One of my all time favorites.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

"Carly Arnold" (Tanya Roberts) and her good friend "Melanie" (Julie Pop) are serving in the Peace Corp somewhere in Africa. As they are heading to the airport en route to the United States they happen to pick up a hitchhiker who says he is also headed in that direction. Unfortunately, they encounter a roadblock and during an inspection of their baggage a bag of heroin is found in the hitchhiker's belongings. When the hitchhiker tries to run he is shot and killed leaving the two young ladies without the main person who might vouch for their innocence. After a quick trial with a preordained guilty verdict they are both sentenced to 11 years in a prison known as "Purgatory". While there they are raped and abused with neither of them having much chance of acquittal or escape. Anyway, for a women-in-prison movie this particular film requires viewers to use their imagination a bit as there aren't too many scenes which capture the anguish or violence normally seen in movies of this type. Along with that, except for Tanya Roberts, the rest of the cast suffers badly from a lack of character development. Additionally, while Tanya Roberts certainly performed well enough she simply wasn't able to carry the movie all by herself. Slightly below average.

Peace Corps Carly and Melanie are leaving the African country Umlanga, but when they're pulled over by the authorities. The hitcher-hiker they picked up, happened to be carrying drugs. The two ladies are falsely convicted of smuggling drugs too. So the judge, sentences the pair to eleven years to the penitentiary known as Purgatory. When they get there, Carly soon discovers that showing fear and aggression is a big mistake and only backfires. The abuse going on behind the scenes sticks to the warden and the guards taking advantage of the inmates sexually. After their first encounter, Melanie cracks insistently. Carly becomes the warden's favourite and is forced to work in a brothel. While, her mother is doing her best to get her daughter out, despite finding it hard getting help from the American embassy.Tanya Roberts (who's basically wasted) is the main draw card to this highly dank, lewd and by-the-numbers women-in-prison exploitation fodder. Well there's plenty of leering shots on Tanya Roberts (who wears some skimpy outfits and naively whimpers a lot over her innocence), but it really does utilize the lustful sexual attraction that's brewing. However, while it's sordidly suggested, it falls mostly into the implied bracket. It's pretty weak and tame in what you see and there's very little sleaze and flesh. Too much jilted dialogues involving whining or long-winded speeches with political interference has a certain seriousness about it, which just drowns out the fun that could've been and only aggravates. It doesn't quite ignite until the last fifteen minutes, but even then the action is amateurishly staged and the final big bang (the usual break out with some explosions and sweet revenge) lacks zing. Obvious plotting in the material doesn't help the stuffy pacing either. The look of the film comes across like a jagged TV episode, but it cooks up a gritty, dour and harsh atmosphere despite not entirely illustrating it. Director Ami Artzi does an systematic job, but can succumb to lazy touches, just like the conclusion. Free-willed camera-work can get murky with one or two unusual handled POV shots and the broodingly over dramatic music score is totally mishandled. The voluptuously stunning Roberts has trouble holding the film together in the lead role, but however it's a gusty performance. Clare Marshall provides much added spark as the mother Ruth Arnold. The performances aren't terrible, just extremely plain and shell-like.A visually enticing Roberts and couple of unintentional chuckles can be found in this free-risk, below-average cheapjack "WIP" exploitation staple. Tanya Roberts' fans will eat it up, but I don't know about others.

Despite the initial set-up (2 American girls in a foreign - here African - country get arrested and sentenced to 11 years in jail for a crime they didn't commit), "Purgatory" is not really a Women-In-Prison film. It almost completely ignores the daily prison life of the women and focuses on one aspect only: their sexual exploitation. The warden has set up a prostitution ring and the prisoners are used to satisfy the needs of many high-paying customers. After 75 minutes of this repellent junk, we finally get to the escape part. "Purgatory" supposedly has serious intentions: there are even title cards telling us what date it is, and at the end another card telling us what happened to the surviving characters, as if this was based on a true story, even though at the end of the credits there is the usual "any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer. But it is technically rough, even amateurish at times, and although Tanya Roberts deserves credit for taking on a role that has her appear completely unglamorous, she's still too limited an actress to carry a movie by herself. (*)

Tanya Roberts tries to break free from her typecast image that stemmed from her infamous one-season stint on the highly successful "CHARLIE'S ANGELS" series and her turn as the title role in the atrociously awful camp classic, "SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE".In "PURGATORY", Tanya Roberts is Carly. She and her best friend Melanie are vacationing in South Africa and make the fatal mistake of picking up a 'hunky' hitch-hiker in their jeep who turns out to be nothing more than a filthy drug runner. When their jeep is stopped at a military checkpoint run by an outfit of South African army officers, the hitch-hiker tries to make a run for it but is gunned down in a Sunflower field. As a result, his bag is searched by the officers who discover a reasonable amount of drugs and naturally, Carly and Melanie are arrested despite their pleas that they had nothing to do with this.So into the filthy slammer Carly and Melanie go. As two naive westerners, their case is fed to the dogs and they are sentenced to a life sentence inside a female prison where they are sexually molested by prison guards and treated as outcasts by the 'local' prison inmates. Naturally, Tanya Roberts uses her 'sexuality' to try to get them out of this intense and hopeless situation as she makes moves to seduce the Warden of the female prison in order to buy a ticket out for their freedom."PURGATORY" comes off more as a sleazy exploitation flick rather than something dramatically serious that you could actually believe might have happened in real life. From the 'hosing down' sessions within the prison walls to the countless sex scenes we get to witness shared between Tanya Roberts and the Warden, this film finds its place among other cinematic gems such as "THE CONCRETE JUNGLE" and "THE BIG DOLL HOUSE".While no one can really take this movie seriously, most men will find the eye candy gratuitously supplied by Tanya Roberts enough to suffice their appetites. Women should look elsewhere."PURGATORY" is a relatively hard movie to catch sight of these days - but if you do happen to see this on your TV Guide or find a dusty copy on video at your local store, give it a gander... it's actually pretty funny.My Rating - 6 out of 10