★★★★½ SWEET SUGAR

 

a.k.a. Hellfire On Ice, She Devils In Chains, Chaingang Girls, Captive Women 3

Directed by Michel Levesque
Cast: Phyllis Davis Ella Edwards, Pamela Collins , Angus Duncan

Synopsis

Loosen your slacks because this is a good one. 70's bombshell Phyllis Davis stars as prostitute Sugar Bowman who has been sentenced to work in the sugarcane fields of some fictional South American country. It's a coed plantation where the inmates actually get paid, but have to fork it over for room and board. When the girls aren't chopping cane they bed down with any man they can get their hands on. During this process they uncover the gruesome murders of some former inmates (or employees?). 

The discovery of foul play and Sugar's resisting the advances of Doctor John (Angus Duncan), the perverted camp doctor, lead to one of the highlights of this film. A sultry whipping done up in busting broad daylight that is filmed better than any other sequence in the movie. These iconoclastic images are one of the best examples of high camp as low brow art ever laid on film. Sweet Sugar has quite a few of these including props that consistently malfunction and a hilarious LSD dosed cat attack that you won't soon forget.

The Costa Rican locations don't have the hepatitis feel of Corman's Filipino W.I.P. productions but the dialogue written by director Michel Levesque (Russ Meyer's Vixen, UP!, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens) delivers the tongue in cheek zing of a Jack Hill script. Phyllis Davis is a delight to behold and delivers the sass required of a classic b-movie bad girl. She went on to star in TV show VEGA$ and could often be seen as a celebrity guest on The Match Game.

A limited edition DVD of 100 copies was released under the label Iguana several years ago. It hasn't had any official release so your best bet will probably be VHS. Avoid the copy under the title Captive Women 3. It contains a very poor sound dump.