BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

LeonLouisRicci Toned Down in its Presentation of Prison Life for Women and in its Depiction of Gangster Flourishes, the Film has some Entertaining Elements like an Escape with some Girl on Girl Wrestling and Fisticuffs.Faye Emerson Looks Anorexic and is Not a Beauty in the Traditional Sense and that may Add a bit of Realism. But the Romantic Elements are Stiff and Typical B-Movie, Family Friendly Fodder, and do not Belong in a Movie with Gangster in the Title. There is a Very Young Jackie Gleason in a Very Small Role and some of the Inmates are Darkly Interesting, but the Matron Comes Off as a Grandmother Type, Touchy and Warm. The Action Highlight is a Fistfight on a Stairwell that is Realistic and Exciting.Overall a Mediocre Misfire from the Usually Reliable Warner Brothers. This Movie Should have been in their Wheel House but Ultimately the Film is just too Comfortable for its Own Good.

mark.waltz This is a remake of a much better pre-code drama that starred Barbara Stanwyck, "Ladies They Talk About". A better title of this would be "Lady Accomplice" because that is exactly what "B" actress Faye Emerson is playing here, a woman who calls the police (as Stanwyck did), diverts the police's attention by claiming witness to another crime, then getting a bank guard to open the bank early on the front of making a deposit. Of course, her part in the robbery which follows is revealed, and she is sentenced to a rather country-club like prison where the guards and the matron are certainly not as tough or ruthless as such others as Esther Dale ("Condemned Women"), Jane Darwell ("Girls in Prison"), Jeanne Cooper ("House of Women") or the most nefarious: Hope Emerson ("Caged") and Ida Lupino ("Women's Prison"). So this cleaned-up prison movie is a wimpy alternative to those others where it becomes very clear that the so-called "gentler sex" are getting just a tough of a time in rehabilitation as the men's prisons.But here, the real troublemakers are two stool pigeons (Dorothy Adams as a deaf inmate who can read lips, and Ruth Ford as the nastier one who reports everything to the matron) and discover that Emerson's intents to reveal the location of the money in the robbery is just a rouse to get revenge on the man (Frank Wilcox) who sent Emerson up the river as an attempt to reform her, an old childhood pal who is in love with her. The lack of racy dialog makes this a boring remake of a film that sizzled thanks to its pre-code innuendos of lesbianism and the delicious cut-downs between Stanwyck and the other inmates. Vera Lewis offers some amusing bits as the tough-talking old lady whom Emerson stashes the loot with, and a young Jackie Gleason is memorable as one of the gang members. Virginia Brissac plays the matron as if she was a high school principal, although the scene where Emerson gets one over on her is memorable. Fortunately short, this will never rank up there with other women's prison films, but makes an all right time filler.

bkoganbing Lady Gangster was based on a play written by Dorothy Mackaye who did some time in prison for covering up a homicide of her husband Ray Raymond by actor Paul Kelly who also served in prison before resuming his career. All the principals in that affair are gone now and their lives and story would certainly be far more interesting than this film which had a previous incarnation by Warner Brothers in 1933. That film was Ladies They Talk About and starred Barbara Stanwyck. As it was before the Code, I'm betting that was a better version. It certainly sounded more interesting in the Stanwyck biography I read.Faye Emerson is no Stanwyck, but she's all right in the role of an actress fallen on bad times and now hooking up with bank robbers Roland Drew, Bill Phillips and Jackie Gleason. Yes the great one is in the cast as wheel man of the bank robbery that Emerson acts as a shill/decoy for and gets caught.In prison for her crime Faye makes friends with Julie Bishop and as she knows where the money is hid, she has that as a bargaining chip for her release. But the plot takes some strange turns and she's forced to escape.The male roles in this film are weak, Frank Wilcox is a bit of a doofus as your crusading crime busting radio commentator. Why Emerson falls for him is beyond me. The script is weak and meandering for Lady Gangster as well. For instance an element is introduced of a rivalry between District Attorney Herbert Rawlinson and Wilcox, with Wilcox intimating the DA is corrupt. But that doesn't go anywhere. Certainly the talents of Jackie Gleason are not used at all, but Warners never realized what they had under contract.On the plus side, the best supporting performance is clearly that of prison snitch Ruth Ford who really doesn't do it for material gain, she just likes the attention. Ford did quite a lot with a small role.A product of Warner Brothers B picture unit, Lady Gangster just doesn't make it.

Hitchcoc I think the difference between good and bad movies is about the characters. Do they behave properly, given the world created for them. I never bought into the motives of the young woman in this film. She is too pretty and too confident to be desperate enough to do what she does. Nevertheless, she ends up in prison with a group of characters, including a classic snitch and her deaf cohort. People are looking out for her. People are after her. She has the money that was stolen. Talk about your stupid criminals. It's so full of unbelievable events, including one of the bank robbers showing up in the jail in drag. There's also an off again, on again, thing between the main character and a man who turned her in. It just never gels. Not to mention the goofy prison setting and lack of security. Not much to bother with.