A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.
Acting
Eleanor Parker's transformation from innocence to hardened survivalist
Direction
Cromwell's claustrophobic framing turns every cell into a coffin
Production
Authentic women's prison research that disturbed the cast for weeks
Director
John Cromwell
Eleanor Parker
Marie Allen
Agnes Moorehead
Ruth Benton
Ellen Corby
Emma Barber
Hope Emerson
Evelyn Harper
Betty Garde
Kitty Stark
Jan Sterling
Gita "Smoochie" Kovsky
Lee Patrick
Elvira Powell
Olive Deering
June Roberts
Jane Darwell
Isolation Matron
Gertrude Michael
Georgia Harrison
Sheila MacRae
Helen
Gertrude Astor
Inmate (uncredited)
George Baxter
Jeffries (uncredited)
Don Beddoe
Commissioner Sam Walker (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hope Emerson's terrifying 6'2" Harper was based on real matrons; she terrified the actual inmates used as extras.
The film's 'riots, female homosexuality, and corruption' nearly killed the women's prison genre before it started.
US
