🎀 My 1950's Women-In-Prison Film Project
a peek at my unfinished script on vintage pink prisons & dames of sin!
I don’t mind publicly posting about an unfinished movie project for fear that another filmmaker may ‘copy me’ — in fact, it’s either *that* or my material is doomed to remain in obscurity like all those old prints in the UCLA film vault. As much as I dream of shooting the picture I’m about to describe in glittering 16mm one day, I’ve come to terms with the knowing that I am artistically incapable of fleshing out the script by myself. No matter how many candles I light to prolific femme de plume Anita Loos or whether I’m utilizing a software or a scrapbook — it’s as if my past screenwriting gifts were at halt due to a somnambulant curse.
My untitled film project may be described as a comedic women-in-prison movie; more specifically, it’s a horny jailbreak glamour odyssey. I should note that in spite of unfolding sometime in the fifties, I have no plans to shoot it with historical accuracy (e.g. in my film, Prohibition *may* still be present). For this post I will keep most details of the actual plot under lock, though I *will* attempt to paint as textured a picture of my script’s bizarre tonality and aesthetical approach.
My women-in-prison flick is set at a penitentiary that looks and functions unlike any in real life. In fact, I have conceived it as a pink lesbian cabaret (and brothel) that operates illicitly by masquerading as a reform school for sinful dames. The lady criminals admitted into the facility are told they’ll receive high-profile classes on femininity that promise to turn them from naughty tramps into loving wives. Behind bars, however, inmates would be submitted to bacchanale and whoring non-stop!
Unashamedly, my WIP would adhere to the genre’s signature luridness and sensationalism. It would display abusive superintendents, heavy forms of feminine labor and constant wrestling and catfighting, albeit more humorously than voyeuristically. Visually the film would look less traditionally “WIP” and more like a garish ‘50s girlie magazine. As opposed to the greyness and filth that permeate 90% of the genre’s color entries, my WIP film would evoke the pastel lavishness of British Pathé videos (shown above) and the tongue-in-cheek Technicolor of vintage burlesque sexploitations like ‘Teaserama’ (1955), shown below.
Though in true libra fashion I am still indecisive about my plot (I have developed two different ones), I know a theme that’d remain in both is the one of sexual exploitation, which I’d convey with a rather debauched tone. In my view, the candy-colored backdrop of a nudie-cutie would create the perfect contrast with the oppressive horrors of the story; all the more because the movie would be confined to one setting alone.
Regarding the prison / brothel, ever since I read a film essay by ‘40s movie critic and gay esthete Parker Tyler that mentioned “the economic sensibility of true couture”, I have entirely shifted my approach to settings in my screenwriting. Previously I was convinced that a glamorous movie required lots of excess and environments; now, I am fascinated by the notion of couture cinema that deems less as more (which I suspect will be quite helpful when it comes to budgets, too!) thus my WIP would unfold in a very limited number of rooms.
The penitentiary would look sinesterly orderly like the elaborate life-size dollhouse of Jerry Lewis’ screwball spectacle “The Ladies Man” (1961). Obviously I have no delusions of it being nearly as GIGANTIC as in his film, but I’d certainly imitate its wacky, grotesque, TASHLINESQUE ambience that would infuse my scenes with a bizarre vignette quality to them. The decor would strictly be art deco and the predominant color pastel pink. It’d be enhanced by white, black, reds and golds and evoke the B-grade fabulosity of productions like “Hollywood Hotel” (1937). Shots of the girls laboring and roaming around the slammer would also be filmed eerily symmetrically, as if Busby Berkeley directed “Metropolis” (1927).
As for costumes, they would be limited to silk lingerie sets, cartoonish prison stripe jumpsuits and the occassional showgirl outfit for when they are performing at the cabaret, though less Ziegfeld Follies and more Orry-Kelly. I should note I would exclusively cast ladies with a vintage beauty to them who’d genuinely look 1950’s in the clothes, hairstyles and makeup I would make them wear. Personally there is NOTHING I detest more than modern-looking faces in period dramas; just take a look at one of the last episodes from American Horror Stories where a milkmaid from the 1700s sported obvious botox!
Regarding characters, my small group of main female inmates would fit right in with the sort of exploitation leading ladies of Jack Hill films — they’d behave with as much complexity and unpredictability as real criminals do, but also look as hyperfeminine as the archetypes from pulp novels and comic strips. Nasty yet glamorous, they’d shoot their lines of dialogue in the style of pre-code era Hollywood. For this post I’ll be leaving any insights on my characters out simply because *something* must be kept secret. Know, however, that I have developed them and that even two of them have already been casted in my mind; the two starring roles, a prisoner and a warden, as a matter of fact!
So, that’s it for this occassion. Believe me, I am DYING to develop this project as it represents the ultimate women-in-prison genre film of my dreams (🎀 pink penitentiary 🎀 + ‘French-Cancan’-like musical numbers?!) but I *would* need someone to write the script with me. Someone who knows about old cinema, screenwriting structures and who’s witty enough to channel the lowbrow glamour of Mae West’s 1926 “Sex” —which is the ultimate WIP theater play since it literally led her to JAIL— yet in a way that would work with contemporary audiences and like, be relevant to them. Ahhh who shall be the one!!!
I get wertmuller love and anarchy prostitute vibes from this as well somehow
This is all so 🌞💞🌈🍧🌌💞 girl I'd write the script!!!