Girls in Prison ** (1956, Richard Denning, Joan Taylor, Adele Jergens) – Classic Movie Review 10,001

‘What happens to girls without men?’ The campy 1956 psychotronic film Girls in Prison stars Richard Denning, Joan Taylor and Adele Jergens. In 1956, even a film called Girls in Prison had a male star.

‘What happens to girls without men?’ Director Edward L Cahn’s campy 1956 psychotronic film Girls in Prison stars Richard Denning, Joan Taylor, Adele Jergens, Helen Gilbert, Phyllis Coates, Lance Fuller and Jane Darwell. In 1956, even a film called Girls in Prison had a male star.

After a bank robbery, 21-year-old Anne Carson (Taylor) gets sent to the notorious Women’s Prison, and is forced to share her life with other jailbirds, tough Jenny (Jergens), unbalanced Dorothy (Coates), and deceptive Melanee (Gilbert), in this enjoyably kitsch Fifties film noir crime thriller. It was remade by producer Lou Arkoff in 1994 with Missy Crider, Jon Polito, Ione Skye and Anne Heche.

Will young Ms Carson survive the experience? What are the other bad girls up to? Does she know where the loot is? Is she innocent, as she protests? Is the prison chaplain, the Reverend Fulton (Denning), a bit dodgy, and is Melanee making lesbian moves on young Ms Carson? All will be revealed in the next entertaining 88 minutes.

Also in the cast are Raymond Hatton, Diana Darrin, Mae Marsh, Laurie Mitchell, Luana Walters, Edmund Cobb, Riza Royce, and Lottie Salisbury.

American International Pictures released it in a double bill with Hot Rod Girl in 1956.

Girls in Prison is directed by Edward L Cahn, runs 88 minutes, is made by Golden State Productions, is released by American International Pictures, is written by Lou Rusoff, is shot in black and white by Frederick E West, is produced by Samuel Z Arkoff and Alex Gordon, and is scored by Ronald Stein.

It is the last film of Helen Gilbert (1915–1995).

The poster by Albert Kallis, featuring a catfight between Helen Gilbert and Joan Taylor, has become a collector’s item, though that exact scene does not occur in the movie.

It is the first of many films that director Edward L. Cahn made with producer Alex Gordon for American International Pictures.

Gordon went ahead and ignored a Production Code administrator’s warning that any hint of lesbianism had to be eliminated from the script. Melanee (Helen Gilbert) makes a play for both Anne (Joan Taylor) and Dorothy (Phyllis Coates), who has murdered her husband and child when the husband ran away with another, still  surviving woman.

Gordon’s film company Golden State Productions made the first film released by AIP, Apache Woman, also starring Joan Taylor.

Denning was paid a percentage of the profits.

The cast are Richard Denning as the prison chaplain Rev Fulton, Joan Taylor as Anne Carson, Lance Fuller as Paul Anderson, Jane Darwell as tough matron in charge, Adele Jergens as Anne’s cellmate Jenny, Helen Gilbert as Melanee, Phyllis Coates as Dorothy, Raymond Hatton as Anne’s ex-criminal father Pop Carson, Mae Marsh as trustee Grandma, Diana Darrin, Laurie Mitchell, Luana Walters, Edmund Cobb, Riza Royce, and Lottie Salisbury.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,001

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