Girls on the Loose

Group of wayward women pull off a daring heist and bury the loot, but when the ringleader's little sister becomes romantically involved with "a flatfoot", the other girls get impatient for their pay-off. Classy actor Paul Henreid proves not to be very adept directing other actors, but in the case of "Girls on the Loose" he can be forgiven as nobody on-screen proves to have any acting talent. Heavy-lidded, tough-talking Mara Corday's slight resemblance to Gina Gershon provides some amusement, as does the brittle-as-nails dialogue. Still, this Universal programmer is mercilessly padded (even at just 77 minutes) with nightclub numbers, idle chit-chat, drunk routines, and a cat fight to the death! Too bad it isn't exciting, suspenseful, or well-made. *1/2 from ****

It's not great cinema, but it is highly entertaining and worth watching, if only for Mara Corday's performance as a nightclub owner who also happens to be the leader of a gang of female crooks.

Corday and her gang, disguised as men, pull a heist, and in the process, seriously injure a security guard. Corday's gang consists of the nervous Abby Dalton, the drunken Lita Milan, and the butch-like Joyce Barker. Corday's sister, played by Barbara Bostock, unwittingly drives the getaway car. Bostock sings and dances a bit, but let's skip over those parts.

Dalton, who can't seem to calm down the day after the heist, needs to be shut up, so Corday takes care of that. Mark Richman then enters the picture, as a detective investigating Dalton's "suicide." He promptly falls for Bostock, much to the chagrin of Corday. The remainder of the film consists of the females squabbling, fighting, and croaking each other once they realize that the fewer of them that remain, the greater share of the moolah each will have.

There are some riotous scenes. Milan shows up at Barker's place wearing a long coat, which she opens to reveal four bottles of booze she just shoplifted. Barker then proceeds to give Milan a rubdown, and computes how much her share will be if Milan goes belly up. Meanwhile, Corday prances around in some of the tightest outfits and revealing nightgowns you'll ever see in a 1950s movie. We get to see her undress, and we get an all-too-quick shot of her in a tub (cue the saxophone, Mr. Mancini). She also delivers a few good slaps. But the most ludicrous scene occurs early in the film, when Corday, who is just beginning her morning, opens the backdoor of her nightclub and lets in a guy who is delivering her groceries. While showing off her attributes in a low-cut negligee, she mentions to the guy that she hasn't seen him before. "I'm new," he says woodenly. When he says his name is Danny, she says "Well, Danny Boy, let's see what you've got there." Isn't this the plot of many an adult film???

This is something of a stretch for Corday, who has played the romantic interest to such pretty boys as Jeff Morrow, Richard Denning, and John Agar. Here, she has to carry the film, and gets to act like a "loose woman" as well. I loved it.

The plot is standard boilerplate 'gang pulls heist, squabbles over hidden loot'; but mostly I spent the movie astounded and mesmerized by the fantastic architectural concoctions sported by the female cast. I mean, wow. I've never in my life seen so many buttresses and brackets and cantilevers and columnar wrappings and spiked stilts and state-of-the-art surface finishes. Absolutely incredible. My jaw dropped. Numerous times.

The performances are quite adequate, some of the violence is pretty rough for the time period, and the characters are not helpless, fainting bimbos. But the structural elaborations of female garments contained in this film dwarf all else. In that sense, it's a towering achievement.

Interesting Universal programmer from the late Fifties. This would be a standard heist (or should I say "post heist") movie if it weren't for the fact that the gang of crooks is all female. U-I contract player Mara Corday plays the hardened gang leader undone by her feelings for her naive younger sister, the sort of part Bogart or Raft might have played in an old Warner Brothers crime film of the thirties, except for her slightly more lascivious edge --- Corday wants what she wants whether it's money or the new delivery boy. Directed by Paul Henreid, best known as Ingrid Bergman's husband in CASABLANCA. All in all an interesting little thriller with some neat twists, definitely worth checking out.

For an exploitation flick, the movie's not bad. No one expects Oscar bait from an outfit called Jewell Productions, but the performances are pretty good. Corday and Barker make a couple of believable hard cases, while Bostock's gamin hairstyle does a pretty good Natalie Wood circa 1958. Then too, Corday is one of those unsung actresses that enlivened many a B- movie of the day. But pity poor Ronald Green as the handsome box-boy. He appears completely lost in an undemanding part that nevertheless does have its compensations.

Okay, I watched because the title built up certain hormonal expectations, while the movie goes about as far as standards of the time would allow. The girls do a lot of dressing and undressing, and no one appears to own anything except tight, low-cut dresses, so the drive- in crowd of the time should have been pleased. But I especially liked Bostock's strange, slinky little dance that appears improvised but we get the idea anyway. I've got to admit the first five minutes surprised me. It's a clever variation on the heist theme so popular then. Also, there's maybe an early feminist message in the rather brutal violence that also surprised me, something about not trusting women who give massages. Anyway, it's a pretty good little flick of its kind, especially if you have a 12-pack on stand-by, which seems fitting for a drive-in special.