films. There was a documentary made about them (which you’ve probably seen) where somebody (I think it was Joe Dante) who said that looking at Filipino grindhouse movies with today’d sensibilities, they look like movies that were made on another planet.
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Okay, I watched this earlier today and you nailed it 100%. The movie shoulda stuck with Kelly and Angie and their river pirates. You didn’t mention that Trina Parks was in this movie! She’s one of my all time favorites who should have had a bigger career. if you’ve never seen her in “Darktown Strutters” be sure and DVR it the next time it’s on TCM Underground. It’s one of those movies that you have to see to believe.
One thing that i did like about this movie which is true of most movies of that period is that they didn’t feel it necessary to give you an origin story. If this movie were made today we’d have had to suffer through an explanation of how these two hot black chicks ended up running a gang of Filipino river pirates. THE MUTHERS wisely doesn’t go that route. It simply presents you with the situation and says “hey, either go with it or find another movie”
And I’ve always considered it a shame that Rosanne Katon couldn’t act to save her life as she’s always struck me as being a pint-sized Pam Grier in terms of sheer beauty. If she could have delivered a convincing line she could have had a great career.
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The pirate scenes were my favorite part of the film. I wish they had abandoned the whole prison angle and just stuck with adventure on the high seas. 🙂 I also liked the fact that the film didn’t waste time trying to explain things. Instead, it just accepted that they were pirates just because they were.
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