Sweet Sugar (1972) watch online HD

This used to be a regular on USA Up All Night, back when Gilbert and Rhonda were still hosting. Phyllis Davis is really gorgeous in a Russ Meyer kind of way (if you don't know what I mean, go rent a Russ Meyer film and you'll understand). It's supposed to be an action film, and is along the same lines as "Chained Fury" and "Reform School Girls". Closeups of breasts, simulated sex, etc. The acting is pretty bad, but combined with a ridiculous plot and the sexual innuendo it makes for an unintentionally hilarious film. If you've got a Saturday evening with nothing to do, invite a few pals over and rent this. You'll be laughing in no time...

TITLE: SWEET SUGAR opened in theaters on January 1 1973 starring Phyllis Davis, Pamela Collins, and Jacqueline Giroux. This movie is 90 minutes long.

SUMMARY: The movie opens with a feisty prostitute Sweet Sugar goes up to a room with a man and he tells her he has something for her and gives her what looks to be a rolled up joint. He tells Sugar that he has to go get something and leaves the room. Then two cops enter the room and arrest her on grounds of illegal drugs. Sugar is taken and thrown in jail and end is offered a plea deal that includes Sugar of serving two years hard labor cutting sugar cane at a harsh prison plantation farm. The prison is run by a wicked and deranged warden Dr. John who grossly mistreats the inmates by subjecting them to all kinds of twisted and inhumane medical experiments. Naturally, Sugar forms bonds with Simone her chief rival, Doleres and Fara. The women try to escape on several different occasions only to have something go wrong. After each time one of the girls is whipped, caged or is forced to be alone with the guards. Each day the women have to go out into the plantation to cut sugar cane. The girls get very little wages and what wages they do get they have to pay back for the food, clothes, and other things the girls need.

QUESTIONS: Who was the guy that framed Sugar? Why was Sugar sent to this plantation instead of another prison? What were the other girls sent to the plantation for?

MY THOUGHTS: I love this movie. This movie is full with action and drama and it keeps you guessing on what's going to happen next. I thought that Pamela Collins and Jacqueline Giroux were great in the roles as Sugar co conspires. However, to me this movie was about one person and one person only Phyllis Davis. She was excellent in her role as Sweet Sugar. This movie also used Phyllis Davis beauty in this movie also. There's several scenes that involves Sugar that will get your blood racing. Despite what other reviews stated about this movie I thought it was an excellent picture. So based on the action, drama and most of all Sweet Sugar beauty and talent I give this movie 10 weasel stars.

Thanks to a friend I used to work with at a local video store, we had weekend contests to see who could find the Most Gawd-Awful Movie to play on the monitors...something so bad that it would stop the customers in their tracks from shock and disbelief. He thought he'd won with this hysterically bad gem, starring the amply endowed Phyllis (VEGA$) Davis as a horny free spirit, who gets spirited away to a prison/sugar cane colony in the middle of God-knows-where, after the local 'policia' frame her on a phony drug charge.

Covering all the bases, from mad-scientist flicks, women-in-prison movies, Seventies soft-core porn and badly made action flicks shot overseas on the cheap, it even throws in a little blackexploitation vibe with the faaaabulous presence of Ella Edwards. Cliff Osmond and Angus Duncan commit thespian thievery every chance they get, and Duncan seems to have popped in a set of steel dentures, as he gives every scene he's in a good going-over, like a fresh pack of Wrigley's.

The surefire way to know if you will love or hate this movie, is to find it under its original title and not any of the other name-changed versions. Because SWEET SUGAR may be the only version that contains that howler of a theme song, which sounds like the L.A. band X going on a HUGE acid-and-tequila bender in some South-of-the-Border dive bar, crossed with The Mamas and The Papas on Zoloft. If the priceless opening number doesn't do it for ya, you either need to switch to an actual film that has some tangible artistic value, or do what we did, and continue the quest to find the All-Time Worst Film on the shelf.

