Rent The Weak and the Wicked (1954)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Jean Raymond (Glynis Johns), an upper-class woman with a gambling addiction, is given a twelve-month prison sentence resulting from her inability to pay her debts. At first she is overwhelmingly depressed by life in the women's prison; gradually, however, her misery is relieved by the many close friends she makes there.
- Actors:
- Glynis Johns, Diana Dors, John Gregson, Olive Sloane, Rachel Roberts, Jane Hylton, Athene Seyler, Jean Taylor Smith, Cecil Trouncer, Ursula Howells, Edwin Styles, Sidney James, Eliot Makeham, Joan Haythorne, Joyce Heron, Anthony Nicholls, Josephine Stuart, Paul Carpenter, Sybil Thorndike, A.E. Matthews
- Directors:
- J. Lee Thompson
- Producers:
- Victor Skutezky
- Writers:
- Joan Henry, J. Lee Thompson, Anne Burnaby
- Aka:
- Young and Willing
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- Behind Bars: Visit These Essential Prison Films, Films & TV by topic, Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Sidney James, Glynis & Angela: Ninetysomething Marvels, A Brief History of Film..., What We Were Watching in 1971
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Reviews (1) of The Weak and the Wicked
Banged Up. - The Weak and the Wicked review by Steve
A very English take on the women in prison genre, surely inspired by the 1950 Warner Brothers classic, Caged. This isn't as hard hitting. Or as good. It was based on the experiences of an ex-jailbird, though it lacks realism. There is little friction between the screws and the compliant cons. Not much is said about the state of the prison system.
There's no exploitation thrills either. No lesbian guards, or shower scenes. Glynis Johns is a brittle society girl who likes a flutter and passes a phoney cheque. She gets sent down for fraud and is forced to rub along with a mixed bag of career crooks and sociopaths, and first timer Diana Dors who appears to have a salon on speed-dial.
Glynis' slumming toff is too shallow to carry the film, and Di has little to do other than lay on some sullen glamour. The most memorable contribution comes from Jane Hylton, as a mother whose baby dies alone while she is out on a date. She brings some more convincing suffering to the cells.
By the time Athene Sayler and Sybil Thorndike are poisoning an inconvenient husband for his inheritance, the film gives up and feels like more of an anthology of backstories. Though it's an amusing episode. There's nothing new here, but it's still an entertaining visit to a vanished past when female convicts knew their place. Which was weaving rugs.