While I just randomly decided to watch this movie (believing it to be noir), it actually bears a closer resemblance to Safe in Hell, a Humphrey Bogart film about juvenile delinquents I talked about years ago. By some strange coincidence, Convicted Woman also includes an actor familiar to noir movies; one who was just in something I saw earlier this week. The setup to this film is really simple. A girl named Betty Andrews (Rochelle Hudson) is looking for a job in a department store. She gets the job, but for whatever reason, a jealous coworker intentionally misplaces a dress Betty was meant to sell to a customer after taking the customer's money. The woman complains to the manager that she gave a salesperson money and she never received the dress. Adamant this woman was Betty, the latter is called into the manager's office and is found to have 10 bucks (the price of the dress) in her purse. Although she claims she always had that much money in there, she is taken away by the cops for allegedly robbing a customer. Betty's lawyer tries to defend her in court, but ultimately, she is found guilty and sentenced to one year in a facility called Curtiss House of Correction. Betty is especially angry at a reporter named Jim (Glenn Ford) as he showed up right when Betty was arrested and only seems concerned with turning her misfortune into an interesting read. When Betty is taken to prison, she finds a truly horrible place led by a bitter old woman named Mrs. Brackett. Although favoritism is against prison protocols, Brackett has two lackeys named Nita and Georgia, otherwise known as "The Duchess." Right from the beginning, Georgia tries sabotaging Betty's good standing with the prison authorities. During dinner one day, the girls all rise up and protest the slop they are being fed, and Betty has her shoe taken by Georgia, who then hurls it at Brackett. Betty gets blamed anyway and her punishment is to work in the laundry, located in the prison's basement. It is brutally hot, and another inmate named Gracie is visibly ill from being forced to work such long hours at the machines. Betty tells Gracie to go relax while she finishes her work for her. When she's all done, Betty checks on Gracie, only to find she has hanged herself. Brackett and the others try to cover up what happened to Gracie, saying she was sick for a long time, and tell Betty if she says otherwise she will be punished. Betty forms a temporary alliance with Georgia, the latter offering to smuggle her out of the prison in a mattress truck, but as soon as Betty hops in, Georgia informs Brackett about the escape attempt. For such a severe violation, Betty is punished with being put in solitary. However, she managed to send a secret note to Jim during a meeting with him in Brackett's office, in which she tells the truth about Gracie's demise. Jim causes an outrage with the incident, and Brackett is replaced as supervisor with Mary Ellis (Frieda Inescort), Betty's former lawyer. Mary promises to make the prison more hospitable and gets rid of solitary confinement, bad food, and allows the girls to govern themselves. Brackett tells Mary she's forgetting one thing: every woman in here is a criminal. Betty is brought out of solitary and grows to like Mary, and is even elected to represent the girls. Concurrently, Brackett and Georgia scheme to get the former back in command. Georgia finds out that Mary is planning to give ten girls temporary parole to enjoy Thanksgiving and a night out. When Brackett learns of this, she calls her boss, who is enraged at the thought of criminals being let out into the streets without their sentences being done. Georgia arranges to have Betty abducted so she does not make her curfew. Brackett and Georgia both hope this event will show how irresponsible Betty is, and how putting Mary in charge of this place was a mistake. Thanks to a tip from one of the girls, Jim finds out Betty is being held captive at a broken down roadhouse and wrecks the car of her captors. During the distraction, he rescues Betty and they drive back to Curtiss. Georgia is beaten up by one of the other girls after what she did to Betty becomes known, and right when Mary is about to lose her job to Brackett, Betty and Jim burst in. A black-eyed Georgia apologizes for everything she did to Betty, and Jim is given custody of Betty with permission from Mary. This movie was ok. Most of it focuses on how grueling life inside a prison meant for women can be, and shows how girls are usually much nastier than boys when it comes to harassing somebody. I found Georgia to be thoroughly unlikeable as she tries to undercut Betty at every turn. Not only because it pleases her boss, but because it pleases herself. Even in adulthood, it's common to find people who are willing to be best friends with their superiors just to give subordinates a hard time. The movie also brings up an interesting point in that lots of these so called "correctional" facilities are rotten to the core, but people on the outside have no way of knowing that. The only ones who are aware of it are the inmates, and those ruling with iron fists will make sure they are abused as many times as it takes to keep their mouths shut. There isn't really much to this film other than that it was entertaining, and seeing a women's prison isn't something that was at the heart of many old movies.
Review of Convicted Woman
