Tue 18 Jan 2011
GIRLS IN CHAINS. PRC, 1943. Arline Judge, Roger Clark, Robin Raymond, Barbara Pepper, Clancy Cooper, Allan Byron, Sidney Melton, Emmett Lynn, Richard Clarke. Director: Edgar G. Ulmer.
The title, first of all is a misnomer. The girls in the reform facility in this rather limp feature film, from one of Hollywood’s legendary bottom-of-the barrel movie studios, are all in their late 20s if not rather obvious 30s, and there are no chains. (I accept the title either as a metaphor, or if not that, then as obvious over-the-top hyperbole.)
Second of all, however, is that when Sid Melton (Ichabod Mudd in the Captain Midnight TV series) is the only name you spot right off the bat when you start running down through the credits, then you know that Girls in Chains is not going to be a big-budget extravaganza. It is not even a low-budget extravaganza. (I accept the fact that it may be my fault for not recognizing the names of the two leading stars, but I am always willing to learn, and next time I will.)
There is a lot of story in this movie’s 75 minutes of running time (which I am told it took only five days to shoot), and every once in a while there are some good scenes. Viewers on IMDB have taken a great dislike to this film, but using a sledgehammer to demolish it from one end of the room to the other seems like overkill to me. I have seen worse.
The story? Well, it’s complicated, and nicely so. When Helen Martin (Arline Judge, she of the magnificent upsweep bird’s nest hairdo)) is fired from her teaching job because her sister is married to low-life criminal boss Johnny Moon (Allan Byron, who has the whole town wrapped up in his left side back pocket), a friendly police officer (Roger Clark, bland beyond belief) gets her another teaching job, this one at the local girls’ reformatory, where the warden is on Moon’s payroll, but scamming the books on him. More? Johnny Moon’s latest girl friend on the side (Robin Raymond) is about to land in the very same slammer on a shoplifting charge.
Life behind bars is tough enough, with a handful of prison cells for the worst of the offenders, but mostly it’s the laundry room and the barest of dorm rooms for the rest. After discovering early on what she’s up against, Helen is persuaded to work undercover to get the goods on the warden and Johnny Moon, and I suppose that this is all you need to know about the plot.
Overall, Girls in Chains is a strange mixture of funny moments with, let us say, strange takes on courtroom scenes plus puzzling mobster mistakes, with at least one tense situation for the undercover Helen Martin going absolutely nowhere.
January 19th, 2011 at 7:18 am
…all too typical, I afraid, for PRC, and one of the many films Ulmer’s admirers like to gloss over.
January 19th, 2011 at 7:58 am
I remember Sid Melton – still alive at 90, by the way, according to Wikipedia – from the Danny Thomas show(s). Barbara Pepper played dozens of (mostly) small parts, often uncredited in the 30s and 40s and did a fair amount of television in the 50s and 60s, including several appearances on her friend Lucille Ball’s show, which you may have heard about.
Although I never watched it so can’t comment, apparently she and Melton both were at least semi-regulars on GREEN ACRES.
January 19th, 2011 at 11:18 am
If ever there’s been a poverty row cult director, Ulmer’s your guy…the outraged, aside from the joy of piling on, presumably were (unreasonably) disappointed in their hero (or in the lack of chained juveniles).
January 19th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
I’ve never seen this Ulmer.
Would very much like to … although it doesn’t sound promising!
The 1940’s was a great era of upswept hair do’s!
January 19th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Mike
GIRLS IN CHAINS is available on DVD from Amazon for as little as $3.22 plus postage, so I imagine it’s available to rent or even borrow from libraries that do inter-library loans.
I wouldn’t advise spending a lot of money on it, as my comments have already suggested, I’m sure. But if you’re a fan of Ulmer’s work, as I know you are, I think you’d find quite a few things, themes and such, that you’d find interesting.
Since writing my review, in fact, I’ve found one on TCM that’s a whole lot more positive than mine:
http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=159727
Quoting in part:
“Made in just 5 days for the pocket change budget of $20 grand, this trim little B picture didn’t need to do much business to turn a profit. But with the lurid come-on title of Girls in Chains (1943), and the value-added direction of B-movie maestro Edgar G. Ulmer, this low-budget wonder was the Poverty Row version of a hit. ‘The little Girls in Chains was such a gigantic money success, that we could have bought the PRC studio,’ said Ulmer.”
and
“In the finale, Ulmer goes out of his way to demonstrate that what is right with this flick is all to be chalked up to him-unexpectedly, the talky B-noir suddenly shifts into action movie mode, for a stylish and atmospheric chase scene and shootout so classy it almost seems like it was borrowed from a different movie altogether. If Ulmer could pull off stuff like this in a matter of days, just imagine what he could have done with real resources.”
I don’t particularly agree with that last paragraph, but as I said in my review regarding movies, I’ve seen worse.
— Steve
January 19th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Steve,
Thanks!
I will definitely look into this.