Barbara Stanwyck plays a tough jailbird in this topical thirties genre film, set mostly in the women's ward of a large prison where the “ladies” roam about as they please, play bridge, listen to the radio and have their cells fixed up like hotel rooms. Snappy dialogue, good direction and colorful supporting performances more than compensate for the story's implausibility. “The Hays Office did not like this film (one of Stanwyck's prison-mates is the former proprietor of an establishment that passed as a beauty parlor until a detective sergeant got a ‘manicure' from one of its employees) but Stanwyck biographer Ella Smith rightfully calls it ‘a ball'” (AFI).