Women's Prison

Ida Lupino is the warden of a women's prison, which holds all kinds, those in for the long haul, those trying to rehabilitate, those who keep coming back because they don't know any better or just don't care, and those who through a terrible accident don't really belong there. The excellent cast includes Jan Sterling (one of those who keeps coming back), Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, and Phyllis Thaxter (as one who doesn't really belong with rough characters) as those serving time in the clinker, and Howard Duff as the doctor there for their wellbeing. But it seems that under the treatment of Ida, they are not encouraged to rehabilitate. She treats them all like beasts, like all they understand is the whip, when they need a helping hand to turn their lives around, if they will. The movie seems to sensationalize or over-dramatize the-revolting- prisoners-and-the-warden-with-no-heart plot, but as viewers we tend to eat it up, with such a great cast of actresses. The film may be rather formulaic and predictable, but we still enjoy it all, down to the last drop. Ida has never been more sadistic, even up against her real life husband Mr. Duff! Watch an extreme example of a women's prison! Hopefully!

This is NOT a film that would ever be mistaken for an episode of "Masterpiece Theater"! In fact, in many ways it's a sensationalistic piece of junk...but also a very well-made and entertaining piece of junk! In the 1950s, there were a ton of women in prison films and this might just rank among the best. Part of the reason for this being better than average is the excellent cast. Ida Lupino is a treat to watch as a sadistic warden who is more screwed up and vile than the inmates! And, among the inmates are such colorful dames as Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter and Phyllis Thaxter.

The film begins with a lady (Thaxter) being sent to lady for accidentally killing a child due to her negligent driving. Thaxter is emotionally fragile and the prison doctor is concerned about her. However, the warden is insistent that Thaxter be broken just like the rest of the prisoners and pushes the woman to a mental breakdown. In fact, throughout the film Lupino pushes the prisoners to near-riot and she seems to have people skills that would make Attila the Hun seem like a member of the Peace Corps by comparison! There's a lot more to the film--but I don't want to spoil the suspense.

The bottom line is that the film is highly entertaining by being unapologetically loud and over the top. Sensational but far from subtle--this is a great guilty pleasure.

Ida Lupino gets one of her juiciest roles here. It may not be one of her subtlest but she gets to sink her teeth into it. She is the conniving, heartless, loveless warden of the title institution.

The inmates include blowzy dames from various studios. It's a great cast. We have Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, and Cleo Moore. Moore is sans Hugo Haas.

It's a trifle hard to believe the plot. A co-ed prison where the women are abused. But though it may not be terribly cogent, it's strong. It's forceful.

Early in the movie Juanita Hall, playing a character named Polly, is introduced. She says she was named after the hospital where she was born: Polyclinic. Hey, I was born there, too. Maybe I should have been named Clint.

Watch this one. It's not campy. It can be taken very seriously. But it's also fun to see all these dolls cracking wise and playing tough.

The fifties provided from Hollywood the most terrific movies ever made about women behind bars: this one WOMEN'S PRISON and CAGED, directed by John Cromwell and starring Eleonor Parker in an inmate role. Here, on the contrary, the female lead is actually the evil one of the film; the awesome Ida Lupino in the cruel warden's role. One of my favourites of hers. I never get bored, tired, watching this absolute perfect prison drama, as much, if not more, riveting as any men's prison tales, in the line of BRUTE FORCE or RIOT IN CELL BLOCKK 11. Because with women, you have something different, not only brutal physical violence but emotional cruelty, so typical with women's atmosphere. Jan Sterling and Phillis Thaxter are also excellent in this story, where, I repeat, character study, face off, rivalry is purely outstanding.

Dismissed by the critics at the time of it's release as a mediocre copy of 1950's prestigious "women's prison" drama CAGED, 1955's WOMEN'S PRISON has eclipsed that Oscar-nominated movie at least in terms of latter-day fame and as a iconic piece of 1950's Hollywood. The movie, more sensational and lurid than it's predecessor, opened the door for countless low-budget "women in prison" films in subsequent decades, most of which had characters more than a little similar to the ladies on display here. Clearly when it comes to babes behind bars pix, the public at large prefers bad sexy chicks on the rampage than a serious study of the prison system.

That's not to say WOMEN'S PRISON isn't a fairly terrific movie - it is, with a sensational performance as Ida Lupino as the coolly professional yet sadistic lady prison warden Amelia Van Zant. Ms. Lupino may have appeared in a number of classier films but she rarely had such an iconic role as she does here and she's superb. There aren't many actresses who would choose to underplay such a malevolent character as Lupino does; one could well imagine some of her contemporaries making Amelia a fire-breathing dragon from scene one.

Lupino is joined by a cast that includes virtually every "bad girl" actress of the era as one of the inmates - Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, and even (most deliciously) the casting of erstwhile 1930's "bad girls" Mae Clarke and Gertrude Michael as prison matrons. There's also perpetually sweet Phyllis Thaxter as the "new fish in the aquarium", serving one to ten years for vehicle manslaughter when she killed a young child. Already traumatized by the incident by the time she arrives at prison, meek little Phyllis is no match for Lupino's sadistic set-up at the prison which only makes things worse for her. Audrey Totter, often quite the bad girl in other movies, is another inmate who is more sinned against than sinner, innocent but jailed as an accessory to her husband's theft. Indeed, it's a bit incredible that none of the inmates seems to be remotely a person of violence or immorality - friendly floozy Jan Sterling is in the slammer for writing a bad check!! The whole cast is quite good and Sterling is excellent as basically the leader of the girls. Mae Clarke does very well in one her larger roles post-1940; on the other hand, the always appealing Cleo Moore is wasted in a rather thin smallish role as one of the inmates, a comic part as a Southern blonde bombshell. Vivian Marshall, an actress with only a handful of credits (most of them unbilled bits) comes close to stealing the picture as the inmate whose gift for mimicry (check out her fantastic burlesques of Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead) comes in handy when the women revolt. Overwrought it may be but WOMEN'S PRISON deserves it's status as a cult film with terrific performances and it's melodrama smoothly handled by underrated director Lewis Seiler.