''The Female Bunch'' is a 1969 action film directed by

Al Adamson Albert Victor Adamson Jr. (July 25, 1929 – June 21, 1995) was an American filmmaker and actor known as a prolific director of B-grade horror and exploitation films throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The son of silent film stars Victor Adamson a ...

, and starring

Russ Tamblyn Russell Irving Tamblyn, also known as Rusty Tamblyn (born December 30, 1934) is an American film and television actor and dancer. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tamblyn trained as a gymnast in his youth. He began his career as a child actor f ...

and

Lon Chaney Jr. Creighton Tull Chaney (February10, 1906 – July12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film '' The Wolf Man'' (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard (Dra ...

(in his final feature film). The plot centered on a group of violent, man-hating female criminals who cause trouble around the Mexican border. ''The Female Bunch'' was shot in the summer of 1969 at the

Spahn Ranch Spahn Ranch, also known as the Spahn Movie Ranch, was a 55-acre (22.3 ha) movie ranch in Los Angeles, California. For a period it was used as a ranch, dairy farm and later movie set during the era of westerns. After a decline in use for filming b ...

during the time that it was occupied by the Manson Family. The film was distributed on DVD by

Troma Entertainment Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. The company produces low-budget independent films, primarily of the horror comedy genre. Many of them pl ...

Plot

After a string of bad times with men, Sandy tries to kill herself. Co-waitress Libby saves her and takes her to meet some female friends of hers who live on a ranch in the desert. Grace, the leader of the gang, puts Sandy through her initiation and they get on with the real job of running drugs across the Mexican border, hassling poor farmers, taking any man they please, and generally raising a little hell. Soon Sandy becomes unsure if this is the life for her, but it may be too late to get out.

Cast

as Bill *

Jennifer Bishop Jennifer Bishop aka Jenifer Bishop (born 1941) is an American film and television actress who was active from the early 1960s through to the 1970s. She was a regular on the television series ''Hee Haw''. She had various roles in film that includ ...

as Grace *

as Monti * Regina Carrol as Libby * Megan Timothy

Production

In addition to Spahn Ranch, parts of the film were shot in Hanksville and Capitol Reef in Utah as well as

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vega ...

In popular culture

The film shot at

, the setting for the short story "Another Fish Story" by English film critic and author

Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at ...

. In the story, a mystic drifter makes a deal with Adamson to employ the over-the-hill Chaney for a mysterious mission in the desert in exchange for promising that the Manson Family's rowdy followers will not interrupt the film's shooting schedule any further with their disruptive behavior.

References

External links