Tag: 1955

Women’s Prison

  By

★★★
“Innocence behind bars.”

It’s always interesting to watch these early entries in the women-in-prison genre, and see the elements which are still staples of the genre, close to seventy years later. Well, some of the elements anyway: this dates from 1955, so is obviously tamer than a kitten on Valium in terms of sexual content. No strip searches. No prison showers. And when it’s revealed that one of the inmates is pregnant, it’s almost as much of a surprise to the audience as it is to the authorities. But it’s still recognizable as an ancestor, thanks to things like the sympathetic prison doctor, new inmate who shouldn’t be there, and the sadistic warden who rules things with an iron fist.

It is an ensemble piece, whose focus shifts throughout. Initially, it seems likely to be the story of “fresh meat” Helene Jensen (Thaxter), who is doing time for vehicular manslaughter, and has a tough time adjusting to life inside. Then it shifts to Joan Burton (Totter), an accomplice to her robber husband, Glen, who is doing time in the men’s prison next door. He has something vital to tell her, and makes repeated attempts to sneak across the border to visit Joan. On the other side of the bars is the power struggle between the warden, Amelia van Zandt (Lupino) and jail physician Dr. Crane (Duff). Her methods are anathema to Crane, who flat-out calls van Zandt a psychopath. He may have a point.

Despite the lack of salacious elements, this is still entertaining fodder. There are a lot of amusing characters among the inmates, from cheerful fraudster Brenda Martin through to black inmate Polyclinic Jones – named after the hospital where she was born! She’s played by Juanita Jones, who’d be Oscar nominated a few years later. Interestingly, despite this being years before the Civil Rights era, the prison is not segregated: the black inmates have their own cell, but otherwise mix freely with the white prisoners. Race is never even mentioned here. There’s an impressively meta moment too, when two guards are discussing a cinema trip. “They never get things right in prison pictures,” muses one, and is told, “I know, but I like to pick out the flaws.”

This happens just before another familiar element: the prisoners riot and take over, after being pushed too far. In this case, it’s van Zandt’s brutal interrogation of Burton which proves the tipping point. Or at least, “brutal” by fifties standards; it’s not much more than a bit of light slapping around. The rebellion leads to tear-gassing and hostage taking, as the women seek to make van Zandt pay, plus Glen roaming around with a pistol. Really, the men’s side need to look into their security protocols, I reckon. For all its innocence in many ways, bordering on naivety, there are still moments which have an emotional impact; I found the death of one inmate surprisingly affecting. Released in Germany as Revolte im Frauenzuchthaus, which I only mention, as “frauenzuchthaus” may be my new favourite German word.

Dir: Lewis Seiler
Star: Ida Lupino, Howard Duff. Audrey Totter, Phyllis Thaxter

Panther Girl of the Kongo

  By

★★½
“The (serial) end is nigh.”

This was the second-to-last of Republic’s sixty-six serials and, to be honest, it shows. Having watched Jungle Girl recently, the recycling here of its action footage – particularly, of the heroine swinging through trees – felt embarrassingly obvious. In the studio’s defense, the contemporary audience might well have forgotten, the source having originally come out fourteen years earlier. However, that doesn’t excuse the fairly threadbare plot, which is laid out inside the first ten minutes of the opening episode, then goes almost nowhere for the rest of the serial. The only point of note is the use of giant crayfish. Yes, coming out the year after classic giant insect movie, Them!, Republic opted to go there.

Rather than radiation, these are the product of mad “differently sane” scientist, Dr Morgan (Space), who has developed a growth hormone which causes the creatures that consume it to achieve massive, rapid growth, and apparently renders them impervious to the inverse-square law too. You’d think that kind of thing would be a fast ticket to fame, fortune and Nobel prizes. But it turn out, Morgan is instead embedded deep in the African jungle, using his creatures to try and scare off the local tribe, so he and his minions can get unhindered access to a diamond mine on their lands. Caught in the middle is wildlife photographer Jean Evans (Coates). When she catches the monster on film, she sends for help from big game hunter Larry Sanders (Healey), and they have to fend off both hormone-enraged crustaceans and Morgan’s thuggish henchmen.

It might have worked better as an 80-minute B flick. I have to say the miniature work by the Lydecker brothers, does a good job of making the crayfish look gigantic. However, there’s no need to have them roar, and the interaction with the human characters is basically limited to a single claw grabbing an appendage from out of shot. Morgan’s tactics appear to be limited to getting his minions to shepherd the creatures towards the locals, with a small side-dish of preventing word of the beasts getting out. Rinse and repeat: you’ll likely get bored and drift off before the end, despite another case of dynamite being carelessly left around.

Jean is certainly the most firearm happy heroine, blazing away almost as soon as we see her. Though it’s never explained why she is also so adept at swinging through the jungle, etc. She gets her titular name as an honorific, after saving the villagers from a rogue black leopard, and I guess she is isn’t a cat person. For at another point, Jean engages in hand-to-hand (or paw?) combat with a lion, in order to prove her “magic” is good, and not responsible for the monsters. Obvious stunt doubling is obvious here, even if admittedly someone is still getting closer to the lion’s jaws than I’d want to. But this certainly does not live up to the poster proclaiming it “The most exciting serial ever filmed!”

Dir: Franklin Adreon
Star: Phyllis Coates, Myron Healey, Arthur Space, John Daheim

Betrayed Women

  By

★★★
“You’re a nice guy, Mr. Darrell. But here’s the hitch. I ain’t a nice girl.”

