Terminal Island

"Welcome to Terminal Island, baby." This Seventies exploitation gem has been repackaged a few times since its original release as it attempted to cash in on the subsequent success of its Magnum P.I. stars Tom Selleck and Roger Mosley (who have always seemed to be a bit embarrassed by the association). By the time Rothman directed Terminal Island for Dimension Pictures, a company she formed with her husband and creative partner Charles S. Swartz, she was an experienced hand at the exploitation gambit, having made a number of movies for Roger Corman's outfits at AIP and New World. Films such as It's a Bikini World, The Student Nurses, and The Velvet Vampire established her proficiency with the nuts and bolts of the exploitation formulas, while also exhibiting a noticeably feminist bent. Her female characters were always non-passive independent sorts, the equals of their male counterparts who had their own points of view, and problem-solving protagonists prone to unconventional, if not utopian, resolutions. Abortion, voyeuristic lesbian vampires, rape, political activism ­ all are topics addressed in these films. And perhaps as her signature statement, Rothman was always sure to include equalizing images of male nudity to go along with all the soft-core female nudity her formulaic plots required. Terminal Island is a still-topical drama about a fictional penal colony established by the state of California from which there is no escape and, hence, no need for guards. There are some 40 men on the island and four women, who are forced into becoming the men's chattel. They service the men sexually and also pull their work ploughs. Divisions of sex transcend divisions of race here. A renegade group of convicts (including Selleck as a mercy-killing doctor sentenced to life on Terminal Island) breaks apart from the main group, and the women choose to cast their lot with the renegades and also devise some of the group's savviest weapons. Ultimately, Terminal Island becomes the unlikely home of a utopian new society.