Penitentiary (1979)

[lester1/2jr]

Quite venerated in some circles, but I found this to be a little on the dull side.  There are some colorful characters and more than alot of gritty grittiness, but it'sreally  just a bunch of sweaty guys in jail saying dramatic sort of stuff to each other. To paraphrase whoever it was who said it, if you are going to make a movie about how monotonous and depressing jail is, you don't make a monotonous and depressing movie.  Really, I am going to go back and edit my "tenement" review too.  I was fooled by the grit, but no more.  From now on only pure entertainment value , none of this realism true to life business. There's more to making movies than that.

from the guy who did "Soul Vengence"

[Andrew]

I've been wanting to see these films.  I believe the third is the one I really want to see, because it has a crazy midget boxer that beats the crap out of the main character and teaches him how to be one with boxing and all that stuff.

[RapscallionJones]

I've been wanting to see these films.  I believe the third is the one I really want to see, because it has a crazy midget boxer that beats the crap out of the main character and teaches him how to be one with boxing and all that stuff.

I'm with you, Andrew.  I haven't seen any of them, but they have a reputation.  The third one is the one that I really want to see, though, for the same reasons.  Back in the 80's our cable company had this pay per view channel where you could catch trailers and snippets of the movies they were viewing and P3 was one of them.  I doubt it is as strange as it looked to me when I was 11 but the bits they showed looked so chilling.  The prison looked more like a dungeon and the general atmosphere was dreary and nightmarish. 

I really want to see it but I cannot, for the life of me, find it anywhere and I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for it.

[RCMerchant]

 Iv'e seen part one. Part II has mr. T (!!!) and I've seen part III with the crazy midget...(who I would swear looks like that crazy midget you see on COPS once in awhile),...I believe the director made ALABAMA 'S GHOST too. 

[Khaz]

I really want to see it but I cannot, for the life of me, find it anywhere and I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for it.

I have only ever seen this one on VHS, cheap on Amazon - i think it was only 3$ I was considering picking this one up myself too.