Girls In Prison

In the 1950s, three girls become friendly while serving time in prison. They are: Melba (Bahni Turpin), who murdered a Red-baiting TV commentator for exploiting a photo of her soldier brother's corpse on his show; Carol (Ione Skye), a playwright, who was made so disraught by the failure of her anti-McCarthy play and her actor-father's having fallen into a coma, that she impulsively killed a barroom loudmouth; and country singer-songwriter Aggie (Missy Crider), accused but innocent of having murdered a record company executive, Boss Johnson (Jon Polito), who got physical with her. The three young women form a clique with a fourth member, the impressionable Suzy (Nicolette Scorsese).

When a riot breaks out in the prison yard, Melba and Carol protect Aggie from a "hitgirl," and warn her that there is a contract out on her life. On the outside, Aggie's song "Endless Sleep" has been turned into a hit, after having been taken from Johnson's office by the scheming Benito Borcelino (Nestor Serrano) and Johnson's associates Jennifer (Anne Heche) and Miranda (Angie Ray McKinney). Melba's restaurant-owner friend, Lum Fong (Harvey Chao) recruits a private detective, Lucky (Miguel Sandoval) to investigate Aggie's case. Little does Lucky (or anyone else) know that Suzy is in fact the next designated "hitgirl"--Borcelino (who is, in fact, Suzy's boyfriend) asks her to kill Aggie as a favor to him. After a strip-tease performance for the prison inmates, a riot breaks out and Suzy is unmasked; she kills herself in shame.

When Lucky roughs up Borcelino, he finds out who is behind the frame-up of Aggie: Jennifer, who not only killed Johnson, but is also a full-blown sociopath. At the same instant, Jennifer is getting herself arrested and placed in the same prison as Aggie. In a move to protect Aggie and flush out a possible "hitgirl," the prison authorities decide to hold a potato-sack race in the prison yard. As the race becomes a shambles, Jennifer tries to kill Aggie, but is instead forced by the young country singer to confess, and thus vindicate Aggie of the killing of Boss Johnson, in full view of the prison populace.

"Hitgirls"? A newscaster bludgeoned to death on live TV in the 1950s? An experimental play in which a character condemns McCarthy to his face--performed while the Senator was still in ascendence? A striptease show in a women's prison? A potato sack race? GIRLS IN PRISON is an incredibly imaginative, and at points downright bizarre, concoction that has nothing to do with its namesake, a 1956 potboiler about teens in trouble. Fuller's presence as a coscripter--he wrote the screenplay along with his actress wife Christa Lang--is curious, given the low-profile nature of his contribution to this made-for-cable project (this was the last Fuller screenplay filmed during his lifetime). Fuller's involvement is also unusual for the very fact that the film is first and foremost a campfest. No matter how absurd the occurrences are in Fuller's work as a filmmaker (SHOCK CORRIDOR, THE NAKED KISS) he rarely, if ever, played them for intentional laughs.

Perhaps this emphasis on humor is more Lang's contribution than Fuller's, but it can be said for director McNaughton that he does deliver the requisite prison-picture brutality at several points--in fact, the movie more often resembles '80s fare like THE CONCRETE JUNGLE (1982) and THE NAKED CAGE (1986) more than it does a seminal 1950s entry in the genre like WOMEN'S PRISON (1955). McNaughton also makes impressive use of a gaudy color scheme and faux-noir lighting patterns (nearly every set contains a shadow cast by venetian blinds or prison bars).

The performers give their roles the proper level of cartoonish intensity, with Missy Crider qualifying as a properly simpering lead, and Anne Heche stealing the show as the psychotic villainess. Her sincere approach to such an outrageously overwrought role (recalling her work in the equally insane WILD SIDE) is one of the film's closest ties to the Fuller tradition. (Profanity, violence.) leave a comment