UnowPriceless hyped garbage

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

JohnHowardReid Barbara Stanwyck (Nan Taylor), Preston Foster (Dave Slade), Lillian Roth (Linda), Lyle Talbot (Don), Dorothy Burgess (Susie), Ruth Donnelly (Noonan), Robert McWade (district attorney), Maude Eburne (Aunt Maggie), Cecil Cunningham (Mrs Arlington), Grace Cunard (Marie), Helen Mann (Blondie), Harold Huber (Lefty), Madame Sul-Te- Wan (Mustard), Louise Carter (Lefty's landlady), Harold Healy (Dutch), DeWitt Jennings (Detective Tracy), Helen Ware (Mrs Johnson, head matron), Louise Emmons (Jessie Jones), John Hyams (bank manager), Ray Turner (bank janitor), Harold Minjir (bank teller), Harry Gribbon (bank guard), Davison Clark (jail chief), Robert Warwick (warden), Helen Dickson (lady with cigar), Mary Gordon (prisoner in visiting room), Isabel Withers (prisoner), Jack Baxley (man seated next to Slade at revival meeting), Harry C. Bradley (little man in corridor at revival meeting), Tom McGuire (Farnum, an official at revival), Ferris Taylor (man on stage at radio broadcast), William Keighley (man getting a shoeshine). Director: HOWARD BRETHERTON. Version released in USA (and currently broadcast by TCM) partly re-shot by WILLIAM KEIGHLEY. Screenplay: Brown Holmes & William McGrath & Sidney Sutherland. Based on the play Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye & Carlton Miles. Photography: John Seitz. Film editor: Basil Wrangell. Art director: Esdras Hartley. Costumes designed by Orry-Kelly. Songs: "If I Could Be With You" (Roth) by James P. Johnson (music) and Henry Creamer (lyrics); "St Louis Blues" (sung off-camera by Etta Moten) by W.C. Handy; "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" by Roy Turk and Lou Handman. Music director: Leo F. Forbstein, conducting The Vitaphone Orchestra. Music: Cliff Hess, Stills: Homer Van Pelt. Assistant director: Ben Silvey. Sound recording: Charles Althouse. Producer: Raymond Griffith. A Warner Bros. Picture. Not copyright. Worldwide release through Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 25 February 1933. New York opening at both the Capitol and Loew's Metropolitan: 24 February 1933. U.K. release: 15 July 1933. 69 minutesSYNOPSIS: Evangelistic reformer falls in love with a gun moll from his old home town.NOTES: Harold Huber does not appear in the Howard Bretherton version released in England (and presumably also in Australia). In the Bretherton movie, Lyle Talbot visits Stanwyck in prison. In the Keighley version, Talbot was instead substituted for one of the escapees and was, by clever intercutting with the Bretherton footage, killed. In the Bretherton version, the two men were merely caught. This does give the heroine a better reason to shoot Slade and makes her action more believable.COMMENT: Unless you're aware that Keighley directed part or all of several key scenes, the work of the two directors is hard to pin down. The Lillian Roth footage is obviously Bretherton's work, but the impressive scenes with Ruth Donnelly and her white cockatoo were probably also his. And what about the three very striking encounters between Stanwyck and DeWitt Jennings in which the sparks fly (even under what seems to be a civil surface)? And how about the Preston Foster revival material with its sweeping crowd shots? Yes, if you can disregard the somewhat incredible story-line (easy enough to do while the quick-paced movie is actually running) and its remarkable picture of a women's jail (allegedly San Quentin, according to some reviewers), you can accept (and enjoy) the theatricality of the milieu without question. On this basis, "Ladies They Talk About" emerges as a most fascinating movie with acerbic portraits all down the line, particularly from Stanwyck's chiseling, chip-on-the-shoulder heroine, Foster's self-first reformer, Dorothy Burgess's numbingly accurate study of a religious fanatic and Robert McWade's opportunistic district attorney. It's also good to see Lillian Roth in a sizable role (and given a chance to sing too).

Antonius Block If you're not a Barbara Stanwyck fan, you should skip this movie. It's a pretty silly story, the scenes in prison are far too comfortable, and there are a couple of cringe-inducing, racist scenes showing African-Americans frightened as if they were stupid children. If you are a Barbara Stanwyck fan, however, you will probably like this movie at least enough to watch it, and perhaps as a guilty pleasure. She simply has an amazing screen presence, and it's fascinating to see her in the role of a streetwise criminal. She has scenes ranging from 'tough girl' to one hopeful for love and a second chance, and she goes all out in her anger in one scene towards the end, with spittle flying and really letting loose. Much is made of the lesbian reference in the prison ("she likes to wrestle", indicating a butch looking woman smoking a cigar), but it's a passing thing and made me smile, as did the old madam reminiscing about the men coming to her "beauty parlor" for "manicures". It's all pretty tame for a pre-Code film. Of her fellow actors, DeWitt Jennings stands out in the role of the detective who consistently sees through Stanwyck, but she's the one to watch the film for.

MissSimonetta Though produced by Warner Bros. at the dawn of the 1930s, this women's prison picture is not much of a social issue drama. Ladies They Talk About (1933) often feels more like a dark comedy than anything else. Barbara Stanwyck plays a tough-talking bank robber who falls for a crusading religious man. He falls for her too, but her past doesn't stop him from having her tossed into the slammer for five years.The plot and love story are mostly bunk. The highlights of the film are the examination of life inside the prison, the way all of these women interact. Unfortunately, the film is marred by unpleasant racial stereotyping and an ending which does not ring true. Stankwyck fans and lovers of pre-code will dig this though.

whpratt1 Barbara Stanwyck, (Nan Taylor) plays the role of a gal who came from the school of hard knocks and has joined up with some gangsters and they plan to pull off a bank robbery. Nan acts as a decoy and convinces the bank guard to open up the bank early so she can make a deposit and carries in a small dog and hands it to the guard, and right behind her the gangsters friends follow in and rob the bank. A detective notices Nan in the bank and remembers her face from previous criminal events she got herself into and arrests her. Dave Slade,(Preston Foster) plays the role as a preacher politician, and remembers Nan from their childhood days and tries to free her of all the charges against her, however, Nan tells him the truth and she winds up in prison with plenty of women who are all a bunch of wild characters. There is even a butch lesbian who likes to smoke cigars and wrestle with other gals. This is a great classic film with veteran actor Lyle Talbot, (Gangster Dan) who breaks into Nan's cell along with her gangster friends in order to bring her back to their world of crime.