Jean Calhoun

A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.

Based on the novel Low Company. One of the most peculiar film noirs of the 1940s stars Barry Sullivan as a small-time hood who suffers a mental breakdown as his big plans begin to crumble. Beautiful Belita is his singer girlfriend who only fuels his paranoia.

Two Southern clans, the Lynches and the Summers, have been at odds with each other since long before Civil War times. But that hasn't stopped Jere Lynch and Betty Summers from falling in love.

Accomplished portrait painter Clementina Wing, sacrificing all self-interest to her art, complies with the request of fellow artist Tommy Burgrave to paint a portrait of his wealthy Uncle Quixtus, whose unhappy life has made him unsociable. Quixtus is about to be taken advantage of by adventuress Lena Fontaine when Clem intervenes.

Master thief Blue Jean Billie, the unknown perpetrator of many sensational jewel heists, robs the guests at the exclusive engagement party of Muriel Vanderflip to Algernon P. Smythe, Lord Chesterton. Overpowering the investigating detective assigned there to stop her, Muriel flees with her chauffeur.

Department-store clerk Larry Young is determined to marry a rich girl. He falls for Elaine Debaux, whom he believes to be the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder. However, when war breaks out Larry is drafted into the army. Before he is taken in, though, he and Elaine are rescued from gangsters by an ex-con named Mike Moran. It turns out that Moran wants to join the army but they won't take him because of his record. Larry, who doesn't want to go into the army because it will interfere with his plans to marry Elaine, comes up with an idea he thinks will work out for all concerned. Complications ensue.

Count Camello lives on his fine estate in Italy, near the home occupied by Sir James Drake and his family. Gregory Baldi, a parasitical cousin of the count, is courting Mary Drake, and although the count also loves the girl, he conceals his feelings out of respect for his cousin. When war breaks out, Camello enlists while Gregory convinces Mary's brother Oliver that Oliver has killed an opponent in a duel and that the only way to escape a murder charge is to disguise himself by going to war under Gregory's name. Wounded, Count Camello returns from the front and, after Gregory is reported dead, proposes to Mary. On the eve of their wedding, Gregory returns unexpectedly and, in dire need of money, buries his cousin alive in the family vault.

Because he had previously picked the name James for his first-born, when a female arrives, Major Milligan, a well-meaning but lazy dreamer, calls his daughter Jamesina, or Jemmy for short. With the birth of her second child, Mrs. Milligan dies, and several years later, when Jemmy is about eighteen, the Major marries a widow with three children. Soon the family is deeply in debt. Jemmy gets work at a textile factory, gets jobs for the other children, and even inspires the Major to work. She falls in love with Stanley Templeton, an aviator on furlough, but because his mother disapproves, Jemmy refuses to marry him. After Stanley returns to the war, Jemmy captures a German spy in the plant who was soaking cloth for airplanes in acid. She receives a reward which allows the Milligans to pay off their mortgage. Mrs. Templeton apologizes, and when Stanley returns, she warmly approves of their engagement.