(In case you're wondering, BTW, I won the Contest after picking BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS.)

One of a slew of Women In Prison (WIP) exploitation flicks hurriedly lensed after Jack Hill's hugely successful "The Big Doll House" mopped up at the box office for Roger Corman. This one's fairly typical of the subgenre, delivering the WIP formula of nudity and sadism in well measured doses.

It's only notable features are an early writing effort by Stephanie "Terminal Island" Rothman and a truly over-the-top performance by Angus Duncan. He plays Dr. John, the demented warden of the sugar cane plantation to which Phyllis Davis is sentenced, with a hammy verve rarely seen today.

Also slightly notable is the 'cat tossing' scene which, IMOHO, wins the all-time award for "Worst Abuse of an Animal to Set Up A Stupid Visual Pun." Otherwise, "Sweet Sugar" is pretty much every WIP flick you've ever seen.

Throw-away film with some fun topless shots of Ms. Davis. She fits a certain zaftig sexuality that was popular in T&A films of the '70s, and this one will meet your expectations if that's what you're after. The dialog is nonsense, but that's part of the format, really. Have fun, and don't let anyone make you explain your pleasures.

Quality-wise "Sweet Sugar" is standard Women-In-Prison (though the setting is not exactly a prison, but a sugar cane plantation) fare, but it does make an effort to distinguish itself from the pack by mixing broad comedy (the heroine is injected with a drug that turns her on so much that she causes the machine she is connected to to explode!), sadistic violence (including involuntary cannibalism!), supernatural elements (one of the male prisoners knows voodoo and talks to "the spirits"), and just plain weirdness (coming mostly in the form of "the doctor", a creepy nutcase who like to perform "experiments" on the girls just for kicks). Phyllis Davis and Ella Edwards are both strong and attractive heroines, though not quite at the level of, say, Pam Grier and Margaret Markov. The film looks rather good, but it does not flow very well from scene to scene, and the sexy parts as well as the action parts are too short to satisfy. Worth a look for Phyllis and Ella. (**)

It is surprising that we did not see more of Miss Davis. A few Love American Styles, Sweet Sugar, Terminal Island, a Love Boat or two, Dan Tanna's secretary, and that was about it. Given her obvious "attributes" and her being such a good sport about sharing them with the camera, I would have thought producers would have been lining up to sign her. I could have seen her as a Charlie's Angel, as a Bond girl, as one of J.R. Ewing's other women on Dallas, and other things. Spoilers throughout from here: Here she plays what is described as a prostitute, although, she denies being one, who when caught smoking a joint, gets railroaded onto a sugar plantation prison for 2 years, and takes the deal rather than facing something worse(?). Actually it's not as bad as some prison movies. The prison is not as strict at times seeming like a summer camp- that is between torture, rapes,and the sexual based experiments from the prison warden, a dimented, cackling Dr. John. However, Phyliss is the star and she never loses that smirk. More accurately, the star is that body, which is accented with Daisy Duke type shorts and halter tops with, of course, no bra, as one of Dr. John's experiments seems to be how long Sugar's abundant bosom can remain firm while cutting cane every day without one. The catalyst that moves the plot along is when Sugar refuses Dr. John's advances and has sex with a guard, for which she is whipped. But just one stroke with the whip? In keeping with you the spirit of the movie, why not a hard paddling and having her rub a sore bottom instead? This one hits you with everything and if you only like half of it, the movie served its purpose.

If you're a fan of 70's era WIP films, this is clearly one of the best in the genre. Free-spirited, big-busted Sugar Bowman (Phyllis Davis) is framed for drug possession by one of her sleazy lovers and is then shipped off to a Costa Rican sugar cane plantation to do hard labor for a couple of years. There she meets some of barely-dressed fellow sisters-in-crime, including feisty prostitute Simone (Ella Edwards), rich-bitch-murderess-in-hiding Fara (Jacqueline Giroux) and naive underage blonde Dolores (Pamela Collins). As if the long hours, lousy pay, exhausting work and leering guards weren't bad enough, the ladies also have to deal with pervert prison camp director Dr. John's (Angus Duncan) various sadistic and degrading "experiments." One involves shooting them up with an aphrodisiac, and another involves heaving domesticated cats (given a special serum to make them rabid) at them! When the girls are pushed too far, they decide to overthrow the plantation and escape.

