Women's Prison

1955

Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 27%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 27% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.5/10 10 1319 1.3K

pre-code old prison prison cell women's prison b movie

Plot summary

A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.

Director

Lewis Seiler Photo
Lewis Seiler

Top cast

Ida Lupino Photo
Ida Lupino as Amelia van Zandt
Howard Duff Photo
Howard Duff as Dr. Crane
Jan Sterling Photo
Jan Sterling as Brenda Martin
Juanita Moore Photo
Juanita Moore as Polyclinic 'Polly' Jones
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
734.52 MB
1280*718
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 19 min
Seeds 1
1.33 GB
1920*1078
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 19 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Handlinghandel 7 / 10

Not "Caged" But Good On Its Own Terms

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.
Reviewed by bkoganbing 7 / 10

Don't Chain Up The Gals Near To The Guys

Ida Lupino and Howard Duff head a cast in a story about a Women's Prison. But these two who were married in real life at the time are hardly romantic leads in this film.Ida plays the head of a female division of a state prison, the overall warden is Barry Kelley. The message the film is trying to give although the reason for it is pretty exotic is that boys will be boys and that women ought to be in a separate facility altogether. The main plot line of this film is convict Warren Stevens trying to get over to the women's division to see his wife Audrey Totter. Stevens's successful visits which get Totter pregnant get the whole thing crashing around Lupino's head.It's all been done before, especially by some in this cast. Howard Duff was one of the convicts in Brute Force and there are definite elements of that film carrying over here. More so even than the classic Caged in which Jan Sterling also played the same kind of brassy dame who knows the ropes.In Caged you'll remember the chief villain was the sadistic guard Harper played by Hope Emerson, the warden was the sympathetic Agnes Moorehead. Here the corruption stinks at the top where Lupino takes out her own unfulfilled life on the inmates. The entire cast performs remarkably well, especially Lupino and Sterling.As for how it ends, if you've seen another Ida Lupino classic, They Drive By Night than you kind of know what happens to her. Still Women's Prison is worth seeing it again.
Read more IMDb reviews

2 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment