I love this movie so much

Too much of everything

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

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

**SPOILERS**** Gangster Johnny Moon,Allan Byron, is seen in the beginning of the movie getting away with murder when he's found innocent by a jury despite all the evidence against him. It turns out that his sister in law Helen Martin played the very married,eight times, Arline Judge who lost her job as a teacher because of her connection to Johnny who later ends up putting an end to his criminal career. By pulling strings Helen get a job as an assistant supervisor at a womens'a correctional lock-up run by one of Johnny's stooges Marcus, Clancy Cooper, who runs the place like a Nazi concentration camp.It's after one of the inmates dies due to not getting any medical help that Helen goes over Marcus's head and reports him to the state governor. This has Helen put on Marcus's sh*t list who's in bed with the corrupt city Mayor McCarthy who is in fact controlled by Johnny Moon. It's when Johhny's girlfriend Rita Randall, Robin Raymond, is sent to the women's reformatory after being arrest for drunk & disorderly, as well as shoplifting, that she 's soon put under the wing of Helen who shows her that being a law abiding citizen is much better then being Johnny's gun-moll. That has Johnny who suspects, and is right, that Rita is going to turn against him and expose his crimes has her released from prison and bumped off by his driver and #1 hit-man Pinkhead played by Sid Melton who has the uncanny ability to remove and put back on his hat in a flash without anybody noticing it!****SPOILERS*** Johnny's luck runs out when he tries to have Pinkhead knock off the drunk as a skunk Lionel Cleeter, Emmett Lynn,who witnessed him killing Rita and was ready, when he sobered up, to go to the police and D.A's office with the damning information. With Cleeter somehow surviving the hit it was all over for Johnny and his partner Pinkhead with the police closing in on them. Helen who in fact started the ball rolling ended up being supervisor of the girls reformatory, after Marcus was put behind bars, and taught the girls there to respect the law as well as themselves which not only turned their lives around but made them able to face the outside world.P.S I noticed that some of the L.A street scenes filmed at night were later inserted as well as colorized in the 1975 Robert Mitchum film noir classic "Fearwell my Lovely".

This monstrosity should settle for once and for all that Edgar Ulmer is not the continental wunderkind that Peter Bogdanavich held him to be, (a view, incidentally, that Ulmer did all he could to promote.) True, in "Strange Illusion,"and "Detour," Ulmer delivered films with suspense and pacing, whilst in "Bluebeard," he delivered a fairly convincing 19th century atmosphere, (heavily influenced by German expressionism but under-cut by the film's supporting actresses who sound like Bronx stenographers rather than Parisian coquettes.) The "Black Cat" deserves separate treatment inasmuch as it manages disturbing aesthetical accomplishments of an altogether singular, (if morally dubious) order.But such accomplishments do not extend to the whole of his work, and most of the time, (until at least his allegedly two best films--"Club Havana," and "Her Sisters Secret," again become extant) we must confront the fact that Ulmer may as well be Jean Yarborough, or Lew Landers, or Sam Newfield or Tommy Carr, which is to say he turned out PRC dreck utterly without distinction."Girls in Chains" is an excellent case in point. Unless one counts the shadowy rooftop chase finale, (which pre-figures "Bluebeard") this picture is risible in its ineptitude.Where to begin? The plot? (and since Ulmer is one of the writers he shares the blame): the matron, (Arline Judge) of a woman's correctional institution is thwarted in her attempts at prison reform by a corrupt warden and his mafia cronies.There are shades of Irene Dunne's earlier "Ann Vickers" in this, but this treatment is so pulpy that it's a pity the "Carol Burnett Show" never got ahold of it. Ulmer's alleged literary fixations here betoken a fondness for "The Police Gazette" rather than Faust.While we're at it--be sure and note the musical score too. This is stock music utterly unsuited to the characters or situations it underpins--frequently to hilarious results. Thus, gangster, con man extrordinaire, "Johnny Moon"'s scenes are underscored by a syrupy rendition of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" !!! Are we, the audience, supposed to feel patriotic and sentimental at knowing this murderer has been freed from prison by a corrupt jury, that he has "come marching home again" to yet kill again?Then too, since Mr. Ulmer is noted for his oversight of art direction--well exactly what happened here?! The inside of Miss Judge's office looks like several forgotten flats pushed to the edge of the sound stage, waiting to be dressed. Couldn't someone have hung a picture on the picture hook that hangs so visibly above the lamp behind her? True, the flat of gangster Johnny Moon, and a nightspot known as the "Rendevous" do show traces of down-market PRC swank, but elsewhere the picture is visually starved.The characterization is similarly absurd--strictly by the books gangster clichés--the only thing missing is the name "Mugsy".Case in point: an elderly alcoholic who stumbles in and out of the story, (for comedy relief purposes--of which he affords neither) who is eventually tossed into a dam! (that looks like stock footage of the Tennessee Valley Authority).As the lead, Miss Judge appears to be operating on about 100 mg. of Valium during most of her scenes, (and who can blame her--since she has read the script and is probably thinking, "...If only I were still under contract to Fox...".Earlier posters, however, reveal their ignorance of World War II coiffures in their gibes at her hairdo. Miss Judge's up-sweep was all the rage at the time, and, in fact, many other actresses wore modified versions of the same style."Girls in Chains" is for connoisseurs of perfectly dreadful films. Rest assured that Mr. Ulmer did us no favors with this one.

Those who were looking to this film to be a female I WAS A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG are going to be disappointed. Nary a Bilboe, HandCuff, Pillory, Shackle or Stocks are in sight. No corporal punishment either, though there is a mean laundry and a few cells that were a poor excuse for solitary confinement. Would have expected more from Edgar Ulmer, Atlantis and PRC, after all this is an exploitation film.Starting with Arline Judge and ending with Betty Blythe the cast is full of has-beens and want to be's. Reading their histories is a good lesson on how not to handle your career. They should have all been saving their money when the going was good so they would not have to be doing work like this.One (1) of the other commentators was right regarding the womens hair styles. We kept expecting Condors or Eagles to start nesting in them.

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.