SWEET SUGAR is a great 70s exploitation/drive-in flick that manages to amuse, entertain and basically hit all the right notes for one of these things. It's full of witty one-liners, action, violence, some mild lesbianism, whipping, obligatory topless scenes from all of the female stars, a great break-out finale featuring machine guns and explosions and an incredible theme song I just can't get out of my head. Hell, even some cannibalism, voodoo and gore are thrown in for good measure. Most of the actors give it their all and deliver fun and lively performances. Davis and Edwards are spirited heroines. Duncan is hilariously OTT as the mad scientist. There are also amusing turns by Cliff Osmond as the most sadistic guard (playing it straight to good effect) and Albert Cole as a comic hustler trying to get his dimwitted friend Ric (James Houghton) laid. Also appearing in roles are blaxploitation star Timothy Brown as Mojo, a male prisoner at an adjacent facility, and THE HILLS HAVE EYES star James Whitworth as another guard.

Though released on VHS about half-a-dozen times under multiple titles (CHAIN GANG GIRLS, CAPTIVE WOMEN 3, etc.) over the years, this has become somewhat hard to find these days. I'd love to see a DVD release sometime soon.

Not even brainless fun. Dumb on every level and not worthy of a b-minus exploitation label. Just dumb really

I'm not sure why this is described as an action film as it is more of a comedy. The sad thing is it isn't funny. This movie didn't entertain me at all.

Growing up in the seventies with the local drive in the only means of seeing films the majority of the time I was one of those who grew up with the vast number of exploitation films released at the time. These were movies that somehow had fairly good technical values production wise and lacked only in plotlines, acting and writing. It didn't make them terrible movies and some actually were quite good. It did mean that most were not award worthy and just plain entertainment.

One genre of these films that ran rampant were the women in prison films. The reason for this is that exploitation films thrived on reasons to show women naked in films without being overly gratuitous. They left actual sex scenes to pornography and instead made these movies which teen boys would flock to instead. Movies like THE BIG BIRD CAGE, THE BIG BIRD HOUSE and CAGED HEAT played alongside other movies that didn't draw as much attention. All of them feature a few common themes: women taking showers together, lesbians, an innocent thrown in jail, a black prisoner fighting a white one only to join forces before the end of the film and violence. One more thing they always had in common was that no matter how dense the jungle or work they did in prison their hair and makeup was always perfect.

Among these movies was the film SWEET SUGAR. It starred Phyllis Davis who would star in another similar film, TERMINAL ISLAND, with Tom Selleck the following year and who later went on to fame in the TV series VEGA$. It was released by one of those companies who thrived on exploitation films, Dimension Pictures. This was the same company responsible for films like THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE, THE DOBERMAN GANG, GATOR BAIT, INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS, DOLEMITE, DIXIE DYNAMITE, DR BLACK AND MR HYDE and a favorite of mine RUBY.

The film tells the story of Sugar Bowman (Davis), a prostitute in Costa Rica who is set up on drug charges and arrested. She is presented with an option, which she takes, to work off her time on cutting cane on a sugar plantation.

The plantation is owned by Dr. John (Angus Duncan), a mad scientists who is using the women on the plantation for secret experiments which are never quite fully explained. For some reason it does involve torture but he seems far too young to be a Nazi transplant who escaped imprisonment. Overseeing the workers is Burgos (Cliff Osmond) who rules with an iron fist. Osmond who plays the part was seen in numerous movies in similar roles.

