Filles sans joie

Aka The Weak and the Wicked. Socialite Jean Raymond is sentenced to 12 months for fraud. In flashback, she is revealed to be in gambling debts and refused to pay. The casino threatens unknown retribution and soon, she is framed for her fraud charge. In prison, she meets other prisoners who reveal their lives before prison in other flashbacks.

I find the prison drama rather rambling and non-dramatic. Some of the characters are interesting and the most interesting parts of the movie are a couple of the flashbacks. The structure of the movie may be problematic in maintaining dramatic drive for the central narrative. All in all, there are a few intriguing bits but the overall effect is less than expected.

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'.

Glynis Johns is railroaded into prison for insurance fraud, where she initially despairs. However, the knowledge that her young man is waiting for her and the kindly prison warden buck her up. Eventually she is transferred to a 'prison with bars', where she meets, in the words of Anna Russell, all sorts of terribly interesting people, including Diana Dors and Olive Sloan.

It's directed by J. Lee Thompson from a book by Joan Henry, who was one of his wives; it was based on her prison experiences, and she called the Johns character "a bit goody-goody". Indeed she is. Except for one impassioned speech at the end, she's largely a sounding board for others. She's also rather heavy-set and middle-aged looking to add to her anonymity. Miss Dors gets the better role, and does a good job with it. Thompson would work with her later.

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.

Before he became popular directing Charles Bronson films, J. Lee Thompson directed two prison movies based on books written by his future wife, Joan Henry. Glynis Johns does very well as the gambler who is framed for insurance fraud and sent to prison for one year. Here she meets the inmates who relate their stories of crimes that sent them up for time: a shoplifter, a blackmailer, and a neglectful mother. She stops one from stabbing a cruel guard and is rewarded with a transfer to a prison without walls. It's also very touching in the visitation scenes with her fiancé and doctor (John Gregson) how she feels the stigma of her sentence from the outside world. Only beef with the film I have is that there is no flashback to explain what crime her best friend, Betty (Diana Dors) did to serve two years. Her chum is desperate to find a boyfriend, Norman, that never writes or visits.