Swamp Diamonds

Its no small wonder how Roger Corman became such a long-lived filmmaker with a directorial debut like this, originally title Swamp Women. However, Corman boasts a very intimidating oeuvre as producer and is undoubtedly one of the more influential independent filmmakers. He mentored some of the biggest directors and movie brats working today and also made ridiculously low-budget films of his own.

Swamp Diamonds was made in 22 days, a length that reflects the relative lack of quality exhibited in nearly every frame of the film. And what better story than an undercover policewoman who goes into prison only to help three inmates breakout and navigate the Baton Rouge swamps looking for diamonds. Corman makes the unbearable only slightly less by having the quartet conveniently cut off their pants yielded effective jean shorts. That’s about all there is to say except for a tremendous alligator fighting scene and tree shoot-out, or rather spear-out. Corman ignores trivial matters such as temporal and spatial continuity, common sense, and entertainment in order to tell his story.

The boys of MST3K make the 1955 film only slightly less taxing and, as usual, are savvy to the imperfections, oddities, and conveniently cast Touch Connors. The film is now in the public domain so if you wish to remake, go ahead.