User Reviews

Engaging pre-Code women-in-the-slammer nonsense, with Stanwyck as a guileless babe in stir for a bank robbery. Lillian Roth helps out loads as a tough fellow inmate (she even sings "If I Could Be With You," to an 8x10 of Joe E. Brown), and Ruth Donnelly, always indispensable in these Warners early talkies, is a sympathetic matron. Other delights include a bullish cigar-smoking lady criminal and Dorothy Burgess as Stanwyck's worst nightmare. But the morality is all over the place, with Stanwyck abetting her fellow bank robbers in a breakout attempt, yet the scriptwriters still demand that she engage our sympathy. We're even supposed to root for her as she falls in and out and in and out of love with Preston Foster, as a crusading Aimee Semple McPherson sort, a relationship that makes no sense at all. This is the type of movie where she shoots her lover and immediately whimpers, "I didn't mean that!" Stanwyck was always an interesting actress, and as she alternately snarls and screams and charms and smiles, she's intensely watchable. But her schizo character doesn't register as a heroine. And Preston Foster doesn't register at all.

Lillian Roth croons "If I could be with you" to a picture of Joe E. Brown. A creepy religious fanatic wears black lingerie in her cell, which is plastered with pictures of her idol, a radio preacher. A society dame who murdered another society dame with ground glass cuddles her Pekingese. A cigar smoking lesbian ("Watch out for her—she likes to wrestle," a new inmate is warned) does exercises. An old lady who used to run a "beauty parlor" reminisces about how she was captured by a detective who came "to get a manicure from one of my girls." It's just another typical night in the women's ward at San Quentin, where the prisoners get radio, ice cream, free run of the recreation room and the privilege to decorate their cells ("rooms—don't be vulgar.") Who knew prison was this much fun?

In a pre-Code gem starring Barbara Stanwyck, it is. Stanwyck is Nan Taylor, a glamorous bank robber doing two to five for her role in a heist. Sardonic, jaded, sexy, tough as nails, this is Stanwyck in her early-thirties glory. Just watching her saunter around with her hands stuck in the front pockets of her prison dress, chewing gum, smoking, and distributing zingy put-downs, is a joy. To a self-righteous fellow inmate who tells her there's no punishment bad enough for her, Nan replies, "Being penned up here with a daffodil like you comes awful close."

That's about all there is to Ladies They Talk About. The plot concerns a sappy religious reformer (the object of creepy Sister Susie's crush) who falls hard for Nan and pursues her adoringly—even after she shoots him in the arm. There's also plot about a cockamamie escape attempt: how hard could it be to break out of a jail that apparently has no discipline whatsoever? (Though the men, including two of Nan's confederates, don't seem to be having quite as much fun as the women.)

This movie doesn't even try to make us want to see Nan reform. It revels in the racy banter of lady criminals, offers a low-down rendition of the St. Louis Blues for a soundtrack, and invites us to worship Barbara Stanwyck at her most cynical and brazenly amoral. Who could ask for anything more?

This is a very gritty pre-coder made special by Stanwyck. She could take an ordinary programmer and with a couple of emotional scenes make it very memorable. The "Ladies They Talk About" are the women prisoners in San Quentin, where a lot of the action takes place.

After putting the police on a false trail ("Police, hurry please - there's a man running wild with a butcher's knife stabbing people") Nan Taylor (Barbara Stanwyck) gets busy with the real business - helping to rob a bank with her gang!!! It goes wrong and Nan is caught. "Fighting" Dave Slade (Preston Foster), a reform revivalist, takes an interest in her - he remembers her from his home town, she was the deacon's daughter!!! She convinces Dave that she is innocent, so he has her paroled - hoping she will go straight. She confesses that she was in on that bank robbery, thinking that her honestly will impress him but it doesn't and she is sent to jail.

Life on the inside looks rough but Linda (Lillian Roth) takes her under her wing. Lillian Roth looks absolutely beautiful and even sings a song - "If I Could Be With You". This was one of her last films before her alcoholic oblivion. Someone Nan needs to be careful of is "Sister" Susie (Dorothy Burgess) a religious zealot, who is secretly in love with Dave Slade and will not hear anything against him. Meanwhile Don (Lyle Talbot) and some of his gang, have been imprisoned but they have plans to break out with Nan's help. She provides a plan of the women's section and also an impression of the master key to all the cells. She sends the details in a letter, but because "Lefty" (her "outside" contact) is now in jail her letter is intercepted by the warden and the guards swoop. The gang members are killed in an ambush and Nan wrongly believes Dave Slade was responsible. When she is released she goes "gunning" for him.

