Bad Girls of Film Noir
Given a suggestive title like Bad Girls of Film Noir, one has good reason to expect some fun girls-gone-wild action (if not exactly girls-with-girls action), and this new two-volume collection won’t disappoint those who have a taste for femme fatales of the B-movie kind, namely Gloria Grahame, Cleo Moore, Terry Moore, and Audrey Totter, among others. The standouts of Vol. 1 may be a couple of Lizabeth Scott titles: 1951’s Two of a Kind and 1953’s Bad for Each Other, the latter also starring known heterosexual Charlton Heston. But go directly to Vol. 2 for Ida Lupino’s turn as a tough prison warden in 1955’s silly Women’s Prison. Interestingly, this film doesn’t even hint at lesbianism-behind-bars, whereas the five-years-older Caged (not included here) remains something of a landmark in the area. One gal in this Women’s Prison even gets pregnant after hitting the big house—but then haven’t we all? Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (sonypictures.com/homevideo). —Review: Jack Varsi
Category: Film/DVD
