Ladies They Talk About is a 1933 Pre-Code

Pre-Code

Pre-Code Hollywood refers to the era in the American film industry between the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor and it did not become rigorously...

 women in prison film about a woman sent to San Quentin. Based on the play Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye and Carlton Miles, the film stars Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...

, Preston Foster

Preston Foster

Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...

, and Lillian Roth

Lillian Roth

Lillian Roth was an American singer and actress.-Early life:Roth was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was only 6 years old when her mother took her to Educational Pictures, where she became the company's trademark, symbolized by a living statue holding a lamp of knowledge...

.

Plot

Nan Taylor (Stanwyck) is accused of helping her friends rob a bank. Reform-minded David Slade (Foster) falls in love with her and gets her released. However, when she confesses that she is guilty, he has her imprisoned. Inside, she meets fellow inmates Linda (Roth), "Sister Susie" (Dorothy Burgess

Dorothy Burgess

Dorothy Burgess was a stage and motion picture actress from Los Angeles, California.-Family, education:She was a niece of Fay Bainter. On her father's side she was related to George Montgomery of Montgomery and Stone. Her grandfather was Henry A. Burgess, Sr. He came to Los Angeles in 1893,...

) and Aunt Maggie (Maude Eburne

Maude Eburne

right|thumbMaude Eburne was a Canadian character actress of stage and screen, known for playing eccentric roles.Born in Bronte-on-the-Lake, Ontario and studied elocution in Toronto...

), and prison matron Noonan (Ruth Donnelly

Ruth Donnelly

Ruth Donnelly was an American stage and film actress. Her father was the mayor of Trenton, New Jersey....

). Unlike most films of the women in prison genre, her fellow inmates are criminals with no innocents in prison by mistake. Taylor gets involved in a prison escape, has a year added to her sentence, and goes gunning for revenge when she is released.

Reception

The New York Times said "When a reformer and a dashing female bank bandit fall in love, their home life may be somewhat as illustrated in the lingering finale of 'Ladies They Talk About,' [...] After a torrid argument in which Nan, the gun-girl, accuses her beloved of frustrating a jail-break in which two of her pals were killed, she loses her temper, draws a gun from her handbag and shoots him. 'I didn't mean to do that,' Nan remarks a moment later as David Slade falls to the floor with a bullet in his shoulder. 'Why, that's all right, Nan,' responds her husband-to-be. 'It's nothing.'" [...] "It is in the prison scenes that the film provides some interesting drama. 'Ladies They Talk About' is effective when it is describing the behavior of the prisoners, the variety of their misdemeanors, their positions in the social whirl outside, their ingenuity in giving an intimate domestic touch to the prison, and their frequently picturesque way of exhibiting pride, jealousy, vanity and other untrammeled feminine emotions."

Remake

The film was remade in 1942 under the title Lady Gangster

Lady Gangster

Lady Gangster is a 1942 American film directed by Robert Florey and based on the play Gangstress, or Women in Prison and is considered to be a remake of Ladies They Talk About.- Cast :*Faye Emerson as Dorothy Drew Burton...

, starring Faye Emerson

Faye Emerson

Faye Margaret Emerson was an American film actress and television interviewer, known as "The First Lady of Television". She acted in many Warner Brothers films beginning in 1941...

.