Women's Prison

Women's Prison is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Lewis Seiler and starring Ida Lupino, Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, Phyllis Thaxter and Howard Duff. The film is noted today for the appearance of Moore, and for Lupino's performance as the aggressively cruel warden. In the 1980s the film became rather popular, Sony Pictures subsequently released it in the boxed set Bad Girls of Film Noir: Volume II along with Night Editor, One Girl's Confession and Over-Exposed. Plot A ruthless superintendent of a prison, Amelia van Zandt, makes life hell for the female inmates. Her rules are rigid and she makes no exceptions. The newcomer Helene Jensen is not a hardened criminal by any means, but a woman convicted of vehicular homicide after she accidentally killed a child. Out of place here, Helene is so distraught that Van Zandt has her placed in solitary confinement. When Helene goes into hysterics, Van Zandt has her put in a straitjacket. Helene nearly dies.