Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Prison Girls 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 21, 2023

Tom DeSimone's "Prison Girls" (1972) arrives on 3D/2D Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critics James G. Chandler and Ash Hamilton; deleted content; and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Prison Girls is a very good film to see if you wish to understand why Russ Meyer was a special director. It unites several legendary busty actresses that loved to take their clothes off and produces some of the most underwhelming erotic content imaginable. It can be seen in 3-D too, which should have helped, but the conversion is just as disappointing.

Someone named Lee Walters is credited as a writer that prepared the screenplay for Prison Girls. However, it is awfully difficult to imagine that director Tom DiSimone had a screenplay when he began shooting Prison Girls because the finished material does not produce a proper story with proper characters. Indeed, Prison Girls is a collection of several uneven episodes in which male and female actors meet at different locations, utter a few random lines, and then engage in a sexual act that lasts a few minutes.

Given how uninspired the sexual acts are, I assume DiSimone wanted Prison Girls to excite with the quality of its 3D visuals. But they are average at best and very quickly solidify the correct initial impression that Prison Girls is a gimmick that aimed to trick as many 3D enthusiasts as it could. An erotic 3D film? In the early 1970s, Prison Girls must have looked like a very special proposition, almost too good to be true, so it seems fair to assume that it must have popped up on the radar of many casual viewers as well. (For what it’s worth, the remastered vintage trailer that is included on this release is outstanding and promises precisely that kind of unforgettable cinematic experience with unmissable fireworks). Sadly, Prison Girls convincingly fails in the two areas that would have made it enjoyable.

The first is the quality of the erotic material. Despite the X-rating, the erotic material does not contain any explicit sexual acts of the kind that would have been common in a conventional adult film, which is the type of film a lot of people would have expected Prison Girls to be given that DiSimone had booked the likes of Candy Samples, Uschi Digard, and Maria Arnold. Also, precisely because explicit is not synonymous with quality the erotic material should have been done very well, but it just looks like a collection of rushed scenes where the actors engage to get the job done. (Radley Metzger’s Score comes from the same era and features the type of material that should have been present in Prison Girls. It is explicit but very attractive).

The second is the quality of the story. As noted earlier, Prison Girls does not have a proper story with proper characters. At a correctional facility, a psychiatrist grants several girls a weekend furlough that would prepare them for their upcoming parole. Shortly after, the girls begin reuniting with their lovers and best friends, all of whom turn out to be shady characters with the vocabulary of a drunk sailor. Unsurprisingly, the girls experience the worst of the worst male behavior, though a few greatly enjoy it and plan to have more of it in the future. Each reunion is an individual episode, without any meaningful character-building.

*If you find Prison Girls entertaining, consider spending a night with Massage Parlor Murders, which was completed in 1972 as well. Massage Parlor Murders is an extremely similar low-budget genre film.

Prison Girls 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Prison Girls arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The film can be viewed in 2D and 3D. If you choose to view it in 3D, you can use the pair of 3D glasses from the Blu-ray case. Obviously, the 2D version can be viewed as it is.

The quality of the presentation is not easy to judge because there are a lot of inherited limitations. For example, technical credits that appear before the film begins clarify that "camera shutters were not interlocked, and the resultant out-of-phase image is baked in and not fixable", but there is plenty more. Density levels can fluctuate quite dramatically, plus there are surface imperfections that impact delineation and depth. Color saturation and balance are not optimal either, which is to be expected given the overall quality of the visuals. The 3D content has its own limitations. I thought that a few bits were decent, but the overall quality of the 3D content is not comparable to that of the recently restored Treasure of the Four Crowns. There are stability issues. However, it appears that they are transferred from the original aged elements that were accessed to prepare the release. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Prison Girls 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The quality of the lossless track is reflective of the quality of the production. In other words, it is extremely difficult to be impressed by it. The dialog is clear and easy to follow but in some areas it can be quite uneven. Dynamic intensity is average is, well, basic, but this is not surprising either. There are no audio dropouts or distracting distortions.

Prison Girls 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original U.S. trailer for Prison Girls. In 2D. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics James G. Chandler and Ash Hamilton. Understandably, the commentary provides plenty of general information about genre films and the people that made Prison Girls. I thought that a lot of the observations were spot on. For example, the two gentlemen rightfully point out that even though Prison Girls is a film about girls that are out of prison, it had to feature the mandatory "shower scene". There are plenty of hilarious observations too, which are of course unavoidable given the subject matter.

• Deleted Content - presented here is some additional sex footage that is not included in the 3D version of Prison Girls. In 2D. With music. (6 min).

Prison Girls 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It is difficult to imagine a scenario where one of Kino Lorber's competitors would have considered investing in a 3D/2D Blu-ray release of Prison Girls. Despite a promising cast that includes the likes of Uschi Digard and Candy Samples, Prison Girls is a mediocre genre project that could be of interest only to diehard collectors of 3D films. I had never seen it before and thought that it might be a decent time capsule like some of Radley Metzger's erotic films, but less than fifteen minutes into it, I knew that neither director Tom DeSimone nor any of the stars had even contemplated collaborating on that kind of an intriguing chameleon. If you must have Prison Girls in your collection, pick it up when it goes on sale.