TERMINAL ISLAND

U.S.A. | 1973 Directed by Stephanie Rothman Starring Don Marshall Phyllis Davis Tom Selleck Color | 88 Minutes | R Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC) Code Red

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		Review by Brian Lindsey Film:4 : DVD:8

Not exactly the stereotypical women-in-prison flick I was expecting, Terminal Island hinges on a plot device that would logically seem to have been a major influence on John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981) — only I have no idea whether or not Carpenter ever saw this film.

After the Supreme Court bans the death penalty, the state government of California decides that if it can't execute its convicted murderers it can at least exile them. A small uninhabited island 40 miles off the coast is selected for this purpose. There are no guards, walls or even buildings on the island, no warden or prison staff. A picket ship is on constant patrol between the island and the mainland, and apart from a single narrow channel the waters around it are heavily mined. Prisoners are dropped off by boat with only the clothes on their backs and a few meager provisions, after which they must totally fend for themselves. (All of this necessary backstory is economically established via a somewhat awkward pre-titles sequence showing a TV news team preparing a story on the subject; thereafter the journalists completely disappear from the movie.) No one apart from the convicts exiled there has ventured into the interior of "Terminal Island" since it was established as a prison. Carmen (Ena Hartman) is the latest arrival, a feisty black chick with no idea what's in store for her. The corpses she sees floating in the surf along the beach aren't exactly a good omen.

Carmen soon encounters Milford (Magnum P.I.'s Tom Selleck), a doctor sentenced to the island for the mercy killing of a suffering patient. Laid-back to the point of detachment (he's constantly stoned on dope he sniffs made from indigenous plants), Milford doesn't offer much info about the situation. Carmen wanders into the interior on her own to find out, coming upon a village of sorts being built by a group of thirty or so prisoners. Apparently the inmates have decided to create at least some vestige of civilization for themselves. But appearances are deceiving. The camp is run with an iron hand by psychotic dictator Bobby (Sean Kenney) and his brawny enforcer Monk (Roger E. Mosley, another future Magnum P.I. alumnus). On Bobby's orders Monk swiftly lays down the law, threatening and humiliating Carmen in front of the other men to break her resistance. She's assigned to the hut with the island's only other females: brainy Lee (Marta Kristen of TV's Lost in Space), sassy Joy (Phyllis Davis, Sweet Sugar) and balmy Bunny (Barbara Leigh, The Student Nurses). In addition to daily chores like digging holes and washing clothes, at night the four women must sexually service the male prisoners — each is assigned a rotating roster of men per Monk's instruction. (Which means six or eight guys a night... When were these gals supposed to get any sleep?)

Eventually we learn that there's another, much smaller group of prisoners on the island that refuses to submit to Bobby's tyranny. Led by the comparatively enlightened A.J. (The Thing with Two Heads' Don Marshall), these men survive by keeping on the move and occasionally raiding the village. On one such raid they kill the goons guarding the women, who then take off into the woods with their liberators. When they realize that A.J. and crew aren't going to forcibly use them for sex, that they're free to make their own choices, the ladies join up with them. They all know this will be dangerous, however, because Bobby and his gang are really going to want their supply of poon tang back. After a series of deadly encounters with roaming patrols force their hand, A.J.'s faction defies the odds and launches a full-scale attack on the enemy's stronghold...

Despite a story that affords ample opportunities, Terminal Island is surprisingly tame when it comes to sleaze. The female convicts are forced into sexual slavery yet we never see the men queuing up for their nightly ration of lovin', much less the women actually having to fulfill their assigned quota. This may be because the pic was helmed by Stephanie Rothman, one of the very few female directors working in the exploitation genre during the '70s. (I can't imagine a male Italian director, for example, failing to take advantage of such a potentially sordid set-up.) There are some choice moments of T&A to be sure, courtesy of Davis and Leigh (Hartman and Kristen never really get naked), but these aren't presented in the brutally prurient manner they easily could've been. In fact, Davis' big nude scene has a playful, comedic context, as she teases one of the men watching her skinny-dip in a pond.

This isn't to say that the film is somehow politically correct or that I wish it was more misogynistic in nature. I just think that, given the scenario, it pulls its punches — it demures when it should've been grittier, more visceral. Rothman compensates for the relative lack of sex by ramping up the violence during the second half, as the island's opposing factions go to war. These fight scenes are in the main rather clumsily staged, looking like they were mostly improvised on the spot (which they apparently were). Apart from the piss-poor action and dearth of sleaze, we're mostly left with the actors sitting around in the woods, chewing the fat about nothing particularly interesting. I suppose this is a nod to 'character development' — but we aren't motivated to give a shit, since the script is pretty thin; the narrative's focus hops around so much that there really aren't any central characters to speak of. In the beginning it appears that Carmen will fill this role, but less than half an hour in the story shifts gears and alternately concentrates on the others, which it then does for the remainder of the film. Besides, aren't all these people murderers (even the 'good guys')? The only character who's truly undeserving of his sentence is Selleck's Doc Milford, and he's more or less a nonentity until the final half hour. As for the main villain, evil psycho Bobby simply doesn't have the guile, charisma or intimidating presence to be believable as the criminal who'd emerge as the island's Big Boss. Actually, he's kind of a weenie.

It's painfully obvious that most of the budget went to blood squibs and actors' fees; the film's only sets (the village huts) look like something out of a high school play. I suppose they got their money's worth with the performers, though, as Marshall, Selleck and most of the others in major speaking roles fare quite well for this sort of thing. They do what they can with the material — which is to say not very much. Padded with uninteresting scenes, burdened with a truly horrible twangy-ass country song over the main titles and closing credits, Terminal Island feels about 20 minutes longer than it actually is. (It's never a good thing to find yourself checking your watch during an exploitation flick.) Sure, there are laughs to be had with the cheesy action and some execrable dialog (after blowing up a guy in an outhouse: "That dude just took his last crap!"); foxy Phyllis Davis — she's a blonde in this one — gets a sexy nude scene. But it's just not quite enough to satisfy.

Needed more sleaze.

Code Red's DVD edition of Terminal Island uses the director's own archived print, which isn't exactly in pristine shape, but nonetheless represents the best source elements extant. The 1.78 anamorphic transfer is fairly decent on the whole; it's quite grainy, there's a bit of damage due to age and colors often look somewhat faded, but none of this is ever really too distracting — one could say it actually enhances the 'grindhouse' effect. The disc's no frills mono audio track serves the dialog and sound effects well even if there's some distortion during that godawful title song.

Extras: Actors Sean Kenney and Don Marshall discuss their participation in Terminal Island as well as other aspects of their lengthy careers in two separate interview featurettes running 27 and 24 minutes respectively); they unite for a joint audio commentary moderated by Scott Spiegel. "Sweet Sugar" herself, Phyllis Davis, offers her perspective in a brief 5½-minute audio interview (conducted over the phone). In addition to the promo for Terminal Island ("The damned vs. the doomed on Devil's Island, U.S.A.!"), Code Red includes a slate of vintage exploitation trailers: Family Honor (which for some reason plays automatically when the DVD is loaded), Group Marriage and Working Girls (both directed by Rothman), The Black Klansman, Mean Johnny Barrows, Stigma and Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde (which looks like a cheesy blaxploitation blast). I just really wish they hadn't put that shitkicker country song over the main menu screen. 9/24/10

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