Sweet Sugar

A Great Movie, if you love 1970's era drive-in cult classics, then this movie is for you, has all the items you need girls, girls with little clothing, girls with no clothing, girls with guns, cheesy plot, hammy acting, crazy mad doctor, cat-fights (literally), just an all around great 'B' movie to waste a couple of hours on. even better yet, put the t.v. in the driveway, park the chevy van, and relive the old drive in days again :) Only down side is video is of low quality, but is does add to the movies cheap cheesy drive in touch.

This is a review of the recently released "Collectors Edition" DVD-R version of the film "Sweet Sugar"."Sweet Sugar" is apparently a relatively hard to find product of the 70's exploitation genre. Prior to this pressing there was only the 'Desert Island' version available in DVD format and I have, unfortunately, found the Desert Island product to be (generally!) disappointing in its visual quality. I just purchased 2 other DVDs from the 'Collectors Edition' series and THEY (both) provided better than previously experienced renditions of the films presented - SO - I was hopeful that their offering of "Sweet Sugar" would. like-wise, be an improvement.Unfortunately - I found this particular DVD to have less than stellar visual quality. On 'my' DVD player the actual film image played as a 'fullscreen' format image 'floating' in the center of the screen... so the 'size' was a problem. It also looks like this DVD was dubbed off an old VHS tape - there were several scenes with tell-tale 'tracking' lines in evidence. The color was fairly washed out and in many scenes the 'contrast' was poor - no solid blacks. This may be a case of 'this is as good as itz gonna get' - due to lack of a better original source print - potential purchasers should adjust expectations accordingly.Technical issues aside - the film was fairly entertaining - it had many similarities in its' plot and ambiance to some of the early Roger Corman jungle based WIP films - particularly "The Big Dollhouse" (even including a bit part by actress Roberta Collins who starred in 'Big Dollhouse'!). The simplistic plot follows "Sugar" (Phyllis Davis) the pulchritudinous star of the piece as she is 'set-up' for a drug bust and sentenced to prison in some nebulous third world sorta country. She is informed that her sentence can be commuted to a lesser form of incarceration IF she agrees to serve time 'cutting sugar cane' on a prison 'plantation'. She accepts the offer and arrives out in the field with the usual truck-load of 'new' fellow female detainees. The prison gurlz are thence 'menaced' by the horny male guards, horny male prisoners, and also the evil doctor at the facility who is performing some 'questionable' experiments on the prison population - one of the more amusing of which - involves injecting a bunch of house-cats with a violence inducing serum and (literally!) throwing the poor kitties into a cell full of the female prisoners - giving the term 'cat fight' a whole new meaning! There are escape attempts aplenty, clandestine 'hook-ups', and a fair amount of female nudity on display as the plot grinds forward to a fairly predictable conclusion. Phyllis Davis IS a BABE and the anticipation of when next she'll find an occasion to 'lose her top' is generally what gives one reason to keep watching this rather formulaic bit of vintage sex-ploitation.Maybe, someday, somewhere, someone will 'find' a decent copy of the original print of this flik and produce a better quality reproduction of it - but, until then, this may be the best version available. These 'Collectors Edition' DVDs are pretty minimalist in their presentation format - no extras.

The video quality is excellent on this package. I was impressed by the restoration as well as the film as a guilty pleasure. The main reason for the inclusion of the film is undoubtedly the beautiful late Phyllis Davis, whom I enjoyed watching on Love American Style and Vegas. The acting and some scenes at times can be laughable but hey, it’s the 70s.

B- Move, no talent acting. Cheaply made. Don't waste your money, I did.

[SWEET SUGAR - 1972 - Directed by Michel Levesque - approx. 90 minutes] Phyllis Davis and her bountiful rack co-star in this formulaic (aren't they all?) Women-In-Prison flick that's probably better than most Roger Corman flicks from the same era. So, if you're a fan of his or this genre of film, it's a must-see/own, as it's probably worth more than one screening, assuming you're indulging while viewing and a fan of Phyllis Davis and her twins, who had minor but noticeable roles in a bunch of mid 60's Elvis and cult flicks ('Lord Love A Duck', 'The Swinger', 'Spinout' and 'Last of the Secret Agents'), and TV appearances on 'The Wild, Wild West', 'Beverly Hillbillies', 'Love, American Style', etc. She also appeared in another worthwhile WIP film, 'Terminal Island' from '73. A striking stunner with dark hair and curves to spare, she was usually hired to fill out a bikini or midriff blouse rather than for her acting chops. Unfortunate for her, maybe, but not so much for her fans.Set-up by a crooked politician on a bogus drug charge while working as a prostitute in Latin America, Sugar (Davis) ends up on a female chain gang cutting down sugar cane for a sleazy doctor performing experiments on the inmates on a run-down plantation. The usual WIP clichés prevail, but most of the inmates are lookers, so you won't object to the by-the-books plotline, trust me. Naturally, a breakout is plotted and staged with the usual prevailing outcome precedent, but as far as this tired formula goes, this one isn't a snoozer, let-down or terribly painful to its core audience - that'd be you, if you're still reading this.A solid example of the sordid, squalid cinema being cranked out during the drive-in grindhouse glory days (and reminiscent of many a Jess Franco Eurosleaze from the same era), you could do much worse than this flick, as most of us so often have. A decent, watchable picture with not too many blemishes but more than a few sloppy edits, this DVD-R was a bit better than I expected. That may not sound like much of a recommendation to some, but to others, it's more than enough to throw in your cart immediately.

I was blown away with the outstanding quality of this DVD. I never thought there would be both a Blue-Ray and aregular DVD in the package. It was wonderful. I love 70's movies like this.

The item arrived on time and in good condition.

Genre fans will recognize the almost complete theft job of Jack Hill's "The Big Doll House" to make "Sweet Sugar" - down to the two bumbling guards and the creepy looking camp doctor (mind you, the doctor in Sweet Sugar is a whole bunch nastier/insane).Sweet Sugar gets thrown into prison - specifically an all-female prison plantation and must fend off evil medical doctors, aggressive inmates and grabby prison guards alike in order to escape back to the city.IMO, If you fancy Davis this is even better than the pretty good "Terminal Island" she starred in with Tom Sellick. Davis looks best as a brunette and it's too bad she didn't have that look more often on film. Maybe Dean Martin saw this flick at the tail end of a Matt Helm drive-in feature and got the hots?? They dated in real life. I'm almost certain it wasn't for her deadpan acting delivery.Not to be missed for the flying house cats attack and the topless actresses (including Davis herself). Enjoy!