Mujeres en prisión

Less-than-thrilling, the film drags but the ending is goofy enough to make it possibly worthwhile. Features earthquakes that come from nowhere, a boxing preacher, and girls in prison who seem not to have been quite locked up. Trouble ensues.

Who played the blonde dance partner of Paul Anderson (Lance Fuller) in the opening nightclub scene?

I bought a VHS copy of this odd little women-in-prison film on eBay because it featured the sublime Phyllis Coates (the first "Lois Lane" on television and, arguably, the best ever) in a supporting role as 'Dorothy', a disturbed inmate. A small but memorable role for Phyllis here: oddly enough her character assumes every new female inmate is a woman named 'Lois' who broke up her family and led her to murder someone.

Lots of great-looking women inmates throughout the film. Prison life is pretty rough, with lots of meaningless busywork for the inmates.

The opening scene is pretty avant garde; the director deserves credit for his experimental approach to introducing the characters.

Anne Carson is in prison as accomplice to a bank robbery. Everyone but muscular priest Rcihard Denning thinks she knows where the loot in buried, and is willing to offer her favors for a cut. Denning believes her claims of innocence.

It's an ambitious little film with a good story and not much in the way of direction; an accomplished cast makes it work, including old-timers like Mae Marsh, Jane Darwell, and Raymond Hatton, and the frisson of lesbianism that had rapidly become standard for this sort of movie helps too. However, the direction by Edward L. Cahn is never more than adequate.

It is nice to see B girl Adele Jergens have some fun right before she retired. This is pure camp, which is why we watch it. I Iove 1950s and early 1960s women's prison movies. They all have their roots done, perfect hairdos, tailored prison uniforms and are probably wearing girdles. The worst they do is use double negatives and pull each other's hair. I'm sure I watched these rerun on TV as a little kid thinking society was SO much better then, thinking, "Oh I see hippies on the street doing worse!"