Girls in Prison (1994)

Just perfect...

Instant Favorite.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Quasi-remake of the 1950s film of the same name directed by Edward ("Fast Eddy") Cahn. I was impressed to see Samuel Fuller's name in the writing credits but disappointed by the results. There are lots of Fuller-style quirky lines and off-beat twists but they come off more like someone imitating Fuller than Fuller himself. Parts of this movie (especially the truly unbelievable climax) defy belief. Other parts simply make no sense at all. I think the main problem is a director who doesn't actually get the jokes in his own movie, never a good thing. Ione Skye gets top billing but actually has little more than a minor supporting role. She gets to do a bush league version of James Cagney's mad scene from WHITE HEAT but she's no Cagney. The other girls come off a little better. Bahni Turpin is charming and attractive and does a pretty decent job but the movie really belongs to Anne Heche. She plays a stereotypical film noir femme fatale/whack-job (at one point even adopting the alias "Gilda") and carries it off with style and assurance. And yeah, you get to see her boobs in the shower scene. They'e very nice.

Don't let the appellation MADE FOR TV throw you off the scent. This movie was made for cable TV, and like any good 'girls in prison' movie, it has 2 really good shower scenes!Also, as it is set in the 1950's, Anne Heche gets to wear some clothes that would look right at home on Grace Kelly.

An odd film. It can't decide whether it wants to be a tribute to 50s/60s "girls behind bars" exploitation pictures, a pseudo-political satire, or a crime drama. In better hands, it might have straddled those genres effectively, but as it is, it's more than a little scattershot.In some sense, the film only seems to be sure of itself when it lapses into "lipstick lesbians in jail" exploitation. Personally, I could have done with more of that material, but then I watched the emasculated basic cable version on Lifetime. In retrospect, I'd recommend renting the video so you don't have to miss out on any of the "sexuality/nudity", and so you won't have to put up with the lame-o profanity overdubs. One particularly egregious dialogue change (judging from context and lip-reading) was "I shot his balls off" to "I blew his brains out", which renders the followup line "there was nothing to sew back on" utterly nonsensical.Most of the laughs in the film are unintentional rather than written. The lack of acting from the character who stabs herself got a big laugh from me. The only *good* acting in the film to speak of comes from Anne Heche, who puts more work into her role than you'd expect. Lots of nice bits of business that I can tell were her idea rather than scripted or directed, since her scenes are the only ones with that kind of quality. Oh, I guess Miguel Sandoval (the "digger" in Jurassic Park) has a couple of nice moments as well.All in all, about what you would expect from legendary (to MST3K fans, at least) schlock producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, who also directed the unrelated 1956 film with the same title. Worth viewing if you're an Anne Heche fan or have nothing better to do, but don't go out of your way.

Funny how people see the same things in such different ways. Although the movie is classified as action/drama I have to say I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair. This movie would have been a greater success if it had been classified as comedy. The characters are so stereotype that the movie seems to make fun of the kind of genre it is actually supposed to represent. The problem is, that it takes itself serious, otherwise I think I would have liked it. I am not quite sure whether it is just a bad movie or if it is really bad enough to be interesting. In any case - I am still amused about it. (Besides, Anne Heche is hilarious as the bad girl).