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Storyline
Frightened 19-year-old Marie Allen gets sent to an Illinois penitentiary for being an accomplice in an armed robbery. A sympathetic prison head tries to help, but her efforts are subverted by cruel matron Evelyn Harper. Marie's harsh experiences turn her from doe-eyed innocent to hard-nosed con. Written by
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Taglines:
You don't know women until you know them without men!
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Did You Know?
Trivia
In order to do research for the film,
Virginia Kellogg pulled some strings to incarcerate herself in a woman's prison. What she wrote once she was out was not so much a screenplay, but a kind of almanac of everything she witnessed while in prison. Warner Bros. then got their screenwriters to make a screenplay out of it.
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Goofs
When Marie Allen announces that her kitten has died, the cat opens its mouth.
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Quotes
Millie:
What I'd give for a sink full of dirty dishes.
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I saw this movie in Hollywood as part of the annual film noir festival at the American Cinematheque. This film has lost none of its ability to move an audience. Not only is it a good prison drama, but it is a good example of film noir moviemaking as well.
It was a bit of daring to show how corrupt the prison system can be and "inmates decaying" as one character put it.The lead character (Eleanor Parker) goes from being an innocent to becoming as hard as anyone else in the prison system due to the efforts of her matron and chief tormentor (Hope Emerson). It is because of this transformation that the film goes from being a routine prison drama to a first-rate noir thriller.
Jan Sterling, who plays "Smoochie" in the film, was at the screening and spoke afterward. She said director John Cromwell (father of character actor James Cromwell) did a great job of making you feel like you were in prison. She said by the end of the shoot, the performers felt like they were really confined. Parker, Emerson and the script by Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld were nominated for Oscars.