John Herbert's famous stage play about the horrors of prison life, transformed into a sexually explicit movie about "a country club for sadomasochistic homosexuals," according to Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet.

It's a tough, tragic, drama involving violence, sex roles, and epic bitchiness. The film was made under difficult conditions: the actors suffered in subzero temperatures on location in a real, disused Quebec prison, and first director Jules Schwerin was replaced by Harvey Hart. "Lester Persky, the producer, wanted only a kind of sex fantasy," says Schwerin.

"He wanted a great deal of nudity and was interested only in the exploitation element." The movie is saved from its exploitative tendencies by the performance of Michael Greer, fresh from The Gay Deceivers. Greer stars as the prison's resident outrageous drag queen, a role he had also occupied in more than 400 performance of the Sal Mineo stage production. At this rare screening, Michael Greer will be present to talk about the making of the movie.