Movie review – Corman # 3 - “Swamp Woman” (1955) **

Corman’s early movies often featured tough women in the lead – he admitted this wasn’t so much because he was a feminist but because it was something a bit different. This low budget effort has a plot surprisingly close to the sort of thing New World would do in the 70s: a female cop goes undercover in prison and busts out with a bunch of Bad Girls so she can find some diamonds. Good trashy fun, with the girls in tight tops and skimpy shorts running around the Louisiana bayous; there are crocodiles and lots of scenes where the woman smack each other around; there’s also a scene where one of the girls feels up a man (Mike Connors) they kidnap on the way. The low budget jars at times (look at the shonky set of the police officer) but the large amount of location filming (swamps, mardi gras) means this isn’t as big a problem as it would normally be: an early example of Corman’s thriftiness. Another one is how he got movement in the credit sequence: he had names on a picture, but would move the camera around. The presence of Marie Windsor, Beverly Garland and Connors in the cast give this actual star power.