Sugar does her work but often runs into conflict with another prisoner, a black woman named Simone (Ellaraino). Their back and forth banter offers little in acting ability and plenty of conflict. Also a part of the group is a 17 year old prisoner wrongfully accused. This girl is later raped by Dr. John which sets in motion the anger and combined efforts of the other prisoners to seek revenge.

The film doesn't offer a depth of story here and the acting matches. Some performances are fluid enough but most have the sound of a line reading rather than actors performing. But if you're a fan of this genre then this film will provide you with the exact things you're looking for. Nearly every box on the checklist is marked here.

While Davis went on to show she could actually act in films she made after the point in her career she made these, her obvious assets are what are on display here. Well-endowed but not overly so, she made the most of her looks to take on parts like this. It gave her the opportunity to make a movie and be noticed which led to greater success on TV later on.

No this is not a perfect movie and no this is not a movie that would be award winning. It is what it sets out to be, an exploitation movie that offers plenty of action, a minimal amount of titillation and a few laughs thrown in for good measure with some comedic touches. Two of the funniest moments for me were finding Dr. John, this sinister character, taking a bubble bath and a sequence where the women are trapped in a cage and the guards throw cats in at them. Not tigers but house cats. Hungry, angry house cats. The women end up scratched and bloody which is completely ridiculous and hilarious. Anyone going to see it knew what to expect and they weren't disappointed. If you do the same you will have some fun with this release on disc.

Vinegar Syndrome, whose praises I have sung before, continue to show they are ready, willing and able to take what most would consider something left in the trash and presenting it in pristine format with a few decent extras to boot. To start with this is the cleanest and clearest presentation you will find for the film with a newly scanned and restored in 2k from 35mm interpositive. The extras for a movie like this would be hard to find, more so since star Davis passed away in 2013. But there are a few including a video interview with Screenwriter Donald Spencer, the original theatrical trailer, original cover artwork by Derek Gabryszak and reversible cover artwork.

Fans of exploitation films will want to make sure they add this one to their collection. And those who support companies like Vinegar Syndrome will want to do the same. Let's hope they continue to carry on this tradition of rescuing long lost titles and presenting them in the best format possible.

When a prostitute by the name of "Sugar Bowman" (Phyllis Davis) is set up on a phony drug bust she is given the option of either serving several harsh years in a penitentiary or working for only 2 years at a prison which doubles as a sugar plantation. Sugar decides to cut her losses and opts for the 2 years. Unfortunately, what she doesn't know is that it is run by an abusive director named "Burgos" (Cliff Osmond) and a sadistic doctor known as "Dr. John" (Angus Duncan). Soon her attitude gets the best of her and this results in punishments for all the female prisoners which include rape, torture and even medical experimentation. Now, as far as the merits of this movie are concerned, I must say that the acting was pretty bad and the story meandered all over the place. But even so it was still kind of fun and it had some nice-looking ladies which included Pamela Collins (as "Dolores"), Ella Edwards ("Simone") and the aforementioned Phyllis Davis. That said, while I cannot honestly say it was necessarily a "good" movie, I may have cut it some slack and scored it slightly higher than it probably deserves.

Here's one of my favorite Women In Prison flicks. Hell Fire On Ice aka Sweet Sugar was directed by the genius who brought us Werewolves On Wheels. And after viewing both multiple times, over the years, I'd say Sweet Sugar is as good of a Women In Prison flick as the other one is a Werewolf/Biker flick. In other words, this movie rocks!

Hell Fire On Ice is a touching, thought-provoking, often humorous look into the troubled life of a head-strong hooker named Sugar. After being set up by a corrupt politician, and instead of going to prison, our lovely heroine ends up serving 2 years at a Costa Rican, sugar cane plantation. The feisty Sugar isn't above a little back-breaking labor, beatings, and other forms of cruelty, but what she's about to find out is that the guy that runs the place, the sadistic Dr. John, subjects the prisoners to cruel medical experiments. Sooner or later, it might be wise for sweet Sugar to make friends with some of these ornery gals, and break out of this hell hole. And to think. All this just for marijuana possession!

