Girls in Prison

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!"

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.

A pretty young woman by the name of "Anne Carson" (Joan Taylor) gets mixed up with two other men in a bank robbery and gets a 5-to-10 year prison sentence even though she declares her innocence. Along with that, $38,000 was stolen and since she left one person at the bank and the other person is dead, everybody thinks she hid the money. And everybody wants it bad. Anyway, for a women-in-prison (WIP) film made in the mid-50's this movie wasn't too bad. Not only did Joan Taylor give a pretty good performance but she was rather cute too. Along with that, I liked the way the director (Edward L. Cahn) depicted her lesbian cell-mate "Melanee" (Helen Gilbert). Although certainly tame by today's standards, it was rather racy for this particular time-period. I also appreciated the fact that her other two cell-mates, "Jenny" (Adele Jergens) and "Dorothy" (Phyllis Coates) weren't bad on the eyes either. After all, they could have looked a lot worse. All in all then, I rate this movie as slightly above average.

For those of you that enjoy mindless but fascinating "theme" movies of the '50s, then this one is for you. Adele Jergens steals the film as the prison bully that befriends Ann. The best scene is at the end of the film where Richard Denning, a minister that was a star boxing champ at college mind you, dukes it out with the bad guy. There's an earthquake (makes no sense) and a windstorm. For highlights on the making of the film, check out American International's producer/founder Sam Arkoff's book, "Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants," and he'll explain the reasons for the natural disasters. Overall the film is interesting, since it makes you wonder how the prison women manage not a hair out of place or smeared makeup after the fights. Cute stuff.

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