The Sewing Circle

I don't think I've ever seen Barbara Stanwyck so young as in this picture.

I'm looking for this on my streaming platforms. Can't wait to watch. Lesbianism aside, I'm curious as to why they chose to portray prison life as so idyllic. Slumber parties, lingerie, puppies. Oh, my!
I think they did that for fun more than anything. I read another article about it and it sounds like they had fun with the prison concept.

Ladies They Talk About really has fun with the women's prison. Barbara Stanwyck's cell is decked out with fancy pillows, dolls, flowers, a dresser and even a gramophone to play records. The prisoners smoke cigarettes, do their hair and makeup and wear lingerie. One of them even gets to keep a pet dog. The film offers some outrageous fun with a crime drama and opposites-attract love story serving as just window dressing. How many other films boast Lillian Roth singing a love song to a picture of Joe E. Brown?! --https://www.outofthepastblog.com/2023/12/ladies-they-talk-about-1933.html?m=1

I didn't realize it's also based on an original play written by a woman who had an experience in San Quentin prison.

Also- I think it's streaming on Amazon!
 
“The Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Ladies They Talk About (1933) seemed, on the surface, to be in the vein of tough Warner exposés and crime dramas, with Stanwyck as a bank robber doing time at the women’s wing of San Quentin. However, after an opening sequence so realistically recreating a robbery that censors feared it could be a how-to-primer, the movie lapsed into Midnight Romance fantasy. Instead of grim prison conditions, Stanwyck’s jail time resembled a stay at a health spa, with glamorous inmates, beauty treatments on demand, and a laid-back air. The only grittier touches (besides Stanwyck’s ingrained Brooklyn moxie) were incidental, such as the inmates yelling ‘New fish!’ when Stanwyck first arrives, and a black inmate talking back ferociously to an imperious white prisoner. Another jailbird in this glossy clink is a muscular woman with close-cropped hair and a cigar clamped in her mouth. ’She likes to wrestle!’ Like the other inmates, this one is spared the dreariness of prison grooming, being permitted instead to wear the standard Hollywood Dyke getup of a tailored outfit and little bowtie. ‘Mmmmm . . . . hmmmm!’ air. Later, less expectedly, we see this butch prisoner’s femme other half. The camera pans across the cells to take in after-hours vignettes that never occurred in any real-life jail, including a slumber party in lingerie, an inmate cuddling a Pekingese, and the butch woman doing an exhibition round of calisthenics. Wearing a pair of man’s pajamas and with the cigar still in her mouth, she goes through her paces to the delight of a frilly girlfriend sitting in the bed next to her. ‘You’re just always exercising!’ the femme marvels. Ladies They Talk About received numerous complaints through the Studio Relations Committee about the robbery scene, about the violence and discussion of prostitution. Only in strict Ohio, however, did the lesbianism cause any problem; Roth’s ‘wrestle’ line was cut. So it remained over the succeeding decades, when women’s prison movies were one of the few places onscreen where lesbians were allowed to exist openly. This one is one of the first."

-From Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall by Richard Barrios

And there's a remake - Lady Gangster (1942). Though, I can't imagine it compares to the Stanwyck version.


Found it! inexpensive rental. :cattail:
I wonder if this had the same stigma attached as the “women in prison” exploitation movies of the 1970’s? I guess not as Stanwyck went on to have a good career. Although Pam Grier had a career too, then again, her career was in exploitation movies. 🤔

I also wonder if this movie was made for men to enjoy (as the ‘70s movies clearly were), or if they were (secretly) playing to a lesbian crowd.
 
I wonder if this had the same stigma attached as the “women in prison” exploitation movies of the 1970’s? I guess not as Stanwyck went on to have a good career. Although Pam Grier had a career too, then again, her career was in exploitation movies. 🤔

I also wonder if this movie was made for men to enjoy (as the ‘70s movies clearly were), or if they were (secretly) playing to a lesbian crowd.
I wonder a little about this, too. Was the lesbian element playing to a crowd or more generally accepted in that time frame than in later decades. If playing to a crowd, what crowd?
 
And there's a remake - Lady Gangster (1942). Though, I can't imagine it compares to the Stanwyck version.


Found it! inexpensive rental. :cattail:
A remake too? I'll have to check it out. You'll have to let us know how you liked the film!
 
This was linked at the bottom as related - I wonder if it's another remake, albeit more campy? I have so many questions!
Huh. Sorta? Maybe?

Vaguely similar plot, though the heroine says she's innocent. Outright labeled as sexploitation, too.

This almost calls for a committee. To watch all three. :p
 
Huh. Sorta? Maybe?

Vaguely similar plot, though the heroine says she's innocent. Outright labeled as sexploitation, too.

This almost calls for a committee. To watch all three. :p
Probably very loosely based I'm sure, if at all. Maybe it was just "related" based on buzz words in the description. I'm in favor of a committee viewing though! What say you, @hotwords229_A ? 😁
 
This doesn't really focus on lesbians in film but is a great article about the female gaze throughout film history.

"The concept of the ‘female gaze’ could be seen as a response to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey’s term, the ‘male gaze’, which represents the gaze of a heterosexual male viewer along with the male character and the male creator of the film. According to Time Out’s global film editor, Phil de Semlyen: “I find the female gaze easier to define in terms of what it isn’t than what it is: it’s not about objectifying the female form or replacing fully-realised female characters with loose avatars for male sexual fantasy; it’s not framing sex scenes with tropes common to pornography aimed at men; it’s not about automatically relinquishing power and control to men in storytelling.”

Top 100 films directed by women: What is the ‘female gaze’?

 
This doesn't really focus on lesbians in film but is a great article about the female gaze throughout film history.