The ending is pretty improbable - somehow I don't think Nan and Dave are going to live "happily ever after"!!! She is completely hard boiled and only starts to feel sympathy for him when she almost kills him. Even when she is asked if it is true that she and Slade are to be married, Nan replies "well, he said so, didn't he!!"

Among the cast is John Hyams, Leila's father, as an uncredited bank manager. Ruth Donnelly is the Matron with the cockatoo and Madame Sul- Te-Wan is Mustard - she had appeared in "Hoodoo Ann" as Black Cindy.

Recommended.

Is this a great film? Not in the least, it was simply too short. But what actually makes it a good film are the supporting characters such as Lillian Roth as Linda, DeWitt Jennings as Detective Tracy (Incredible that that he was not credited because his scenes were paramount to the picture (Spoilers: He was the one who caught Nan Taylor (Barbara Stanwyck)in the first place, and he let Nan go, when he knew Nan shot David Slade (Preston Foster)), and "Sister" Susie (Dorothy Burgess). She was the main villain in the film, and she was in my favorite scene when she framed Nan for a letter, and Nan punched her out Cagney Style.

On to Stanwyck, if anyone has seen her films before: "The Lady Eve", "The Mad Miss Manton", "Ball of Fire" "Golden Boy", "The Furies", and of course, "Baby Face", just to name a few, know that Barbara is not the kind of woman to bring home to mother, and there some kind of repercussions involved for being with her, and these were not addressed in this film. Most notably Spade speaking out against politicians and newspapers. Does anyone think they would not say something about him being involved with (And eventually marrying) a felon? That is what almost cost Courtland Trenholm (George Brent) his life in "Baby Face" or Professor Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) his life work in "Ball of Fire", and most notably, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who lost everything he had because of Phyllis Dietrichson in "Double Indemnity", being involved with a Stanwyck character. Perhaps the best line about a Stanwyck character was concerning "Sugarpuss" Katherine O'Shea in "Ball of Fire" who Miss Bragg (Kathleen Howard)referred to as the "Kind of woman who causes the destruction of entire civilizations." I would have liked to see Nan and Spade deal with the issues involved with their relationship. Not just the end where (Spoilers ahead) When he announces they are getting married and her response was "well, he said so, didn't he!!". As well as the final scene where Linda and the other prisoners read about their wedding in the paper. 7/10 stars.

Nearly twenty years before CAGED, LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT touched the theme of women in prison with a much lighter touch. Barbara Stanwyck, this time, is at the helm as the ingénue sent to prison by her no-good boyfriend played by Preston Foster, although you wouldn't know it since this prison resembles more of a posh boarding house than the hell CAGED would present much later. Stanwyck is her usual gritty self (which is saying, she's fierce and elevates what would have been a throwaway role) as the girl who toughens up, and there is one of the earlier references info lesbianism thrown in as an oblique character who "likes to wrestle". It's probably more memorable due to the fact of being made in Hollywood's Pre-Code years, but if at all for an early Stanwyck, it's worth a shot. Look for Lillian Roth in a supporting role, one of the few she made during her short career before collapsing into almost absolute ignominy.

This is a hard film to review. There is a lot to like and a few things to dislike in it. So lets break them down: The bad: 1: The parrot scene with the ugly black woman. The entire scene made me cringe. There was no benefit or reasoning behind this scene even being in the film. 2: The length of the film. It was only 69 minutes. There was a lot of story to tell and there simply was not enough time to tell it in. Stuff like the parrot scene, and not getting into depth David Slade's (Preston Foster) opposition to politicians and the newspapers was a major mistake. If you don't think the politicians and papers would have had a field day with him being involved with and spoilers ahead: Marrying a convicted felon like Nan Taylor (Barbara Stanwyck), and then you believe in Santa Claus. In addition, Stanwyck is almost always worth watching (Except "Walk On The Wild Side", a film without a single redeeming factor). So show us more about her (Like why she went from a preacher's daughter to being so rotten (Which is what they did in her next film "Baby Face")). The good: 1: Linda (Lillian Roth: She was really my favorite character, a person who was probably a lifer (Based on the fact she was in San Quentin before Nan got there and after she left), yet she never became a hater, and all she wanted was friendship from Nan. I usually detest singing in a film, but the scene (Spoilers ahead) of her singing to a photo of Dick Powell was well done. 2: Stanwyck: As usual I like her in this film, and in particular (Spoilers) when she punches out "Sister Susie" (Dorothy Burgess), for framing her over a letter. This is what you could have expected from Cagney. Also when Susie calls the cops for shooting Slade, and she makes her look pathetic by putting a "Do Not Disturb" sign over the keyhole where she was peeking, and this little exchange with Susie: Susie: Say, there isn't any punishment bad enough for you! Nan Taylor: Yeah? Well, being penned up here with a daffodil like you comes awful close. It is a strange film, because Roth & Stanwyck were so good, it could have been a classic, but the parts I disliked (Particularly the parrot scene) really were that bad, I had to deduct stars from it. 7/10.

