Ilsa: The Wicked Warden/Comments

• This one became an Ilsa film due to a title change when it hit video shelves. It is one of the four rather humorless women in prison films that Jesus Franco made in rapid succession in 1976 that was released in 1977 originally as Greta, the Mad Butcher and is also known as Wanda, the Wicked Warden starred Thorne and Franco fave (and wife) Lina Romay and Howard Maeur.Its plot has Thorne playing Greta the warden of a women's prison/asylum that is involved in making black market porno tapes. In 1983, because the first two Ilsa films were pretty popular on video, a few lines of dialogue were re-dubbed and the film was retitled Ilsa: The Wicked Warden. Actually on the Anchor Bay DVD if you listen closely you'll hear Thorne referred to as Greta several times. There's little intentional camp value in the film but there's a little more erotica and of course lesbianism, a nude catfight, some cannibalism and a pretty brutal gory ending. Franco and Ilsa completists won't want to miss it. There are several out of focus shots in this film that will drive you crazy. Welcome to one of director Franco's films. --Count Graf Orlock