Top 100 films directed by women: What is the ‘female gaze’?

I started a Female Gaze thread ages ago in the Authors Hangout. Like a lot of AH threads, people went off at a tangent so not everyone understood the idea. Over there it usually ends up with people claiming 'Oh, I know what Female Gaze is because I wrote it in my story'.

We're all so conditioned by our male-centric world, it's not easy for people to grasp it, let alone reproduce it in a film. I first discovered the expression after seeing Portrait of a Young Women and Fire, but since then, I'd add Amy Adams in Arrival as a contender as well - anyone seen that?
ETA
Link to opening scene of Arrival
 
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I started a Female Gaze thread ages ago in the Authors Hangout. Like a lot of AH threads, people went off at a tangent so not everyone understood the idea. Over there it usually ends up with people claiming 'Oh, I know what Female Gaze is because I wrote it in my story'.

We're all so conditioned by our male-centric world, it's not easy for people to grasp it, let alone reproduce it in a film. I first discovered the expression after seeing Portrait of a Young Women and Fire, but since then, I'd add Amy Adams in Arrival as a contender as well - anyone seen that?
ETA
Link to opening scene of Arrival
I remember when you started that thread. Thank you for reminding me that it is there, I am bookmarking it now so I can read through it. :) Good to see you here, stickygirl.

And now I'm crying. What a powerful opening scene. :heart:
 
I remember when you started that thread. Thank you for reminding me that it is there, I am bookmarking it now so I can read through it. :) Good to see you here, stickygirl.

And now I'm crying. What a powerful opening scene. :heart:
I gather from the various female actors who have worked with Denis Villeneuve that he has a very healthy and refreshing attitude towards women. That opening scene is exactly what you don't expect for a 'sci-fi' movie and the arc of the film is around her, though not always as emotional!
 
https://64.media.tumblr.com/97aa831123f1052cc6156d5d1c0083e4/59bec7be31941dff-a4/s1280x1920/c19130b8dce3052416b15a8d560dff048738b5df.jpghttps://64.media.tumblr.com/0000919628178a8ad223b255f4e49f70/59bec7be31941dff-a7/s1280x1920/ef5692947c023869048c605ae4c988b6e1f5f4db.jpg

Photos of Nancy Valverde, a Chicana gender nonconforming lesbian who was routinely arrested for violating L.A.’s cross-dressing ban throughout the 1950s, and has been credited as helping overturn the ban. Valverde died at the age of 92 in March of 2024.
 
The Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Ladies They Talk About (1933).
Watched! Like so many late 20’s early 30’s movie this was enjoyable. It’s so interesting to see the prevailing social mores of different timelines. Here, it's all portrayed as black and white. Are you good or bad? No grey.

(Though the hero did *grey* his principles in the end. Ah, love. :p)

And the slang - gat for gun! 😂

I found it illuminating how . . . casually, offhand, unremarkable(?) the lesbian aspect was portrayed. Everyone seemed to know - and accept - its existence, with little judgement or concern. Though, still a little stereotypical in representation.

All mixed in with the revivalist theme, too! Or is it noteworthy that it's only depicted in the prison system. Hmmm. 🤔

Movies are such a window. They both display current social practices and shape them. It's like an ouroborus - a never-ending loop.

The womens' prison environ was a hoot! Furnish you *cell* how you want. Fancy lingerie. Barber’s chairs, pets, phonographs. Bureaus, lamps, pictures. More like a retreat than a prison!

And the two male escapees. The guards just shot them down. In. Cold. Blood. 😯

Barbara Stanwyck is such a great actress.
 
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Watched! Like so many late 20’s early 30’s movie this was enjoyable. It’s so interesting to see the prevailing social mores of different timelines. Here, it's all portrayed as black and white. Are you good or bad? No grey.

(Though the hero did *grey* his principles in the end. Ah, love. :p)

And the slang - gat for gun! 😂

I found it illuminating how . . . casually, offhand, unremarkable(?) the lesbian aspect was portrayed. Everyone seemed to know - and accept - its existence, with little judgement or concern. Though, still a little stereotypical in representation.

All mixed in with the revivalist theme, too! Or is it noteworthy that it's only depicted in the prison system. Hmmm. 🤔

Movies are such a window. They both display current social practices and shape them. It's like an ouroborus - a never-ending loop.

The womens' prison environ was a hoot! Furnish you *cell* how you want. Fancy lingerie. Barber’s chairs, pets, phonographs. Bureaus, lamps, pictures. More like a retreat than a prison!

And the two male escapees. The guards just shot them down. In. Cold. Blood. 😯

Barbara Stanwyck is such a great actress.
Thank you for taking the time to review the film! Barbara is a wonderful actress- agreed!

It is interesting that the lesbian component of the film is implied and accepted.I think when certain actors/actresses are involved it's assumed. Maybe I'm wrong though. I haven't heard of anyone trying to put Marlene Dietrich in her place regarding her sexuality portrayed in film.
 
It is interesting that the lesbian component of the film is implied and accepted.
I'm curious to see how the subject is handled (if it's handled) in the remake, Lady Gangster (1942) - nearly ten years later than the original. Was acceptability declining in the 40's, or did that not happen until later?

Photos of Nancy Valverde, a Chicana gender nonconforming lesbian who was routinely arrested for violating L.A.’s cross-dressing ban throughout the 1950s, and has been credited as helping overturn the ban. Valverde died at the age of 92 in March of 2024.
I've seen enough photos of the 1920's to feel that cross-dressing didn't raise too many eyebrows at the time. Yet here^ it's illegal in the 50's. The war changed much, social mores included, but the difference still seems extreme.
 
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