I just saw bits and pieces of this movie. Agnes Moreheads character tells Eleanor's character before she left prison that she should have waited a little longer...what was the situation? Who were the men in the car outside the prison?
shareShe could've waited for her parole officer to find her an honest job, but she settled instead for illegitimate work with a gang of thugs (the men in the car). I think she called it a "cash accountant" job.
shareIn the movie, Elvira is portrayed as the mastermind of a "shoplifting" ring and that is supposed to be what Marie is getting into. But I wonder if "shoplifting" is intended to be a euphonism/code word for something a whole lot worse. Back in 1950 they couldn't have come out and said that Marie was going to be a sex slave.
shareActually, it was Kitty who ran the high-end department store shoplifting ring. Elvira seemed to be the high-class "madam" - in for a short rap to protect some other gangsters under investigation by a grand jury. After Kitty got sent to the death house for murdering Harper, Marie took up with Elvira - shown by her taking the compact/lipstick heart thing she was previously given for Christmas by Elvira - and then left in the company of the gangsters waiting for her, on to a life in prostitution most likely. One of the gangsters put his hand on her knee getting into the car with her - almost like a gesture of ownership.
shareagree... That hand on the knee... and I also agree with the previous reply, that the shoplifting ring may have been a euphemism for the sex trade - or at least that the tasks will not be limited to grabbing merchandise.
When the man clutches Marie's knee, she has a visible reaction (a second thought? or a snippet of her old shy self?), but she shrugs it off as the man climbs over her to settle in the window seat and another large man slides onto the seat so that she is now sandwiched between them as she is driven off to her new life.
The ending shocked me too, you could tell the guys were shady, and the superintendent told her secretary the former inmate would be back.
shareThe men were a Hollywood producer and her new talent agent. She sold her story to Warner Brothers.
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