If you can accept that a women's prison is basically a sorority house waiting to be organized, you might enjoy this programmer. Betty Andrews (Hudson) is in the wrong place at the wrong time and goes to prison as a result. She's an innocent victim of mistaken identity, and had the screenplay extended this tough-minded premise into the prison itself, something memorable, like Caged (1950), might have resulted. Instead, the prison population turns out to be young, shapely (except for Tubby), and well-scrubbed. Even the "boss con" Duchess (Lang) looks ready for a night on the town. Of course, the casual cruelty of the uncaring system toughens Betty in a flash, transforming her into a potential social menace, that is, until crusading reformer Mary Ellis (Inescourt) arrives.Now, I'm on Ellis's side. Prisons should be as humane as possible, not only for the good of the inmates, but for society as well. But this is Hollywood at its phoniest, where every pitfall is overcome by a near miraculous turn of the script. Look at how easily Brent (Ford) is able to locate the overdue Betty or how compliant the commissioner is or how quickly even Duchess turns around. The message here is a laudable one, namely, that kindness works. However, it's spread on in such simple-minded fashion that it becomes little more than propaganda for a good cause. Perhaps the screenplay reflects New Deal optimism of the time, and worked for those reform-minded audiences. Now, however, the movie's main interest is to fans of a lively young Glenn Ford before he learned the power of low-key.

The best thing about this movie is Benjamin Kline's cinematography. Little noted, he was the DP of more than 300 films, including a lot of B westerns and Three Stooges shorts. Yet he always had a great eye and with a compliant director -- and that pretty much describes Nick Grinde -- he could shoot a handsome movie and this is one of them, with its early film noir prison photography -- he even manages to use a couple of subdued iris shots very effectively. Notice how the heavy shadows disappear and the camera begins to move after the prison reforms begin. Mr. Kline never won an award, but he always did a good job, whether shooting a Tom Mix western (take a look at the surviving prints of SKY HIGH and marvel at how well they have aged) or Moe poking Curly in the eye -- comedy calls for bright flat lighting. He worked for more than fifty years and ended his career behind the camera of some TV movies: westerns, of course.The story is pretty much of a retread of those crusading reform-the-prisons movies, like 20,000 YEARS AT SING-SING and CASTLE ON THE HUDSON. It hews strictly to the Production Code and it would be another decade and a half before lesbianism began to creep into this sort of movie. Rochelle Hudson, a good actress who never got beyond the Bs does a fine job, but while her performance is spot on, she always looks ready to slip out of that prison uniform she's been wearing all day while working in the prison laundry and into an evening gown for a night on the town. Few of the other actors, including a very young Glenn Ford are particularly good, which I blame Nick Grinde for.This was quite obviously intended as a major production for Columbia, no major actors, but a lot of them for the crowd scenes. Although the reworked plot and mediocre acting by the majority of the cast don't do a thing for this, the solid performance by Miss Hudson and brilliant camera-work by Mr. Kline make this a superior movie.