Lady Gangster

1942 film by Robert Florey

June 6, 1942 (1942-06-06)

Running time

62 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

Lady Gangster is a 1942 Warner Bros. B picture crime film directed by Robert Florey, credited as "Florian Roberts". It is based on the play Gangstress, or Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye, who in 1928, as #440960, served less than ten months of a one- to three-year sentence in San Quentin State Prison.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] Lady Gangster is a remake of the pre-Code film, Ladies They Talk About (1933). Jackie Gleason plays a supporting role.

Plot

Dorothy "Dot" Burton (Faye Emerson) is a member of a gang of bank robbers. Using her femininity and a cute dog provided her by her male cohorts, who dognapped him, she is able to enter a bank before opening time, leaving the door open and the bank guard holding her dog, thus enabling a successful robbery. When police interfere with the getaway, she faints and proclaims her innocence, but the police have strong doubts as "her" dog will not come to her and has a different name on his collar from what she calls him. After she confesses to her part in the robbery, she is sent to women's prison, where she makes an enemy of a fellow inmate who informs the governor that Burton knows where the bank's money is, thereby causing Burton to lose her parole. She is devastated by it but more trouble occurs as her old gang is going to kill her childhood sweetheart Ken Philips (Frank Wilcox), so she escapes by stealing the warden’s (Virginia Brissac) clothes and getting revenge on her rival inmate (Ruth Ford) before finally rescuing Ken.

Cast

Faye Emerson as Dorothy Drew Burton
Julie Bishop as Myrtle Reed
Frank Wilcox as Kenneth Phillips
Roland Drew as Carey Wells
Jackie Gleason as Wilson (as Jackie C. Gleason)
Ruth Ford as Lucy Fenton
Virginia Brissac as Mrs. Stoner
Dorothy Vaughan as Matron Jenkins
Dorothy Adams as Deaf Annie
William Hopper as John (as DeWitt Hopper)
Vera Lewis as Ma Silsby
Herbert Rawlinson as Lewis Sinton
Charles C. Wilson as Detective
Frank Mayo as Walker
Leah Baird as Matron
Jack Mower as Police Sergeant

Soundtrack

"Blues in the Night" (Music by Harold Arlen)

References

^ "Dorothy Mackaye Released from Prison". Delaware County Daily Times. Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. January 2, 1929. Archived from the original on April 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
^ Gene Coughlin, "Tragedies of the Stage", Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph (September 12, 1948), p. American Weekly, p. 7.
^ "Dorothy Mackaye". Deranged LA Crimes. November 22, 2020. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
^ "Convict No.44,960". The Pittsburgh Press. Pittsburgh, PA. March 2, 1928. p. 3. Retrieved 6 April 2022. via Google News Archive