Cast and Crew:   Ciro H. Santiago (Co-Producer); Candice Roman, Carol Speed, Vic Diaz

What It’s About: Revolutionaries Blossom (Pam Grier) and Django (Sid Haig) take Terry (Anitra Ford) as a hostage during a hold-up of a nightclub.  Terry winds up in a prison after a misunderstanding with the police when she’s freed.  Terry expects her boyfriend, a politician, to free her, but her only real chance of liberation from the prison and its sadistic guards and warden is Django and Blossom’s plan to free the prisoners….but will anyone survive long enough to be freed?

Why Watch it Today?: Writer/Director Jack Hill was born today in 1933.  Today he’s mainly remembered for his work with Pam Grier, most famously Coffy and Foxy  Brown, as well as being one of the filmmakers Quentin Tarantino name checks.  Jack Hill never really made it into the mainstream, but spent a good part of the 1970s making memorable exploitation films for American International Pictures and producer Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.  The Big Bird Cage is Hill’s hilarious near parody of New World’s early 70s Women in Prison films, always shot on the cheap in the Philippines.