Stephanie Rothman's Terminal Island (1973)

When I was publisher of the film magazine Rear Window in the 70’s we had planned (just before the magazine folded) an issue devoted to director Stephanie Rothman, who in that decade directed six extraordinary exploitation films for Roger Corman, who had also been a mentor for Martin Scorcese, Peter Bogdanovitch and others.  But Corman paid little and Rothman left him to make movies elsewhere, movies that never got made.  Among other factors, she had gotten stereotyped as an exploitation director, even though she had only become that in order to be able to make any films at all!  And, of course, female directors had a hard time breaking into quality films, something that has only changed slightly.  Rothman’s last film was Working Girls in 1974, after which she went into the real estate business.  She is now 80 years old.

Terminal Island is a place where the worst criminals are sent, isolated from civilization and forced to form their own groups.  One group is headed by Bobby (Sean Kenney), where the women do as they are told, being sex slaves at night and pulling plows during the day.  The other group is egalitarian, rescuing the women from Bobby’s group and moving around the island to avoid Bobby, who has the guns.  As Bobby becomes more of a tyrant the rebels attack him with homemade bombs and he isolates himself in a bunker, saying “I don’t need anybody,” the same thing hero John Chance (John Wayne) says in Rio Bravo (1959).  Rothman agrees with director Howard Hawks, however, that one can only survive successfully by accepting the help of others, when necessary.

Working with a limited palette –mostly blue, green and brown – Rothman and cinematographer Daniel Lecambre made a film that captures both the despair and hope of the criminals isolated on an island and forced to create their own civilization from scratch.  This was a common theme for Roger Corman, e.g., Teenage Caveman (1958), though Rothman’s approach is more optimistic than Corman’s.  She imbues an exploitation film with hope for womankind as well as mankind.