Shot in New Orleans & nearby bayou, Swamp Women (1955) begins with a lot of generic footage of Mardi Gras, looking too much like tourist footage badly matched to the main part of the film.

Policewoman Lee (Carol Mathews whose name is mispelled with two Ts in the credits) infiltrates the Nardo Girls' inner circle in prison, the leader among whom is played by Beverly Garland with more finesse than the role merits.

As pre-planned with the police, Lee leads the girl gang in a prison break, & the four gals set out for the bayou to reclaim & divy up hidden diamonds from a past heist.

Besides a cluster of busty gals there's romantic leading man Touch Connors (later more sensibly known as Mike Connors, in the television detective series Mannix).

He & his annoyingly ditzy leg-humpin' girlfriend just happen to be exploring the swamp. Since the girlfriend kind of sucks anyway, she's not needed in the story, so is promptly eaten by a gator.

Conners as Bob doesn't grieve much if at all, & who would; the real question is why he went in the swamp with a ditz in the first place.

As a captive of the girl-gang, he instantly falls for Lee the undercover cop knowing she's different from the others even if he doesn't realize she's actually an agent attempting to recover the diamonds.

One of the Nardo girls is psycho & will attempt to kill the rest so she can have the captive Connors, as well as the diamonds, to herself.

That her ideal man is a tied up man is kind of cute, & in her own crazy way she had honest emotions, as her last act on earth was to save helplessly macho Bob from a poisonous snake.

Swamp Women has often been categorized as one of the worst B movies of all time. But as these ultra-sexist sorts of girls-with-guns films go, this one's quite fun, especially when Lee actually saves the captive male, rather than the usual pattern of him getting loose to save her.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the few critics who've insisted "This film rocks!" have been masochistic men, whereas those who insist it's staggeringly bad just couldn't ever relate to the whole notion of a real he-man filling the role of damsel in distress.

Along the way there's girl-on-girl wrestling action. Critics have given it a hard time because fact is, it's really just shlocky T & A for guys who fantasize being tied up by girls, & poses badly as a crime feature. Nevertheless, Swamp women has some slight redeeming interest even though in the main far too little happens for it to be any good. It runs its course in a little over an hour & it's certainly worth that much time out of a shlock fan's life.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl