Prison Movies

Prisons de femmes / Women’s Prisons (1958, France)

There were lots of good prison films in the ’50s. Well, some. This one, sadly, is not one of them. It struggles to make up its mind as to whether it is a prison movie or a slightly icky love story, or maybe even a courtroom drama (saved only by the fact that there are no courtroom scenes) in which the protagonist must somehow prove her innocence without actually trying to do so.

Alice Rémon (Danièle Delorme) is an attractive young woman working as a beauty product salesperson in a pharmacy. She has to resist the forceful advances of the store owner’s callow son, René (Jacques Duby), who implores her to leave her factory worker husband for him. She’s having none of it. And it doesn’t help René’s cause when she discovers that he has been stalking her while she’s been out shopping on Sundays.

But then her husband Paul becomes very sick, having been poisoned, and dies. Fingers get pointed in Alice’s direction – largely by her mother-in-law. While writhing in pain, Paul had been heard by the doctor to say that Alice wanted a divorce (in which he seems to be mistaken) and that he didn’t. And once an investigation is commenced, her previous life as a prostitute is revealed, as is a suspicious recent meeting with a former lover, Mario (Henri-Jacques Huet), whom she rejected outright when he tried to recruit her back to run a brothel… but he is shot dead before he can testify on her behalf. It doesn’t help Alice’s cause that (having kicked her mother-in-law out of the house) she refuses to allow her husband to be taken to hospital, and makes no alternative caring arrangements.

She is bundled off first to the Prison de la Petite Roquette (a real-life prison in Paris, now sadly closed, that makes one yearn for other prisons to be named after leafy vegetables; the Baby Spinach Correctional Centre, maybe, or the Iceberg Lettuce Prison). There she shares a cell with Gigi (Vega Vinci) who recalls her from her hookering days. Alice doesn’t want to be reminded of that time in her life, but Gigi’s support is useful. Oh yes; Alice is pregnant, too. This is clearly not an insurmountable problem: once the baby, Francois, is born, one of the nuns (the prison staff are all nuns) provides some hope – encouraging her to pray to St Rita, patron saint of the helpless.

St Rita, unfortunately, lets the side down. Alice is found guilty, gets 10 years, and is transferred to the Maison Centrale de Haguenau (another real-life prison that operated until 1986). She changes her name to her maiden name, Dumas. Grieving Paul does not seem to be overly high on her agenda.

We are reminded that it’s a prison movie because there are slop buckets being emptied and one prisoner throws herself out a window, while another is tarred and feathered (without the tar). There are also the most extraordinary cells inside a big hall (pictured below), with chicken-wire grilles that look less like prison accommodation and more like recycled portable saunas stacked side-by-side.

Still, from the limited interaction that we see between prisoners (and between staff and prisoners), it’s a little hard to get a sense of Alice’s experience of prison… other than that her beauty and bearing set her apart, that her innocence continues to grate, and that her separation from Francois is painful.

Through all of her carceral experience there are two constants: her mother, and René – who is still in love with her despite finding out that she was a prostitute, and who pays for the lawyer, facilitates her mother’s visits and makes arrangements for Francois to be cared for. For Alice, his generosity and dutifulness gradually overcome his creepiness and she starts to think that maybe being loved might not be such a bad thing after all.

Then, a breakthrough, of sorts. The prosecutor discovers another factory-worker who died of paint poisoning and thinks maybe Alice’s conviction might be unsafe. She is not exonerated, but paroled. René is waiting for her, naturally.

Would the story stand up if the protagonist were plain rather than beautiful? Resoundingly, no. After which, all that is left is the quaintness of the arugula-prison, the redemption of a creep, and some novel (at least to me) crate accommodation. It is mildly diverting.

Posted on September 24th, 2026 at 12:47 pm. Updated on September 24th, 2026 at 3:34 pm.