John Cromwell's great "Caged" remains the finest "women's prison" (and possibly just plain "prison") movie ever filmed; its success probably accounts for this knock-off five years later. It promises a lot, what with Ida Lupino heading the cast as a borderline-psycho superintendant, aided and abetted by Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, Cleo Moore and Mr. Lupino, Howard Duff. Yet while Lupino worked wonders with tough-as-tarpaper women like Lily Stevens in Road House, she was too good an actress to block out her vulnerable, humane side; her characters had character. Here, however, she goes for caricature and ends up with overcalculated camp.
The far-fetched plot of Women's Prison derives from the fact that it's half of a co-ed correctional facility, separated by the walls of Jericho. Somehow, Totter's hubby breaches the defenses, resulting in her unfortunate pregnancy. This breach of prissy morality causes such a ruckus that all hell breaks loose; yet the scene where Lupino beats Totter up, resulting in her death, is far too heavy for this basically lightweight, unsubtle vehicle. Women's Prison has its moments (the Tallulah Bankhead and Bette Davis imitations are -- in more ways than one -- a hoot), but it suffers by its inability to leave the indelible impressions that even the cameo actresses left in Caged, as well as that movie's horrifyingly plausible portrait of an institution dedicated to dementia. Women's Prison is part of the reason that "women's prison" movies turned into sleazy exploitation flicks.
The far-fetched plot of Women's Prison derives from the fact that it's half of a co-ed correctional facility, separated by the walls of Jericho. Somehow, Totter's hubby breaches the defenses, resulting in her unfortunate pregnancy. This breach of prissy morality causes such a ruckus that all hell breaks loose; yet the scene where Lupino beats Totter up, resulting in her death, is far too heavy for this basically lightweight, unsubtle vehicle. Women's Prison has its moments (the Tallulah Bankhead and Bette Davis imitations are -- in more ways than one -- a hoot), but it suffers by its inability to leave the indelible impressions that even the cameo actresses left in Caged, as well as that movie's horrifyingly plausible portrait of an institution dedicated to dementia. Women's Prison is part of the reason that "women's prison" movies turned into sleazy exploitation flicks.