Coming soon to The Last Drive-In “Ida Lupino:The Iron Maiden – “Women’s Prison (1955) & Women in Chains (1972)

Who doesn’t love a good teeth grinding ‘Women in Prison’ movie! I know I can’t resist. And so I thought I’d pay a little tribute to two fabulous guilty pleasures of mine starring actress/director Ida Lupino!

The incredible Ida Lupino

I’ll go further in depth as to Ida Lupino’s extraordinary contributions to film and television when I do the full post!

The first film Women’s Prison 1955 is a taut Prison Film Noir piece starring the ineffable Ida Lupino who gives a stunning portrayal of a brutally sadistic prison warden Amelia van Zandt who holds sway over these chained women, slowly exposing herself to be a psychotic, as she institutes her savage brand of rehabilitation!

The film stars Jan Sterling as Brenda Martin

 Cleo Moore

Audrey Totter as Joan Burton

Phyllis Thaxter  (One of my favorite character actresses)as Helene Jensen a nice girl in prison on the verge of an irreversible nervous breakdown!

Juanita Moore as Polly Jones

Mae Clarke as Matron Saunders

and Lupino’s real life  husband Howard Duff as the sympathetic Dr. Crane and Warren Stevens as Glen Burton the man who can’t keep his mitts off his fellow inmate wife!

“Sensational scandal rocks women’s prison!“

Women’s Prison (1955)

Then once again…now in that glorious made for tv color!!!!!!

Lupino reprises her role as the equally brutal Claire Tyson in THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK !!!!!!!

The film stars 70s tv and drama staples Lois Nettleton , Jessica Walter, and Belinda Montgomery

Lois Nettleton plays parole officer Sally Porter who goes undercover to expose prison brutality at the hands of the vicious matron Clair Tyson! The film also stars Neile Adams, Hazel Medina, Kathy Cannon, BarBara Luna and the great Lucille Benson.

Women in Chains (1972) tv movie

Also coming here at the Drive-In Part 2 of Screaming Mimi and MonsterGirl Asks Film Scholar Aviva Briefel

A trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice (1969)

What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice? (1969)

From the wickedly penetrating mind of Robert Aldrich and his production company comes yet another Hag Cinema obscurity and a consummate Women in Peril movie starring impishly resplendent actress Ruth Gordon and the intensely razor-edged Geraldine Page, in this confrontational psychological thriller of matching wits.

Directed by Lee H. Katzin, ( Along Came A Spider 1970) and uncredited Bernard Girard  (Dead Heat on A Merry Go Round 1966, The Mad Room 1969, and several of the most powerful episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1962-64 )

Based on the novel The Forbidden Garden by Ursula Curtiss, penned for the screen by Theodore Apstein.

The casting is perfect, with not only the two brilliant ladies mentioned above, but includes the wonderful Mildred Dunnock, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller and Joan Huntington.

Ruth Gordon performs the inquisitive and determined Aunt Alice Dimmock, who takes on the job of housekeeper for the iron widow Geraldine Page as Claire Marrable who maniacally tends to her garden. Alice goes undercover as the widow’s helper in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney ( Mildred Dunnock).

Claire Marrable is a tightly wound, biting and ruthless serial killer who is left only a stamp collection by her husband, thus resorting to stealing money from her housekeepers, killing them, and burying the bodies in her lovely garden.

“What makes her garden grow… wouldn’t you like to know!”

Happy Trailers MonsterGirl!

A Trailer A Day Keeps the Boogeyman away! High School Hellcats 1958

High School Hellcats 1958

The Hellcats are a female gang with a bad attitude toward authority and like to terrorize everyone around them! Then Joyce moves into town. She wants to fit in so bad, she’ll do anything to belong. Suddenly it’s boys,drinking , dancing and a one way ticket to delinquency and depravity! Starring the dreamy Brett Halsey and Yvonne Fedderson.

“What must a good girl say to “belong”?

Happy Trailers MonsterGirl

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part VI conclusion: Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte “Ruined finery…that’s all I have left”

Backstory Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte

THE VISUAL NARRATIVE “Ruined Finery”

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part V: Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte “You’re my favorite living mystery” “Have you ever solved me?”

Miriam is back on screen she’s looking around as if searching for something. The tinkling flutters of incorporeal music still tipping back and forth. We are suspended in some kind of time frame ourselves. Captive. Again as in Baby Jane we as spectator are being held within the constructs of the visual narrative as much as the characters themselves. Aldrich uses his shadows to constrict our visual movement. So much of the plot is drenched in the mysterious cloaking of shadow that it obliterates our senses. The shadows formulate the environment to feel obstructive.

Once again the blackest bar of shadow cuts across Miriam’s figure, casting an ominous 2nd Miriam luring behind herself. Throughout Charlotte the camera/shadows have aggressively dissected the woman’s bodies in varies parts. In advertising there has been criticism aimed at Ads depicting women’s body parts being cut off, as if to dehumanize them. I don’t think Aldrich’s intention was to dehumanize these female characters, rather to show the fracturing of their ambivalent personalities.

The Manifest meaning behind the shadows could be as simple as framing these female characters in mystery, the ultimate question is one of the Latent meaning, in which we might as spectators come to understand the characters’ principal personality and the underlying motivating forces that drive them.

And I’d like to think that the camera lens didn’t develop a bit of Acrotomophilia , the amputee fetish that sadly some people suffer from. Still I found that it is something of worthy note to observe how these shadows frame the female body in both films.

Even the plant seems to cut across Miriam’s torso

Miriam knocks on Charlotte’s door. There is a quick jump cut, Charlotte is on the other side of the door. Miriam knocks once more and then walks away. She shuts the lights out and throws us into yet even more darkness than before. She walks over to the silky lace covered windows. The dog is still barking outside near the graveyard.

A flute flutters the scales as an almost Middle Eastern mixed Phrygian mode, an exotic mysterious motif , as Miriam peers through the curtains yet looks back behind her. She turns away and walks back into the room.

We hear a creaking door. It’s the large Armour as the door swings open to show that Miriam’s sequined dress has been slashed. With the use of an inner monologue we hear Miriam say, “My dress, somebody’s slashed my dress.” She stares at it. Again we see her in profile. the little pipe flutterings play again as she walks toward the shredded dress. Slowly ever so slowly to build the tension.

The fluttering is now almost child like. Is this to represent that a regressive childish acting out is responsible for this destructive behavior. Miriam’s head is in complete shadow surrounded by the shiny sequins, dangling like torn fish gills and silk. She begins to handle the ruined fabric, the music still with us. The strings come in strident. Finally we see Miriam in full face. She looks contained but shocked at the same time.