The Big Bird Cage
The Big Bird Cage is a 1972 film from the USA, directed by Jack Hill, running 88 minutes. reelscum files it under women in prison.
- Year
- 1972 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 88 min
- Director
- Jack Hill
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (51/100)
Defined in the glossary: Women in prison
Funnier and better than the first. Sid Haig is having an excellent time.
Jack Hill's follow-up to The Big Doll House, funnier and better made, with Pam Grier and Sid Haig clearly having the time of their lives. The women-in-prison formula is all present, but Hill plays much of it for comedy and lets the cast run.
Haig's cackling, scheming revolutionary is one of the great supporting performances in exploitation, and the whole thing moves with a confidence the budget did not buy. It knows exactly what it is and commits.
The high point of the Filipino WIP cycle, such as that is.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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On these lists
- Women in prison: the essentials
Roger Corman worked out you could film the whole genre in the Philippines for nothing, and everyone spent the next decade reshooting his shower scene.
Filed alongside
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Ito's last. Kaji drags a severed arm through Tokyo in the opening minutes.
Love Camp 7
The film that invented nazisploitation six years before Ilsa made it a genre.
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
Ito's second, and the most formally daring film in the whole category.
Women in Cages
Pam Grier as the sadist for once. Bleaker than its stablemates.
Chained Heat
Linda Blair goes to prison. A sleazy 80s update of the formula, with a corrupt warden and a hot tub.
Barbed Wire Dolls
Jess Franco's contribution to the cycle. Cheap, delirious and utterly shameless, even for him.
The Big Doll House
Jack Hill and Pam Grier invent the modern formula in the Philippines.
Reform School Girls
The women-in-prison film as its own punchline, fronted by the lead singer of the Plasmatics.
Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion
Sold as a women-in-prison quickie. Shot like an art film. Meiko Kaji barely blinks.
Bare Behind Bars
Brazil's Boca do Lixo does women-in-prison with everything the drive-in cut left out.
House of Whipcord
Pete Walker builds a secret prison to punish the censors who wanted one. Sheila Keith is the nightmare.
Women's Prison Massacre
Late Italian entry. Laura Gemser, and a body count instead of a plot.