User Reviews

Having done several movies where she was behind bars, Beverly Michaels began to lighten her image after starting off as the opportunistic hard boiled tramp, and here, is the victim, ending up in a British women's prison after defending herself against a violent lover. Sure, he had found out that she was planning on leaving him for the man she really loved, but with his hands on her throat and a quick way of defending herself at her disposal, the sympathy instantly lies with Michaels. The prison she ends up in isn't the brutal American detention center that audiences had become familiar with through 1950's "Caged" and 1955's "Women's Prison" (or even another Beverly Michaels melodrama, "Betrayed Women"), but one where the warden seems to be concerned about her charges, encouraging the emotionally broken Michaels to utilize the library and try to make friends. When Beverly rescues a girl who accidentally catches on fire in the prison kitchen, the warden (Valarie Wright) decides to fool her into escaping as a part of a plot by the U.S. State Department in capturing her criminal boyfriend.

This fails to convince on two merits. It lacks the camp value of other women's prison films, and the subplot of Michaels and several other inmates being allowed to escape (one of them with a baby!) just seems totally unrealistic, no matter the motivations behind it. On the run, they find help in the most unbelievable of places, and while hiding out in the home of Hermoine Baddley's, Michaels must act all heroic to prevent Ms. Baddley from taking the baby of the missing mother to the authorities. It's all well intended, fairly entertaining, and sincerely acted, but most of it, I just couldn't buy. Thora Hird as the elderly inmate they refer to as "Granny" gets to steal every scene she's in, with Joan Rice as the other escapee and future Jock Ewing (Jim Davis) in the small part of Michaels' traitorous lover. Paul Cavanaugh is commanding as the American state department worker who initializes the escape, while Ralph Michael as the older lover whom Michaels defends herself from is completely repulsive. It's a mixed bag I wanted to like more, but lacking in the toughness of other women in prison movies and containing a plot I had a hard time swallowing, I have to rank this as one of the weaker films in that genre. Even though others are worse, this one just ends up being not very interesting.

WOMEN WITHOUT MEN is a low key drama/thriller made by Hammer Films. The plot is somewhat unwieldy and involves the authorities looking for a known gangster. Their only lead is his girlfriend, who may lead them to him, but the problem is she's just been sent to prison. The authorities decide to arrange a jailbreak and tail her. This back story doesn't really sit too well with me and feels a little too elaborate and over the top. However, once the women escape this becomes quite fun, particularly because Thora Hird is the unlikely leader of the escapees. Hird was best known for her domestic, down-to-earth roles during the era; it was rare to see her out of a kitchen, so watching her racing a car through the streets and evading the police makes for great fun.

***SPOILERS*** The US State Department gets wind that master Soviet spy Rick Randell, Jim Davis, is having an affair with singer-dancer-stripper Angela Booth,Beverly Michaels, and plans to use her to have him tracked down before he does any more damage to his country the USA as well as the Free World. With Randell planning to meet Angela on New Years Eve at the Oxhead Inn outside of London she gets sideswiped when in a fit of anger she smashed her agent Julian Lord, Ralph Michael, face in with a mirror when he refused to let her out of her contract and then tries to assault her. Ending up in prison for six months on an assault conviction all that Angela has on her mind is to escape and get married to that "Hunk" of a guy Randell before she can finish her sentence.

What is soon planned by the US State Department and Scotland Yard in having Angela allowed to escape so she can lead them to Randell so they can make the pinch on him for treason against the USA. It's Angela by being left out in the cold to what her lover is really up to goes along with the escape plan secretly set up by Scotland Yard being engineered by in house stollie and fellow prisoner Granny Rafferty, Thora Hird, who's only in it, the escape, for the fun & excitement and nothing else.

***SPOILERS*** Crashing of the the womens prison together with Granny and fellow prisoner Margurite, April Olrich, and her six month old baby who was born to her behind bars Angela, after a number of wild and crazy incidents with the police, finally makes it to the Oxhead Inn only to find it bordered up and out of business. Lucky for her as well as Scotland Yard & the US State Department Nick Randell, obviously drunk from celebrating the New Year, shows up staggering out of the woods as well. Not expecting Angela to show up at all Randell loses his cool, in suspecting that she set him up, and starts to slap her around showing her what a heel as well as traitor to his country he really is. With US Secret Agent Kent Forster, Richard Travis, hiding in the nearby bushes Randell ends up shooting it out with him only to be the one who ends up getting shot!