Silly dialogue, Over-the -top performances, and stupid humor make Hell Fire On Ice a riot. Just like every other Women In Prison flick I've come across, Hell Fire On Ice offers enough comical bickering and random nudity to go around. A trashy good time. Not necessarily one of my all-time favorite B-movies or anything like that, but well worth at least one viewing, that is, if chicks & schlock is what you like. And if you're all about chicks behind bars, you'll be needing to see Women's Prison Massacre asap. Perhaps a double-feature is in order. To my knowledge, there's still no DVD available, so I hope you have a vcr! 5/10

Sweet Sugar (1972)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Sugar (Phyllis Davis) is a prostitute that plays by her own rules but she's set-up for a drug charge and sent to work in the fields cutting cane. She strikes up a friendship-rivalry with Simone (Ella Edwards) and it doesn't take long for them to realize Dr. John (Angus Duncan) is a sexual psychopath.

SWEET SUGAR is yet another exploitation film that takes place inside a prison and features a lot of beautiful women being abused by a lot of not-so-beautiful men and of course there's the wicked leader calling all of the shots. There were so many different WIP (women in prison) movies being made during this period that you really needed to have something that set your film apart from the others. When you look at the genre as a whole, it would get much more darker and more brutal when various European director's starting making films like BARBED WIRE DOLLS.

How does SWEET SUGAR stand up? Sadly, it's a pretty boring affair and unless you're a completest for the genre then you can just stay away from this. The biggest problem with this movie is that it wants to play the game of a WIP movie but there's no indication that the screenplay or direction knew what to do. On a technical level the film looks nice and it's better made than a lot in the genre but the biggest issue is that it's downright boring and this is never a good thing for an exploitation movie.

The screenplay offers up a checklist of things that you might find in a film like this but there's nothing entertaining about it. Everything on display here has been done better in movies made before this and after it so you're basically just watching a watered down version of something you've seen too many times. There's nothing erotic about the sex scenes. There's nothing overly graphic with the violence. Yeah, there's a couple lesbians kissing and there are some beautiful women naked but everything going on around them is just boring.

Director Michel Levesque directed WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS the year before and I wasn't overly fond of that film either. The movie is just way too boring for its own good and it just doesn't stand out in a crowded genre.

Do not let the average rating of 4.5 on this movie fool you; it is bad, very bad. In fact, after renting and watching it as a precursor/mood setter for a lowlife pub crawl, there was little disagreement between my cohorts and I that we had managed to find the worst movie available for rent at Blockbuster (I'm sure many of you feel that you have made similar discoveries, which I would be interested in hearing, but believe me, if this isn't the worst on offer at Blockbuster, it was at least the worst on offer at the Fredericton, NB Blockbuster on Priestman St.). Which was precisely its appeal, naturally - telling others about this truly bad movie was both entertaining and somewhat self effacing (the title I saw it under was "She Devils in Chains," which title justifies the suspicious queries as to my motives in renting this abysmal classic). I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to place the perfect lowlife opening bookend to a planned night of debauchery, and hope that their closing bookend is equally unsavory.

SWEET SUGAR is a cheap and derivative women-in-prison movie that seems to have been released to ride a wave of similar produce. This one introduces the main character, Sugar, in a brief set-up scene in which she's arrested as part of a drugs sting and sent to a rural prison "somewhere or other" where she forms part of a chain gang. Meanwhile, the women must deal with in-fighting amongst themselves, the machinations of the cruel guards, and the sadistic experiments of a mad doctor.

It all sounds very exciting and exploitational and yet it's really rather cheap and slapdash, just like Michel Levesque's other B-movie, WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS. Levesque seems interested in shooting a skin flick and a skin flick alone, so there's plenty of topless and rear nudity here but not much else in the way of suspense, tension, or violence.

