Plot
Erica Hayden is a young expectant mother wrongly implicated in a crime and sent to prison for five years. Erica learns that she must find a guardian for her daughter or her daughter will become a ward of the state. Frank Cole, the warden, becomes infatuated with Erica and effectively blocks her chances for parole.
When another inmate's child dies, the woman becomes deranged. Erica prevents a tragedy and earns the right to be freed to be with her daughter, and Warden Cole's unethical methods come to light.
Reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A plea for more humane treatment of unmarried mothers which veers from mawkish banality to hysterical violence. Shirley Knight is an irritatingly starry-eyed heroine, and Andrew Duggan can make nothing of the infatuated warden." [3]
The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "House Of Women is a brisk and business-like prison melodrama with an unusual framework for a fairly usual setting, handled with taste, suspense and quite a bit of good character. Bryan Foy's production is modestly-budgeted by today's stratospheric standards, and will undoubtedly do well in the kind of dual bookings for which it was designed and executed." [4]
Variety wrote: "Miss Knight gives a fragile, pure-as-the-driven-snow portrayal. Duggan is a composed, distracted villain. Among the flashier inmates, or cell block-busters, are Constance Ford as an anguished mother and Barbara Nichols as an ex-stripper with heart of gold, turned contented prisoner (she deesn't want out). ... Doniger's direction tends to be rather stilted and theatrical." [5]
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