Girls in Prison

1956 "What happens to women without men?"
5.2| 1h27m| NR| en
Details

An inmate is persuaded to take part in a breakout by cellmates anxious to cash in on loot they believe she has hidden.

Director

Producted By

American International Pictures

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Reviews

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Uriah43 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.
gridoon Going by the title and the cover, I was expecting a straight-up Girls-In-Prison flick (duh!), but this film seems less concerned with daily prison life than with the plot that has several characters, operating in & out of prison, looking for the still-missing loot of the bank robbery which got the heroine, Joan Taylor, in prison in the first place. Everybody thinks that she has the money hidden somewhere and....spoilers follow....everybody is right! That's quite a twist on most pictures of this kind: the innocent-looking heroine thrown into the cesspool is actually guilty! But don't worry, there's a kind preacher there to help her regain her conscience. The film does have some prototypical elements of WIP movies (including a very short and shot from a great distance mud fight that reminded me of Roberta Collins vs. Pam Grier in "The Big Doll House"), and there are subtle but unmistakable clues that Helen Gilbert's character is a lesbian who gets angry at Taylor for rejecting her. There is also an earthquake sequence, pretty well-done, and an IMPRESSIVE stunt of a woman climbing onto the back of a moving truck and then getting thrown on the ground. It's too bad that between these moments the film is actually quite boring. (**)
wiluxe-2 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.
Teenie 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.