Barbara Stanwyck (Nan Taylor), Preston Foster (Dave Slade), Lillian Roth (Linda), Lyle Talbot (Don), Dorothy Burgess (Susie), Ruth Donnelly (Noonan), Robert McWade (district attorney), Maude Eburne (Aunt Maggie), Cecil Cunningham (Mrs Arlington), Grace Cunard (Marie), Helen Mann (Blondie), Harold Huber (Lefty), Madame Sul-Te- Wan (Mustard), Louise Carter (Lefty's landlady), Harold Healy (Dutch), DeWitt Jennings (Detective Tracy), Helen Ware (Mrs Johnson, head matron), Louise Emmons (Jessie Jones), John Hyams (bank manager), Ray Turner (bank janitor), Harold Minjir (bank teller), Harry Gribbon (bank guard), Davison Clark (jail chief), Robert Warwick (warden), Helen Dickson (lady with cigar), Mary Gordon (prisoner in visiting room), Isabel Withers (prisoner), Jack Baxley (man seated next to Slade at revival meeting), Harry C. Bradley (little man in corridor at revival meeting), Tom McGuire (Farnum, an official at revival), Ferris Taylor (man on stage at radio broadcast), William Keighley (man getting a shoeshine).

Director: HOWARD BRETHERTON. Version released in USA (and currently broadcast by TCM) partly re-shot by WILLIAM KEIGHLEY. Screenplay: Brown Holmes & William McGrath & Sidney Sutherland. Based on the play Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye & Carlton Miles. Photography: John Seitz. Film editor: Basil Wrangell. Art director: Esdras Hartley. Costumes designed by Orry-Kelly. Songs: "If I Could Be With You" (Roth) by James P. Johnson (music) and Henry Creamer (lyrics); "St Louis Blues" (sung off-camera by Etta Moten) by W.C. Handy; "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" by Roy Turk and Lou Handman. Music director: Leo F. Forbstein, conducting The Vitaphone Orchestra. Music: Cliff Hess, Stills: Homer Van Pelt. Assistant director: Ben Silvey. Sound recording: Charles Althouse. Producer: Raymond Griffith. A Warner Bros. Picture.

Not copyright. Worldwide release through Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 25 February 1933. New York opening at both the Capitol and Loew's Metropolitan: 24 February 1933. U.K. release: 15 July 1933. 69 minutes

SYNOPSIS: Evangelistic reformer falls in love with a gun moll from his old home town.

NOTES: Harold Huber does not appear in the Howard Bretherton version released in England (and presumably also in Australia). In the Bretherton movie, Lyle Talbot visits Stanwyck in prison. In the Keighley version, Talbot was instead substituted for one of the escapees and was, by clever intercutting with the Bretherton footage, killed. In the Bretherton version, the two men were merely caught. This does give the heroine a better reason to shoot Slade and makes her action more believable.

COMMENT: Unless you're aware that Keighley directed part or all of several key scenes, the work of the two directors is hard to pin down. The Lillian Roth footage is obviously Bretherton's work, but the impressive scenes with Ruth Donnelly and her white cockatoo were probably also his.

And what about the three very striking encounters between Stanwyck and DeWitt Jennings in which the sparks fly (even under what seems to be a civil surface)? And how about the Preston Foster revival material with its sweeping crowd shots?

Yes, if you can disregard the somewhat incredible story-line (easy enough to do while the quick-paced movie is actually running) and its remarkable picture of a women's jail (allegedly San Quentin, according to some reviewers), you can accept (and enjoy) the theatricality of the milieu without question. On this basis, "Ladies They Talk About" emerges as a most fascinating movie with acerbic portraits all down the line, particularly from Stanwyck's chiseling, chip-on-the-shoulder heroine, Foster's self-first reformer, Dorothy Burgess's numbingly accurate study of a religious fanatic and Robert McWade's opportunistic district attorney.

It's also good to see Lillian Roth in a sizable role (and given a chance to sing too).

Barbara Stanwyck, like many popular actresses in the '30s and '40s, was busy. I saw her in "Ladies of Leisure," "Ten Cents a Dance," "Illicit," "Night Nurse," and "So Big!" which were all released between 1931 and 1932, and those weren't all of the movies she was in in that span.

