mark.waltz
Arline Judge does her very best with a great director but a terrible script in this exploitation drama where prison corruption is exposed by its own family. A mobster involved in the trafficking of women's prison inmates whose own sister in law strives to bring him down. A couple of really shocking scenes gives this a higher rating than it deserves, especially one involving "the drunk who cried wolf" who slurs the truth too much under the line up of bourbon shots. Edgar G. Ulmer manages to make this just a tiny bit better but somebody should have red edited that script. The best scenes come outside the prison walls, especially an opening practically unrelated scene when a judge tells off a jury for going against the evidence of a case involving an obvious criminal and finding him innocent.
whpratt1
This is a very low budget film about women who were put behind bars in a young woman's correction facility which is controlled by a mobster named Johnny Moon, (Addison Randall). Johnney Moon controls the city government and has given his right hand hood the position as warden of this correction facility. The girls are treated like they were in a federal prison, with hard work in a laundry and solitary confinement. There is no hope for these women to rehabilitate themselves in order to obtain training for job positions on the outside in order to adjust to society. Helen Martin, (Arlene Judge) has a sister who is married to Johnney Moon and Helen has lost her job because of the bad reputation of her brother-in-law and has been advised to become a social worker at the prison. As soon as Helen walks into the prison, the story becomes interesting.
xerses13
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.
bkoganbing
Arline Judge and Roger Clark head a no name cast in this Grade B flick about a woman's prison. This one ought to be seen back to back with Caged to note the difference between what an A film and a B film treatment of the same subject. I'm not sure I should dignify Girls in Chains by calling it a B film. By the way, I didn't see one chain during this entire turgid drama.Ms. Judge is a psychologist and sister-in-law of the town's leading racketeer who gets a job despite that at a woman's prison. Roger Clark is a cop now working the juvenile beat. Together they bring down the political machine that controls the town and the women's prison which is just a patronage trough.The film is badly edited and the story makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Clark and Judge offered no competition to Tracy and Hepburn as a screen team. Best performance in the film is that of Emmett Lynn who played old codgers in westerns mostly. Here he does a great drunk act and actually plays the key role in bringing the villains to justice.Probably the best known player in this is Sid Melton, later on better known as Ichabod Mudd with two 'd's, sidekick to Captain Midnight. He's the sidekick to the racketeer here. Captain Midnight was Shakespeare next to Girls in Chains.
AD
