Ladies They Talk About

Nan Taylor (Barbara Stanwyck) is caught trying to help three men rob a bank. She sweet talks an innocent, powerful man David Slade (Preston Foster) into defending her, but confesses at the last minute. She's sent to prison and plots her revenge. The prison has a lesbian (shown once), a black prisoner who actually has lines (very surprising for the 1930s), a bird that terrorizes the inmates (don't ask), catfights and some pretty elaborate cells for the women. It makes prison seem like a great place to be!

A definite one of a kind with some pretty risque (for 1933) lines and situations. Barbara Stanwyck is just great in the title role. She tears into it and gives it her all--especially at the end. Lillian Roth also is very good as a fellow prisoner. As for Foster--he's tall and handsome...that's about it, but he fulfills his role.

Tough, fun, very quick (69 minutes) pre-Code movie. Definetely worth a look.

Don't expect much in the way of pre-Code titillation with this simple film adapted from a play. What you do get is a starring vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck, who plays the moll of a gang who robs banks.

After being apprehended, she is sent to San Quentin, where she learns to live with prison rules and the social structure there. She's a tough cookie, always looking to assert herself, even on her first day of captivity.

Except for the presence of guards, life as depicted in the women's prison is much like "Stage Door", with a leisurely, genial attitude. Comic touches abound in this film, like the scene where one inmate sings to a headshot of Joe E. Brown, of all people.

While Stanwyck is strong in her role and Preston Foster is solid in his briefer portrayal of the revivalist who never gives up on her, "Ladies They Talk About" has a story too simple to challenge the viewer or, for that matter, the actors themselves. And the drama is minimal.

But it's fun to see Stanwyck in one of her earlier films.

This is a fine example of the Barbara Stanwyck fans would come to know in future years. Her role is tough as nails (remember this production is pre -code) and no-nonsense but still smooth and sexy. One of the best of Stanwyck's early work.

Early Barbara Stanwyck who is about as bad as they get. She participates in a bank robbery, manipulates men, lies, and gets sent up to the big house. Plot is somewhat far fetched with little character development other than for Barbara. Story revolves around whether Barbara will again allow Preston Foster to try to save her after trusting him once and having him fail to live up to her expectations. Stanwyck is patterned after the real life experiences and play by Dorothy Mackaye who repeats the formula in Lady Gangster (1942). This movie is worth watching to see the early Stanwyck or the depiction of woman's prison life. Apparently women inmates were allowed to fix up their rooms real nice and change from prison clothes into street clothes during visiting hours -- or so Hollywood would tell us. Sure would have made it easier to escape!

Part of a bank robber gang, a woman is sent to prison, while carrying on a tepid romance with an evangelist.

Stanwyck (Nan) is nearly the whole show in this early crime drama from street-wise Warner Bros. She's one tough cookie, and when she struts cocksure into a room full of other tough prison cookies, we believe it. No wonder she had one of Hollywood's most durable A-picture careers. But watch out for that dimpled cutie Lillian Roth (Linda) who almost steals the film with a big helping of winsome charm. The prison tour she makes with a silent Stanwyck is clearly intended to showcase that dimpled appeal. Too bad she had such a problem with booze; in my book, she could have been a big star, especially in musicals.

The movie itself is just okay. Unfortunately, the supposed romance between Stanwyck and a simpering Preston Foster undercuts much of the movie's stab at realism. But then I guess someone had to set Nan on the straight and narrow. Clearly, the best scenes are in prison. There we see an unusual line-up of characters, thanks to the pre-Code period. These include such exotic types as the one-and-only Maude Eburne (Aunt Maggie) as a wacko grandmother from heck, a cigar-smoking butch matron (Dickson) whose daring type would disappear from the screen for decades, and even an "uppity" black woman (uncredited) who takes no lip from anyone, black or white.

Still, it's Stanwyck's movie, and there's enough of her trademark grit to please her many fans, myself included.