Lady Gangster

It's the "Women in Cages" of the 40's starring the lean, wide-eyed, prominent cheek-boned, raven-maned beauty Faye Emerson as an aspiring actress who participates in a bank robbery, is caught and then incarcerated for her role but not before hiding the stash from her associates. Whilst in gaol she befriends fellow inmate (Bishop) and is misled in her attempts to get paroled by her jealous nemesis (Ford). Eventually she hatches a plot to escape and recover her share of the booty, but her former accomplices have other ideas.

Emerson is a magnetic personality, arguably better than the B-standard plot, though it's her genuine charm and timing that make her the perfect fit as the slightly naive southern girl, able to improvise in order to make all ends meet. Frank Wilcox co-stars as her would-be suitor whose attempts to keep her out of gaol always seem to fail. Good to see William Hopper (the future "Perry Mason" detective) in a minor role as a radio announcer, and Jackie Gleason as a sympathetic crook.

The momentum is ideal with no time wasted on long, pensive reaction shots or banal and obsolete melodrama - it's light, focused and frenetic and as a consequence, oddly compelling. Emerson, Bishop and Ford all play their roles with aplomb, turning an otherwise mediocre women's prison movie into an entertaining hour.