Ladies They Talk About (1933)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) The history of women-in-prison films is much older than I thought, as demonstrated by Ladies They Talk About, an early-1930s film describing life in jail for a female bank robber. This being said, even this Pre-Code film is nowhere near the same leagues as the exploitation subgenre that began in the 1970s with The Big Doll House — it may be titillating at times (notably with girl-on-girl fighting and ladies wearing not much by Code standards) but nowhere near as exploitative as later takes on similar material. While audiences at the time may have been intrigued, modern viewers may find more to like in an early Barbara Stanwyck performance as the protagonist — she’s nowhere near as polished or unforgiving as in later performances, but she’s already showing the mixture of beauty, steel and versatility that would mark her as a leading actress across decades. This being said, the script itself can be really odd at times — strange twists and turns, including an impromptu musical number (starring a picture of Joe E. Brown!), an unusual lack of spatial unity for a prison film, and an ending in which the heroine shoots a guy but immediately regrets what she’s done (it qualifies as a flesh wound and a happy ending). Watch it for Stanwyck more than anything else — although it’s interesting to see the film’s messiness at times.