Engaging pre-Code women-in-the-slammer nonsense, with Stanwyck as a guileless babe in stir for a bank robbery. Lillian Roth helps out loads as a tough fellow inmate (she even sings "If I Could Be With You," to an 8x10 of Joe E. Brown), and Ruth Donnelly, always indispensable in these Warners early talkies, is a sympathetic matron. Other delights include a bullish cigar-smoking lady criminal and Dorothy Burgess as Stanwyck's worst nightmare. But the morality is all over the place, with Stanwyck abetting her fellow bank robbers in a breakout attempt, yet the scriptwriters still demand that she engage our sympathy. We're even supposed to root for her as she falls in and out and in and out of love with Preston Foster, as a crusading Aimee Semple McPherson sort, a relationship that makes no sense at all. This is the type of movie where she shoots her lover and immediately whimpers, "I didn't mean that!" Stanwyck was always an interesting actress, and as she alternately snarls and screams and charms and smiles, she's intensely watchable. But her schizo character doesn't register as a heroine. And Preston Foster doesn't register at all.

Barbara Stanwyck is a front for bank robbers who winds up in San Quentin in "Ladies They Talk About," a pre-code drama. The film is badly dated with very melodramatic acting, the exceptions being Stanwyck and Lillian Roth. Not to mention, it's an absurd story. A popular reformer, "Brother David Slade" falls for Barbara the minute he sees her, believes her innocent, and wants to help her. He arranges for her release from jail, and then, brimming with confidence, she confesses that she was indeed part of the bank robbery. Shattered, he sends her up the river to San Quentin.

Once there, Stanwyck becomes a popular inmate with the exception of Sister Susie who's in love with Slade and hates her guts. Stanwyck helps her old buddies from the bank robbery escape by tunneling to her cell. The story goes on from there.

Lillian Roth is great as a young woman who befriends Stanwyck, and she gets to sing. Stanwyck is fabulous with her wavy hair and tough talk. Preston Foster mainly looks pious and sincere.

The film is interesting because of Stanwyck and Roth, but the story isn't good. Happily this was at the beginning of Stanwyck's career, and she went on to better things.

This is a very gritty pre-coder made special by Stanwyck. She could take an ordinary programmer and with a couple of emotional scenes make it very memorable. The "Ladies They Talk About" are the women prisoners in San Quentin, where a lot of the action takes place.

After putting the police on a false trail ("Police, hurry please - there's a man running wild with a butcher's knife stabbing people") Nan Taylor (Barbara Stanwyck) gets busy with the real business - helping to rob a bank with her gang!!! It goes wrong and Nan is caught. "Fighting" Dave Slade (Preston Foster), a reform revivalist, takes an interest in her - he remembers her from his home town, she was the deacon's daughter!!! She convinces Dave that she is innocent, so he has her paroled - hoping she will go straight. She confesses that she was in on that bank robbery, thinking that her honestly will impress him but it doesn't and she is sent to jail.

Life on the inside looks rough but Linda (Lillian Roth) takes her under her wing. Lillian Roth looks absolutely beautiful and even sings a song - "If I Could Be With You". This was one of her last films before her alcoholic oblivion. Someone Nan needs to be careful of is "Sister" Susie (Dorothy Burgess) a religious zealot, who is secretly in love with Dave Slade and will not hear anything against him. Meanwhile Don (Lyle Talbot) and some of his gang, have been imprisoned but they have plans to break out with Nan's help. She provides a plan of the women's section and also an impression of the master key to all the cells. She sends the details in a letter, but because "Lefty" (her "outside" contact) is now in jail her letter is intercepted by the warden and the guards swoop. The gang members are killed in an ambush and Nan wrongly believes Dave Slade was responsible. When she is released she goes "gunning" for him.

The ending is pretty improbable - somehow I don't think Nan and Dave are going to live "happily ever after"!!! She is completely hard boiled and only starts to feel sympathy for him when she almost kills him. Even when she is asked if it is true that she and Slade are to be married, Nan replies "well, he said so, didn't he!!"

Among the cast is John Hyams, Leila's father, as an uncredited bank manager. Ruth Donnelly is the Matron with the cockatoo and Madame Sul- Te-Wan is Mustard - she had appeared in "Hoodoo Ann" as Black Cindy.

Recommended.