Penitenziario braccio femminile

I remember seeing this film as a child when it first came out. I disliked it intensely BUT obviously it could not have been as terrible as I thought since I remember it well. I did like both Glynis Johns and Diana Dors. If only these old films were available to us now, I for one would be very happy!!! I remember the cinema where I saw it. It was a 'flea pit' in those days with poor decor and broken seats. The cinema screen was taller than it was wide and the edges were rounded. This was very odd, I thought. I remember that the story dealt with women in prison and followed their misadventures both while 'inside' and after release. I remember being very impressed with Glynis Johns voice and Diana Dors curves. I also remember that the story ended reasonably happy for one but not the other. I was happy when it was over as I had been promised an ice cream for sitting quietly through it!

A peculiar mixture this, with an attempt to portray something of the reality of contemporary womens' prisons on one hand, combined with comedy flashbacks and a fictional approach to crime on the other.

The story centres around Jean Raymond (Glynis Johns) who is the subject of an elaborate frame when she can't pay her gambling debts. In reality, a half competent barrister could have destroyed the case against her, should it have ever come to court in the first place, but here she's sent down for twelve months. There follows her experiences in the grim Blackdown Jail and then The Grange, a progressive 'prison without bars'. Many of the usual clichés of such films are avoided and the staff are shown as being very strict, but fair. One of the comedy episodes features a comical family of shoplifters headed by Sid James and Olive Sloane; Sid's prominent position in the cast list, despite a relatively brief appearance, is notable even at this stage of his career. Another piece of nonsense has a wooden Sybil Thorndike attempting to murder her husband, and then framing Athene Seyler for blackmail. By contrast the scenes in the prison hospital are more realistic, with Jane Hylton giving perhaps the best performance as Babs, haunted by the death of the baby she had neglected. Though third billed, Diana Dors is not very memorable in what is little more than a supporting role. A couple of years or so later she was to give her finest performance for the same director in YIELD TO THE NIGHT.

The finale, with the orchestra in full flow, is as contrived and sentimental as anything that Hollywood could produce. Despite or because of its various eccentricities, I quite enjoyed this.

Although there was probably some serious intent behind the film's premise e.g. the open prison system, social comment on post-war England as class barriers are breaking down which are interspersed throughout, it is the gentle humour that lifts it above the mediocre. Superb cameos from the great Athene Seyler and Sybil Thorndike playing two friends who plot to 'do in' an elderly admirer is made a great deal of by the director. The central story involving Glynis Johns is well told and each of the film's subsequent yarns make for a light but thoroughly enjoyable whole.

Glynis Johns learns the hard way that crime doesn't pay in this melodrama organised round a series of flashbacks.

The usual interesting cast includes Sybil Thorndike, a young Rachel Roberts and Olive Sloane as a professional shoplifter; while Diana Dors' character anticipates her celebrated role for the same director two years later in 'Yield for the Night'.

As far as women's prison pictures go, this one is far from bad, thanks primarily to fine performances by its British cast. Glynis Johns, who is great throughout, plays a compulsive gambler who's framed by a vengeful casino owner for writing a bad check. That part of the plot doesn't ring entirely true, nor does her romance with her faithful boyfriend, but the assortment of Dickensian criminals she meets in jail are an entertaining lot. Especially wonderful is Sidney James and his family of shoplifters. Compared to some of the overwrought American pictures that have been made on this subject about "caged" women, this one is a real treat.