Sunday with Barbara Stanwyck

“Ladies They Talk About” crackles and charms

For an enjoyably fresh and surprising women’s prison picture, pre-Hollywood production code Ladies They Talk About hits the spot. Here, Barbara Stanwyck plays Nan, a bank robbery gang’s bait. She gets caught, obviously. There’s more to it and it’s well done.

Stanwyck’s Nan is also a deacon’s daughter. When a religious radio evangelist (Preston Foster) with whom she was acquainted in her youth resurfaces during the sentencing phase, the wisecracking dame’s spun into a dilemma that neither of them can easily sort through. Complicating matters are the gang members, a political district attorney and the cop who foils Nan’s schemes. While Nan keeps going and staying bad—“too much deaconing took all of the sweetness out of me,” she explains when they’re reunited—the reformist preacher on the airwaves keeps trying to save her soul. Or does he want (not completely) naughty Nan for himself?

Ambiguity laces Ladies They Talk About, a solid B-movie with the necessary snap, sizzle and sentiment to entertain an audience for its 69-minute running time. Warner Bros.’ 1933 picture—Stanwyck’s third movie for the Burbank, California, studio—was based on the play Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye and Carlton Miles and originally called Women in Prison. The movie was titled Lady No. 6142—that’s Nan’s San Quentin prison number, a fact which comes into play—and, later, it was simply called Betrayed. Ladies They Talk About is co-directed by William Keighley and Howard Bretherton with screenwriting by Sidney Sutherland and Brown Holmes.

Most of the movie takes place in San Quentin, where Nan contends with colorful characters as you can imagine. A nemesis named Susie has it in for Nan because she’s devoted to the radio reformer. A butch lesbian—pre-code Ladies They Talk About is relatively frank for 1933—is known for wrestling other prisoners. Women are the film’s focal point. How they talk when men aren’t around. What they fuss, think and wonder about. This is not a drama but it’s savvy and brisk and you’re likely to laugh here and there. An early scene establishes that, while the men’s prison’s severe, the women’s prison’s more like a back alley with a bunch of cats.

As usual, Miss Stanwyck makes everything more realistic and entertaining and entirely worthwhile. Ladies They Talk About was filmed in 24 days and cost $176,000 to produce, according to Victoria Wilson in her biography A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel True 1905-1940. Watch until the end to get the film’s theme that toughness breeds and veils the greediness to love, live and cash in on desire.

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