JinRoz
For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
Claysaba
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Rexanne
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
blanche-2
"Lady Gangster" is a fun and fast B movie from Warner Brothers in 1942, and stars Faye Emerson, Julie Bishop, Frank Wilcox, Jackie Gleason, and Ruth Ford (Mrs. Zachary Scott). Emerson plays Dot Burton, who was a decoy in a bank robbery. She winds up getting arrested, and an old friend from childhood (Wilcox) believes she's innocent. She isn't. Before she goes to jail, she steals the $40,000 from her cohorts and leaves it with her landlady.This prison is like something out of Stage Door, with a common area and people knitting, dancing, and listening to the radio. Two women out to get Dot, Deaf Annie (Dorothy Adams) and her pal Lucy (Ruth Ford) have the lowdown on Dot thanks to Annie's lip-reading (total 2001: A Space Odyssey) and get her into lots of trouble.Very entertaining.
dougdoepke
A budding actress helps a crew of bankrobbers, after which she's sent to prison, where she uses her wits to get a pardon.The 60-minutes comes across more like a Monogram production instead of the gangster experts at Warner Bros. The main problem lies with the flick's lack of grit. There's really no one to menace the audience as would be expected. As the lead player, Emerson lacks even a hint of fire, which leaves an affable blank where an igniting spark should be. The supporting players too-- with one notable exception-- are pretty bland, along with a sloppy script, as other reviewers point out. Then too, the hulking guy in drag is a hoot that should fool no one, especially canny prison guards. On the other hand, the prison's dayroom scenes are colorful and lively, and compensate somewhat. Director Florey also shows some flair with the staircase brawl, and especially with Dorothy Adams' lip-reading angles. However, to me, Ruth Ford (Lucy) absolutely steals the film. She injects real life and personality into her prison snitch role that provides a lift to the proceedings (and with a pony-tail, no less). I can see why she was an Orson Welles favorite. I'll look for her from now on.All in all, the movie's rather limp for Warner Bros. and its gangster theme specialty. Wisely, Emerson transitioned from movies to early TV where her low-cut gowns suddenly got men interested in panel shows. Too bad wardrobe missed the opportunity here. It would have been big compensation.
Neil Doyle
FAYE EMERSON was a competent actress who never became a major star during her short career at Warner Bros., but she was usually among the prominent supporting players in A-films. Here she's given the leading femme role as a LADY GANGSTER in what is a remake of an old Barbara Stanwyck film.FRANK WILCOX gets the male lead and is rather bland in the role of a radio commentator who wants to help Emerson beat the rap when the police arrest her in connection with a bank robbery gone wrong. Emerson has to serve a prison sentence--and there we get a supporting cast of female prisoners including JULIE BISHOP, RUTH FORD and DOROTHY ADAMS.VIRGINIA BRISSAC (Miss Seiffert with the hearing aid in THE SNAKE PIT) is a prison supervisor and DOROTHY VAUGHAN is a kindly matron, among the supporting role players.Moves swiftly but is a routine B-film with a gangster element. JACKIE GLEASON has a bit role as one of the bank robbers but it's ROLAND DREW who is the chief villain among the robbers, ludicrous when he's in drag disguised as a woman to visit Emerson in jail.Forgettable little item interesting only for Emerson's performance.
trimmerb1234
What makes a "B" movie? Lack of stars and everything rather substandard? Sometimes they have their compensations. Rather as if the makers were compensating for the lack of quality ingredients they sometimes pack a lot into the short running times. And sometimes there are some interesting ideas, shots, characters which re-emerge years, decades later in far more illustrious productions when the B movie original was long forgotten.Kaye Emmerson was not a great actress but was good looking, smart and held the attention. This is a vehicle for her and one gets the impression that the makers intended it as a woman's picture - much of it is "Cell Block H" territory (but far better done) so that it would have a broader appeal than the harder and more realistic gangster movie customarily has.Much of the action takes place in a women's prison. There is a scene where a highly secret discussion takes place deliberately out of earshot. But not out of sight. Watching is an able lip-reader who thus is able to discover the biggest secret of the movie. The shot is framed so that the lip reader is out of focus in the centre of the frame and in close up is just the mouth and chin of one of the speakers to the right. I had certainly seen this before in another very very different movie only the lip reader was a TV camera and the brains behind it was a computer. The computer's name was HAL and the movie, 26 years later, was "2001".Coincidence? Who is to say?
