When Mickey Rooney passed away a few weeks back, the last thing that alla them big city "film critics" had in mind when eulogizing the Golden Age survivor was a film like this! But then again, by the time THUNDER COUNTY (also known as CONVICT WOMEN) was made it wasn't like Rooney was exactly wowin' 'em at the box office anymore, but as you all know we here at BLOG TO COMM sorta go for these stars when they're down 'n dirty 'stead of all glitzied up for the swanko H-wood openings and chi-chi cocktail party gatherings! Naw, gimme a star who's down on his luck 'n hasta take roles like Rooney did in this 'un because hey, at least its one step above having to go porn like Aldo Ray ultimately did!
Heck, Rooney ain't even in this 'un that much, only as the stereotypical small town gas station attendant who as we all know is either a mental midgie or working in cahoots with the local bad boys. He meets up with four escaped convicts from some Florida-based women's penitentiary who give him an even rougher time 'n when Barney Fife and Floyd the Barber were trapped in that cottage with a few equally mean escapees on an old ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. They force him to take 'em through the everglades on his fishing boat before making him swim all the way home...not exactly as fun-fun-funny as it may sound but it coulda been a real laff riot if one of them 'gators we see went and chopped him up like good!
Meanwhile some "businessmen" of Eyetalian extraction ifyaknowaddamean (led by none other'n Lurch himself Ted Cassidy) dealing in heroin are holed up inna small shack inna swamp that's inhabited by this stinkola backwoods ne'er-do-well who catches snakes with his bare hands for dinner. Naturally the gals get to him before the mobsters, but when the boys arrive it seems that maybe they don't mind at all. In fact "Lurch" himself proves to be "Lech" as he gets kinda frisky with the bolder of the bunch, at least before ultimately killing "pussycat" when he finds her with our deep south slob. (The scene where one of the gals, the "good" one natch, along with the handsomer of the smugglers find the two dead is so weird because frankly, it looks as if Lurch de-gutted them or something---the image is so distorted I dunno what became of the doomed duo!)
As most of these mid-seventies crankouts go this is fun visual turd cinema, definitely shoestring budget and custom made for a summer Sunday PM viewing on UHF tee-vee before they fill the hour with a LITTLE RASCALS short. However it may be a bit disappointing for some of you naughtier readers who like a little more oomph for your moom pitcher moolah. I mean, for this being a women's prison moom made inna seventies and all there's no noodity of a boob or butt variety to be had at all! Maybe Rooney wouldn't work in it if there was even an inkling of tits 'n twats...who knows? No matter how you look at it it's too bad because really, dontcha think that a female penitentiary moom w/o tits is kinda like an anus w/o polyps?
Still want to watch it (of course you do!)??? If so just click on here, and remember that the only thing you don't have to put up with that you woulda way back when is the acne-riddled autistic working at the snack bar charging you sixty cents for a candy bar you coulda paid a dime for at the budget store.
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