LADY GANGSTER

(director: Robert Florey; screenwriters: Anthony Coldeway/ based on a play by Dorothy Mackaye and Carlton Miles; cinematographer: Arthur Todd; editor: Harold McLernon; music: William Lava/Howard Jackson; cast: Faye Emerson (Dot Burton), Julie Bishop (Myrtle Reed), Frank Wilcox (Kenneth Phillips), Jackie Gleason (Wilson), Roland Drew (Carey Wells), Ruth Ford (Lucy Fenton), Virginia Brissac (Mrs. Stoner), Dorothy Vaughan (Jenkins), Dorothy Adams (Deaf Annie), DeWolf Hopper (John, Asst. DA); Runtime: 62; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: ; Warner Bros.; 1942)

“This is the kind of movie you should only watch if you’re in prison serving time.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

French-born filmmaker Robert Florey(“The Cocoanuts”/”Murder In The Rue Morgue“/”Outpost in Morocco”) directs this irrelevant B-film crime melodrama, that’s a poorly made remake of the pre-Code Stanwyck picture Ladies They Talk About (1933). It’s based on the play “Ladies They Talk About” by Dorothy Mackaye and Carlton Miles. The weak screenplay is by Anthony Coldeway. This is the kind of movie you should only watch if you’re in prison serving time.

Dot Burton (Faye Emerson) is an aspiring actress who gets involved with a gang of dangerous bank robbers, led by Carey Wells (Roland Drew), and takes the rap for the heist without squealing, but will tell no one where the $40,000 stolen loot is hidden. Starry-eyed DA, Kenneth Phillips (Frank Wilcox), who put her in the slammer, now wants to help. How that goes down is too absurd a tale even for this terrible movie.

Robert Florey used the pseudonym of Florian Roberts for the first and last time, as I can guess he knew what a stinker he was directing. Jackie Gleason has a small part as one of the bank robbers.

REVIEWED ON 7/8/2014 GRADE: C-