CONVICTED WOMAN (1940), a Columbia Pictures film, is the best kind of "B" movie, a fast-paced and entertaining 65 minutes.
What's more, it features a charming young Glenn Ford in only his third feature film appearance.
Rochelle Hudson plays Betty Andrews, who is down on her luck and looking for a job. When she applies for a job at a department store she's framed for theft by a lookalike woman. Despite lucking into a fine defense attorney, Mary Ellis (Frieda Inescort), Betty is convicted and sent to prison.
Betty finds prison to be a horror show, with the head matron (Esther Dale) conspiring with pet prisoners such as "the Duchess" (June Lang of
LIGHTHOUSE) to mistreat girls who don't pay for protection.
When a prisoner (Mary Field) commits suicide and it's covered up as "pneumonia," Betty is terrified and manages to slip the information to reporter Jim Brent (Ford). His story results in the installation of Betty's reform-minded attorney Mary as the new prison matron.
This film packs a great deal of story and action into a little over an hour and also populates it with interesting characters, including Lola Lane as Hazel, a goodhearted three-time convict who helps Betty.
Hudson plays her role with a nice blend of pathos and increasing toughness mixed with despair as her situation goes from bad to worse. Fortunately Mary, Jim, and Hazel all step up to help her at various points.
Inescort is a great favorite of mine, and I really enjoyed watching her in this. Some of her plans, including beautiful new beds for the prison, seem too "pie in the sky," but she's such an admirable woman and her intentions are so good that the viewer wants to believe!
The entire cast, which also includes Lorna Gray (aka Adrian Booth) and Iris Meredith, is fun to watch. James Millican can even be spotted as a cop early in the film.
The movie was directed by
Nick Grinde and filmed in black and white by
Benjamin Kline. Joseph Carole's screenplay was based on a story by Alex Gottlieb and Martin Mooney.
CONVICTED WOMAN was shown on Turner Classic Movies last summer as part of the terrific series of "B" films programmed by Jeremy Arnold. To my knowledge it has never been released for home viewing in any format.
2 Comments:
I woudl like to see this, love the cast.
It's good to know a watchable copy of this film exists.
This is the sort of title released on the late lamented Sony MOD/DVD series.
There are so many wonderful unreleased Columbia 40's films with their roster of future stars like Ford,Larry Parks,Forrest Tucker,Lloyd Bridges and so on.
Always liked Rochelle Hudson.
A company called Hexagon Media have released the Boston Blackie films in OK quality on Blu Ray. I hope that they might release some of these wonderful Columbia programmers in the future Sony certainly will not.
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