Ladies They Talk About [Blu-ray]

Director: Howard Bretherton, William Keighley, Howard P. Bretherton Howard Bretherton

Overview

One of the earliest girls-in-prison yarns, Ladies They Talk About has everything but Ida Lupino as the warden--and had she been in Hollywood at the time, she would probably be here as well. Gun moll Barbara Stanwyck is thrown into San Quentin (which looks more like a summer resort than a house of detention), thanks to her involvement in a bank robbery and the machinations of D.A./preacher David Slade (Preston Foster). It isn't political ambition that motivates Slade: he's in love with Stanwyck, and hopes that her incarceration will rehabilitate her. Instead, Stanwyck becomes a hard-bitten prison-block leader, spearheading a jailbreak. When things go awry, she holds Slade responsible. Upon her release, she goes gunning for Slade, and doesn't realize that she's really in love with him until she nearly puts him six feet under.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/09/2021
UPC:	0883929783281
Original Release:	1933
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:09:00
Sales rank:	33,130

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Barbara Stanwyck	Nan Taylor
Preston Foster	David Slade(as Preston S. Foster),David Slade
Lyle Talbot	Don
Dorothy Burgess	Susie
Lillian Roth	Linda
Maude Eburne	Aunt Maggie
Ruth Donnelly	Noonan
Harold Huber	Lefty Simons
Robert McWade	District Attorney Walter Simpson
Jack Baxley	Attendee at Revival Meeting
Etta Moten	Singing Inmate
Mme. Wan	Mustard
Leo Forbstein	Composer

Technical Credits

Sid Sutherland

Howard Bretherton	Director,Director
William Keighley	Director
Raymond Griffith	Producer
Sid Sutherland	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The women in prison genre reached its peak in the 1950s, but the progenitor of those films can be found in 1933's Ladies They Talk About. Based on a play by actress Dorothy Mackaye, which in turn was loosely based on her actual experiences in a women's prison, Ladies is sheer delight for lovers of hard-boiled dames slinging snappy phrases around like so much hash. As is often the case with films in this genre, the plot has a number of credibility gaps; most of them are passable and add to the general enjoyment, but the final one - in which the heroine shoots and wounds the man she hates, only to immediately declare her love for him, after which he tells the cops that it's nothing and he plans to marry her - does take the cake. The soft country club conditions of the women's prison, which includes dorm-style rooms with lace curtains, is also a bit hard to take. But it doesn't matter, for Ladies has the one and only Barbara Stanwyck on hand to add her special magic to the salty dialogue and to make one happy to overlook any problems with the screenplay. Add in a good supporting cast that includes Lillian Roth warbling a song to a picture of Joe E. Brown, and you have a picture that may not be great but is definitely entertaining.

All Movie Guide - Craig Butler