[5]

Pre-Code bad girl Barbara Stanwyck stars in this hybrid of a love story and a prison movie. Stanwyck plays Nan, a woman who works with a team of mobsters who rob banks. She goes in and distracts the security guards while the men rush in with guns and grab the cash. But Nan is eventually captured and sentenced to prison. But then an evangelical radio personality named David Slade (Preston Foster) swings in to save her, professing his love for her. Before things get too steamy in their relationship, Nan feels the need to tell Slade the truth and he does what any good, self-righeous dick-wad would do — he sends his lady to the slammer.

While in prison Slade tries to see Nan several times, but she shuns his requests while climbing the ranks in prison society. When some of her old mobster cohorts are imprisoned with her, they plot a daring escape. But when Slade intervenes again and causes their prison break to end in bloodshed, Nan’s sentence becomes longer. She vows to murder Slade when she gets out.

And then the movie gets kinda dumb. Nan gets out of prison and goes to see Slade at a revival. And she’s packin a pistol when she sees him… Would you believe me if I told you they end up getting married? Yeah, gag me with a spoon. But Ladies They Talk About was all right up until the pat patriarchal ending. Stanwyck is always good with this kind of material, and some of her supporting prisoners are clearly having fun with their roles — namely Maude Eburne as an eccentric spewing one-liners and Ruth Donnelly as a prison nurse who uses her cockatoo to intimidate some of the women.