First, let me just say: that poster is a true work of art. Seriously, how can anyone look at that and not want to see it? Even knowing there’s no possible way it could deliver on what is promised, it’s among my all-time favourite posters. With that out of the way, we’d better move on, since for a 70-minute film, there’s a great deal going on. Honey Blake (Michaels) becomes the latest inmate at the infamous State Prison, after her gangster boyfriend, “Baby Face”, is gunned down by the law. She’s there barely five minutes, before she’s getting put in solitary for back-talk, etc.

Also in the slammer is Nora Collins (Knudsen), who is due to be released in a couple of months, and is in a surreptitious relationship with prison inspector Jeff Darrell (Drake). He’s trying to improve the lot of the inmates, but is getting push-back from hard-bitten Head Matron Ballard. Finally among the prisoners, is Kate Morrison (Mathews), who holds the secret of where $50,000 in robbery loot is stashed. She’s none too pleased with Honey’s taunts about Kate’s boyfriend having just got married, but after bonding through the traditional cat-fight, the pair plan and execute a daring escape. Taken along as hostages are Nora and Jeff, along with Ballard – who proves to be singularly unsuited for a trek through the swamps, pursued by the authorities and their blood-hounds. Kate’s boyfriend is making a beeline for the same spot, so felons, escapees and the law are all on an inevitable collision course.

The critical and commercial success of Caged in 1950 (including three Oscar nominations), led to a slew of imitators in the years that followed. Most – including this one – were considerably cheaper and more down-market, but this one benefits from the fast pace mentioned above, and also a great central performance from Michaels. It’s obviously a product of its era, and so is considerably tamer than most of its ilk: there’s nothing here which would raise eyebrows even on the Lifetime network. [A WiP film the whole family can enjoy!] However, many of the genre tropes are still there: not just the cat-fight, also the lecherous guard and even a fire-hose, turned on Kate after a failed escape attempt.

Michaels is a joy to watch, and I’ll have to track down some of her other work. How can you resist titles like Wicked Women or Blonde Bait? Her impact here creeps up on you. It was only in the final showdown, as she hunkers down inside a farm-shed with her hostages, surrounded by the police that I realized two things. Firstly, I genuinely didn’t know if she was going to live, or go down in a blaze of glory like her lost love, Baby Face. Secondly, I actually cared about the outcome. And no, I’m not going to spoil it. The star retired from public life the following year, declining all interviews about her career in crime flicks, and eventually died, here in Phoenix, in 2007. Even then, she shunned the limelight, requesting no obituary or funeral service.

Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Star: Beverly Michaels, Carole Mathews, Peggy Knudsen, Tom Drake

Texas Lady

  By

★★★
“The Queen of Hearts”

texasladyThe start here is absolutely fascinating. Riverboat gambler Chris Mooney (Sullivan) is getting his ass kicked by an unknown amateur – and, worse yet, it’s a woman. Certain it’s just bad luck, he borrows $30,000… and loses that too. The woman, Prudence Webb (Colbert), takes the money and gives it to a bank. Her father, who had a gambling problem, had embezzled cash, lost it to Mooney, and subsequently committed suicide. To gain revenge, she had learned to play poker, studied his tactics quietly and, when she felt assured of victory, put her plan into action. Talk about best served cold. With the balance of the cash, she buys a newspaper in a small Texas town, Fort Ralston. Why? Why not. But on arriving there, she finds the local land barons, in particular Micah Ralston (Collins), after whom the town is named, less receptive to her new-fangled ways, though his hired gun Foley (Walcott) takes a rather creepy shine to Webb.

Intent on recovering his reputation as much as the cash, Mooney has followed Webb to Fort Ralston, where Foley resents the new arrival, seeing him as a rival for Prudence’s affection. Meanwhile, roused by her newspaper’s editorial stance, promoting developments such as the railroad, the town is beginning to stand up against their landlord. Ralston retaliates by fabricating a claim of unpaid back taxes on the newspaper, for which Webb is deemed liable. When that fails to get rid of her, and the residents revolt by electing their own mayor, sheriff and judge, replacing Ralston’s cronies, he blockades the town, citing his ownership of the land all around it. Will Prudence and Chris prevail, in their efforts to bring the town into the modern era [or, at least, the late 19th century?]

Colbert is an interesting choice. She won an Oscar almost two decades earlier, for It Happened One Night, and was among Hollywood’s biggest stars at the end of the thirties. The romantic aspects here are, at first sight, implausible, since she is in her fifties (easily old enough to be Walcott’s mother, for example) and not what you’d describe as classically “pretty.” But screen presence and personality make up for a lot of that gap, with the strength of Webb’s character well ahead of its time. I almost wish they had made the entire movie about the initial plot to get revenge for her father; it would have made for a unique and fascinating tale in itself. Instead, the film more or less collapses into standard Western shenanigans with Mooney’s arrival in town, the film becoming mostly about his struggle against Ralston, with Webb largely taking a back seat in her own movie. This is much less interesting, unfortunately: Sullivan isn’t as good an actor, and his character is largely a stock white-hat. Collins’ portrayal of the villain isn’t bad; you do appreciate he has something of a legitimate beef, having sacrificed his life to the town and its people, which is more motivation than you usually get.

In the end, the production lives or dies with Colbert. When focusing on her, it’s thoroughly entertaining and innovative. Unfortunately, the second half largely shifts its attention off Webb, and significantly weakens the overall quality of the movie.

Dir: Tim Whelan
Star: Claudette Colbert, Barry Sullivan, Gregory Walcott, Ray Collins