Early women-in-prison flick that’s not as lurid as its classic poster art, but it’s still a righteously campy good time that flies by like lightning. The approach here is similar to the one Jonathan Demme would take twenty years later in Caged Heat. In both films, the lady inmates are likable and often funny. Among them, there are no real bullies or bitches or bad seeds. The camera never leers at them. Together, they form a support group for each other against a system that’s run on the sadistic whims of an evil warden played to the hilt by Ida Lupino. Its good sense of humor adds to the fun (check out the scene where two guards briefly chat about the lack of realism in prison movies). Meanwhile, veteran director Lewis Seiler casts a fine noir eye to the film’s world of cages, shadowy solitary confinement chambers and streetwise women who refuse to be beaten down.