"Helen Martin" (Arline Judge) is an honest woman who continues to have problems keeping a steady job because her sister "Jean Moon" (Patricia Knox) is married to a well-known gangster named "Johnny Moon" (Addison Randall). That being the case she reluctantly accepts a job as a teacher at a female correctional facility which just happens to be run by a man who is almost as corrupt as her brother-in-law. Yet even though he likes things just the way they are she continues to try to improve the lives of the young women she comes into contact with. This results in a conflict which poses great risks for all involved. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this low-budget B-movie was produced during the height of World War II and it's possible some allowances might be necessary. But even so there were some parts which were definitely in need of improvement. For example, the scenes involving the alcoholic by the name of "Lionel Cleeter" (Emmett Lynn) were especially repetitive and boring. All things considered I suppose I can give this movie 4 stars (out of 10) but even then that might be stretching it a bit.

Thanks to TCM, I am acquainting myself with this little gem. I was actually stopped in my tracks while channel-hopping by the sight of what I thought was Olivia de Havilland having a very bad hair day. This was our main character and the resemblance with Olivia was only accidental. No self-respecting actress would have compromised herself in those monumental, gravity-defying hair-dos and with such a bad script. The story is convoluted, improbable and totally lacking in logic, as shocking, "daring" and exploitative as it strives to be. The acting is really, really bad with most of the actors lacking direction and not knowing what to do with their body parts except squaring their shoulders, leaning on things, scowling, acting gruff, walking in and walking out of "rooms" and lighting a cigarette or cigar that the editing can't seem to keep track of. The wall-to-wall stock music is especially turgid and repulsive and conspires to deprive every single scene of what little dignity it has left. It gives new meaning to the word "melodrama": a generic Spanish bolero accompanies the bitching of female inmates sitting around a prison parlour; a pointless bit of business in a laboratory is helped along with a depressing vaguely Hungarian "valse triste", and so on. Still, the film is ahead of its time in many ways, and one would have to wait nearly 12 years to see such wooden acting, narrative incompetence and low production values at the service of a pointless storyline again in the films of Ed Wood and Jean-Luc Godard. And with original scripts being what they are in Hollywood these days, this film is probably scheduled for a CGI-augmented remake starring Bruce Willis.

This is a very low budget film about women who were put behind bars in a young woman's correction facility which is controlled by a mobster named Johnny Moon, (Addison Randall). Johnney Moon controls the city government and has given his right hand hood the position as warden of this correction facility. The girls are treated like they were in a federal prison, with hard work in a laundry and solitary confinement. There is no hope for these women to rehabilitate themselves in order to obtain training for job positions on the outside in order to adjust to society. Helen Martin, (Arlene Judge) has a sister who is married to Johnney Moon and Helen has lost her job because of the bad reputation of her brother-in-law and has been advised to become a social worker at the prison. As soon as Helen walks into the prison, the story becomes interesting.

I don't normally post for films I haven't seen, but the comment here from 1999 caught my eye. It mentions that director Edgar G. Ulmer snitched to HUAC. I had never heard this before, nor could I find any confirmation of it. I assume the poster confused Ulmer with one of his contemporaries, Edward Dmytryk, one of the Hollywood Ten who did indeed cooperate with the committee. At any rate, 8 years is long enough for that comment to go unchallenged. I'd hate to think that Ulmer's reputation could be tarnished by this apparent error, especially among viewers of these posts who may have no other knowledge of the man or his career.