The Concrete Jungle (1982) Pentagon Releasing/Action-Drama RT: 101 minutes Rated R (brutal violence including rape, nudity, sexual content, pervasive language, drugs) Director: Tom DeSimone Screenplay: Alan J. Adler Music: Joseph Conlan Cinematography: Andrew W. Friend Release date: September 3, 1982 (US) Cast: Jill St. John, Tracey Bregman, Barbara Luna, June Barrett, Aimee Eccles, Sondra Currie, Peter Brown, Susan Mechsner, Robert Miano, Niki Dantine, Nita Talbot, Marcia Karr, Sally Julian, Justine Lenore, Kendal Kaldwell, Carole Ita White, Maria Caso, Cynthia Grant, Karole Le Man, Camille Keaton, Bob DeSimone, Carol Connors. Box Office: $5.6M (US)
Rating: ***
My fascination with WIP (Women in Prison) movies actually began with the Australian soap opera Prisoner: Cell Block H which aired in the US from 1979 to 1986. It stopped airing on Philadelphia’s channel 3 and moved to one of the cable channels in spring 1981 which meant I couldn’t watch it anymore. We were a non-cable house until 1983. At 13, my response (of course) was a big loud “F***!!!”
Despite being allowed to watch Prisoner at home, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near WIP movies like The Concrete Jungle. It opened in area theaters in fall ’82 about eight months before Chained Heat, the ultimate in 80s WIP movies. I didn’t actually see it until Nov. 1985 when I rented it from West Coast Video. No, I didn’t rent it and Chained Heat on the same day (I should have), but it was within the same 30-day period. I remember liking it, but I never felt compelled to seek it out for a rewatch. I let it slip into the recesses of vague memory.
I decided to give The Concrete Jungle another go after watching an uncut version of Chained Heat. I wanted to compare the two films. I found it on Amazon Prime for the low, low price of 99 cents. Now that’s what I call a bargain! It reminded me of the shelf devoted to dubious titles (Weekend Pass, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie) at The Video Den, all 99-cent rentals. Directed by Tom DeSimone (Hell Night), it stars the lovely Tracey Bregman (Happy Birthday to Me) as Elizabeth, an innocent young woman set up by her sleazy drug dealer boyfriend Danny (Brown, Foxy Brown). He stashes cocaine in her skis for the purposes of smuggling it into the US. She’s arrested at the airport and thrown into the system by uncaring law enforcement types. It’s just the beginning of her nightmare.
Devoted (and naïve) girlfriend that she is, Tracey refuses to rat out Danny. She believes his BS about loving her and doing all he can to get her out of jail; all she needs to do is keep her mouth shut. She’s found guilty of possession with intent and sentenced to 1-3 years at a s***hole of a correction facility run by Warden Fletcher (St. John, Diamonds Are Forever). It’s a vile, corrupt place where violence, rape, drugs and all manner of brutality is an everyday thing. At the center of it all is Cat (Luna, The Devil at 4 O’Clock), the queen bee inmate who rules by fear, intimidation and swift reprisal against all who dare to cross her.
Elizabeth finds herself in Cat’s crosshairs after she refuses to repay her for getting her a job in the laundry, a big step up from scrubbing the toilets. The warden and guards seem to have it out for her too. No matter what she does, she always gets in trouble. The only one who appears to want to help her is Shelly Meyers (Talbot, Night Shift), a prison official looking to clean house. She wants to take down Fletcher who’s involved in all sorts of in-house illegal activities (drugs and prostitution). Cat takes care of the dirty work, which includes silencing anybody who threatens the status quo, while Fletcher reaps the benefits. Meyers wants Elizabeth to be her eyes and ears. Elizabeth, knowing she will be killed if she turns spy, refuses to go along with it. It doesn’t matter; she’s still terrorized by Cat’s minions and prison staff. She has to learn to toughen up so she can survive the concrete jungle.
I prefer Chained Heat, but The Concrete Jungle has its good points. Okay, so the cast isn’t as awesome without Linda Blair, John Vernon, Stella Stevens, Sybil Danning and the great Henry Silva. It does have Camille Keaton (I Spit on Your Grave) in a small role as a prisoner who gets raped (graphically!) by a slimeball male guard played by Robert Miano who would give a repeat performance in Chained Heat playing essentially the same character. Here’s what’s interesting about this scene. It’s intercut with scenes of a female inmate giving birth to a baby presumably conceived in violence. Does anybody else find it peculiar she’s not in the infirmary? It’s never explained because we never hear of mother or child again after the birth. We never see the rape victim again either. Well, I never said The Concrete Jungle was a paragon of cinema. Nobody did.
Tom De Simone, who cast baby brother Bob (Billy the coke-snorting ambulance driver from Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning) in a very small part as a cop, has an interesting resume. He directed the 3D porno flick Prison Girls (1972), the talking vagina comedy Chatterbox (1977), the spoof Reform School Girls (1986) and the three-quel Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988). He was also the original director of Savage Streets (1984) before he was replaced by Danny Steinmann (Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning). He gives WIP fans exactly what they want in The Concrete Jungle. Well, almost. The lack of full frontal nudity and hot girl-on-girl action will surely be a letdown for the horndogs and dirty old men that live for this s***.
HOWEVER, Tom does deliver a hell of a climax, a prison yard free-for-all that turns into a mud wrestling brawl when the guards bring out the fire hoses. The water pressure somehow causes the inmates’ tops to come off. It’s a convenient distraction for the guards while Elizabeth and Cat finally settle their differences in a chick fight (replete with homemade stabbing instruments) that ends on a “shocking” note. All I want to know is how neither girl suffers a single stab wound.
The acting in The Concrete Jungle isn’t what you’d call good. In fact, most of it pretty bad. It’s bad to the point of unintentional comedy. Jill St. John is incredibly unconvincing as a tough prison warden. She’s more like the cold middle-management bitch at some office who thinks she has carte blanche to do whatever she wants. Luna, with her stylish clothes and BIG hair, camps it up to the heavens as Cat, a nostril-flaring monster who leaves the dirty work to her bleached-blonde flunky Icy (Barrett, First Love). Bregman is actually okay as the innocent girl framed for a crime she didn’t intentionally commit. She’s not a believable tough gal, but maybe that’s the idea. Brown makes a good bad guy. His Danny is a smug bastard who has “liar” written all over his face. It’s so satisfying when he finally gets what’s coming to him.
The cast also includes Niki Dantine (Malibu Express), Sondra Currie (real-life older sister of Runaways lead singer Cherie), porn actress Carol Connors (mother of actress Thora Birch), Aimee Eccles (Little Big Man), Sally Julian (Hometown U.S.A.) and future Chained Heat co-stars Carole Ita White and Marcia Karr. It’s not exactly an all-star lineup, but it’ll do.
I think DeSimone may have been going for realism in The Concrete Jungle. He even shot it in an abandoned prison in Ventura which explains the dilapidated look of the joint. It’s a grim, ugly and brutal joint. It makes one long for the relative comfort of a rundown cabin at a cheap summer camp. I don’t how realistic it actually is, but it’s a lot more so than Chained Heat. It’s still kind of fun though it you like cheap B-movies about incarcerated chicks and what goes on behind locked bars.
