Запертая страсть В клетке жары (Zapertaya strast' / V kletke zhary)

1974 film by Jonathan Demme

Caged Heat, also known as Renegade Girls, is a 1974 women in prison film. It was written and directed by Jonathan Demme (in his directorial debut) for New World Pictures, headed by Roger Corman. The film stars Juanita Brown, Roberta Collins, Erica Gavin, Ella Reid, Rainbeaux Smith, and Barbara Steele. John Cale wrote and performed its soundtrack music, which features the guitar playing of Mike Bloomfield. Two later films, Caged Heat II: Stripped of Freedom (1994) and Caged Heat 3000 (1995), made use of the Caged Heat name and the women in prison situation, but are unrelated to the original film.

Jacqueline Wilson (Erica Gavin) is convicted for illegal drug offenses and sentenced to a women's prison. She and several fellow convicts fight the repressive policies of the prison warden (Barbara Steele).

Demme had produced two films for Corman, including the women in prison picture The Hot Box (1972). He wanted to become a director, and wrote a script for Corman, but the producer did not want to fund it, as he thought the cycle had peaked. Demme succeeded in raising the finance on his own and Corman agreed to distribute it through New World Pictures. To a lesser degree, Demme also incorporated elements of liberal politics, feminism, and social consciousness into his screenplay. Because of all these new elements introduced to the "women in prison" genre, and because of the film's status as Demme's first feature, some movie critics consider it to be more interesting than the average run of the mill women in prison exploitation movie.