In "Ladies They Talk About" she plays Nan Taylor, a bad girl tied to a gang headed by Lefty (Harold Huber). She got into trouble after she aided in a bank robbery. Her role and her silence got her a 2-5 year sentence in San Quentin. The sentence was all but assured until she used some seduction and tears on a big time evangelist type named David Slade (Preston Foster).

He fell for her, and hard.

Having Slade on her side meant she had his clout on her side as well. He was a big enough name that the D. A. refused to prosecute Nan for fear of losing the next election. The D. A. was going to release Nan to Slade except she shot herself in the foot by telling Slade that she was just running game on him to get his help. With that Slade refused to sign her release papers.

I didn't understand the move. She had Slade right where she wanted him and her freedom was assured. Even if she felt she could tell him the truth, she could've just as easily told him AFTER he signed her release papers. Perhaps she loved him deep down and didn't feel right fooling him but again, she could've waited.

Nan did her bid while harboring disdain for Slade for not signing her release papers. Slade, however, was so bewitched that he continued to write Nan in prison hoping that he could see her one day and make her fall in love with him. Apparently, Nan put the works on him so good he couldn't get her out of his mind even though she told him she wasn't "on the level."

Nan used that to her advantage. She used Slade one more time which made me think he was either legitimately in a spell or he was so righteous and holy it made him totally naive and gullible.

She had him mail a letter to her old partner in crime, Lefty. In the letter was a an outline of the key he'd need to help bust his partners out from prison. Slade didn't know the contents of the letter because he never opened it. His firm belief that Nan loved him back was enough for him to trust her and mail the letter sight unseen.

Again I thought, "Slade, you're a fool." But as I thought that I knew that they would become an item eventually. Why? Because he was so good and so in love, and she was the beautiful damsel in need of saving. In this case she needed saving from her wicked ways.

They got together as the movie so telegraphed, and I didn't like it. Not that I wanted Nan to stay incorrigible or that I wanted her to stay single, I just wanted her to shun him. Nan was so tough and smart it was a letdown and almost an insult that she would need saving from a guy like Slade. I wanted her to save herself. Whether that meant going straight or playing Slade to stay out of prison--it didn't matter to me--I just wanted her to show Slade that she could go it alone and choose the man she wanted instead of the goody-two-shoes, pathetic puppy dog that Slade was.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

This Warner Brothers picture sure is a strange one! While you'd think that this company making a movie about women in prison during the Pre-Code era would be a lot racier and more exciting, it really wasn't. I was pretty much expecting a Bogart or Raft style film with women but the prison looked more like a day spa and the plot was a lot of hooey--making this a rare flop for Barbara Stanwyck.

Barbara is the "inside man" during a bank robbery and everyone but her escapes. While in police custody, a bizarre reformer talks to Barbara--telling her that he recognized her as a childhood friend. He wanted to help her and since it wasn't conclusive that she was involved in the holdup, he was arranging with the district attorney to release her to his care. At this point, she confesses that she WAS a part of the gang and he has no choice but to tell the D.A. and she is sent to prison. Now this really didn't make any sense. Why would he stick his neck out for someone he barely knew and why would street-wise Stanwyck confess when she about to be released?

When she arrives in prison for a 2-5 year stretch, I was amazed, as the place seemed nicer than most Motel 6's! The cell was decorated by June Cleaver, some of the women sat around while the Black prisoners did their bidding and there was no violence or swearing or much of anything. Perhaps calling it "like a day spa" was overstating it a bit, but not by much because inside they also had hair salons! In fact, considering how bad the Depression was, if they HAD run women's prisons that way, millions of ladies would have committed crimes just to be locked up in this nice abode!

Well, apparently this palace of women is next door to the men's prison at San Quentin and Barbara agrees to help some men in their escape attempt. When the attempt backfires and the guys are killed, she blames the reformer from earlier in the story!? This really made no sense at all, but what happened next made it look like the writers either were chimps or perhaps they'd just been drinking. After she served her full sentence, she got out and went to murder the reformer. But after shooting him in the arm, he covers for her and they get married and live happily ever after! I am not kidding and I am not under the influence of drugs--this REALLY is the plot. Sure, there was a bit more to it but the outline and description of life in prison is what was in the film!

While this was shown as part of the "homosexuals in Hollywood" theme for Turner Classic Movies in June, the image of a cigar-smoking lesbian inmate was barely noticeable and she was not a major character in the film. Apart from a vague crack made about her and a pretty younger blonde sharing her cell, there wasn't a lot to this aspect of the film. Of course, had the film been made a couple years later (after the strict Production Code was enforced), this innocent enough character would have been eliminated altogether.

A dull, silly and utterly frivolous little picture that Ms. Stanwyck couldn't have felt proud having made. It's definitely very skip-able, but also quite watchable...if you like seeing train wrecks!