I didn't mind Phyllis Davis too much as the lead. She's a top-heavy starlet clearly cast for her physique rather than acting ability, but she distinguishes herself quite well and there's something about her more than the usual bimbo actress. One of the most interesting things about the production are the authentically sweaty Costa Rican locations. Bizarrely, there are hints at voodoo in the narrative too, Timothy Brown playing a hilarious priest character who seeks to help the women. This isn't a film for cat lovers either. However, the resolutely plodding narrative mainly consists of escape and capture over and over again, and the air of familiarity means that this is a film only for sympathetic lovers of the genre.

Following in the genre-setting footsteps of Jack Hill's The Big Doll House (1971), Sweet Sugar is a formulaic Women in Prison movie from Werewolves on Wheels (1971) director Michel Levesque. Busty prostitute Sugar (Phyllis Davis) is set up for marijuana possession by a corrupt politician, and is thrown into a Costa Rican prison. She is given the opportunity to be moved to the sugar plantation in exchange for a confession, where she meets the various feisty inmates, including Simone (Ella Edwards). Amongst the male guards, there is hustler Max (Albert Cole) who is trying to get his young friend Ric (James Houghton) laid, and the tyrannical and sadistic Burgos (Cliff Osmond), all overlooked by the creepy Dr. John (Angus Duncan). The girls' hopes are raised upon the arrival of voodoo priest Mojo (Timothy Brown), who uses his powers in black magic to help set them free.

If you're a fan of WiP movies, then Sweet Sugar, if anything, ticks all the boxes. We have shower scenes, boobs (naturally), topless flogging, ketchup-red blood, rapey guards, a filming location where filming is cheap, torture, a sassy black chick, and explosions. Where it stands out is in the sheer insanity of certain scenes, namely Angus Duncan's ridiculously over-the-top Dr. John, who performs orgasm torture experiments on his subjects, and some drugged angry cats. Duncan camps it up so ludicrously that the mundanity of the rest of the film becomes redundant enough to get some enjoyment out of it. Davis has the chesty charm of a Russ Meyer lead (and also starred in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)), but she's no Pam Grier, and the film's quirkiness soon wears thin, as it plods from one familiar scene to the next. It's not quite as dull as most WiP movies, but it's still a pretty bad film that offers nothing new to the genre.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Feisty prostitute Sugar (a winningly brash and spunky performance by statuesque brunette stunner Phyllis Davis) gets busted on a trumped-out marijuana possession charge and has to serve two years hard labor cutting sugar cane at a harsh prison plantation farm. The wicked and deranged warden Dr. John (a deliciously hammy portrayal of pure eye-rolling cackling evil by Angus Duncan) grossly mistreats the inmates by subjecting them to all kinds of twisted and inhumane medical experiments. Naturally, Sugar and several other ladies plot to escape from this dismal hellhole. Director Michel Levesque and screenwriter Don Spencer load this satisfyingly seamy potboiler with all the right trashy grindhouse stuff: we've got a constant snappy pace, a handy helping of tasty female nudity, rape, hot babes in tight tank tops and skimpy cut-off shorts, a couple of obligatory shower scenes, degradation, torture (Dr. John locks a bunch of trouble-making gals in a room with a gaggle of ferocious rabid felines!), a catfight, and a rousing last reel break-out set piece. Moreover, the cast of familiar B-movie faces have a field day with their juicy roles: Ella Edwards as the sassy Simone, Cliff Osmond as the mean and sadistic captain Burgos, Timothy Brown as affable voodoo-practicing convict Mojo, Pamela Collins as sweet, vulnerable teenager Dolores, James Whitworth as brutish guard Mario, Albert Cole as likable contraband dealer Max, and James Houghton as lovably dim-witted lunkhead Ric. Gabriel Torres' reasonably slick cinematography gives the picture an attractive bright look. Don Gere's groovy, swinging score and the funky, syncopated theme song both hit the soulful spot. A pleasingly scuzzy and spirited piece of blithely low-rent junk.