WOMEN'S PRISON (1955)

The Fifties gave us a subgenre of prison movies in which the prisoners are the oppressed and the authorities are the bad guys. This one focuses on a fragile housewife (Jan Sterling), sent up for manslaughter after accidentally running over a child. She meets the usual crew you'd find in a women's prison of that era: the brassy blond with the heart of gold (Cleo Moore), the musical black inmate (Juanita Moore), the stuffy, abrupt matron (Mae Clark, she the target of James Cagney's grapefruit in "The Public Enemy"). But the real action centers on the good guy prison doctor (Howard Duff), who's intent on protecting Sterling, and the bad gal women's warden (Ida Lupino), a sadist who's intent on breaking her down. The movie features some howlingly funny, politically incorrect dialog that is worth watching on its own. But director Lewis Seiler provides some interesting twists (a prison pregnancy when an inmate from the men's side gets over to the women's side and makes it with his imprisoned bride in a closet), and a thoughtful ending. I liked it a lot.


Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.