Wicked Woman / The Story of Molly X

WICKED WOMAN, 1954, MGM Repertory, 77 min. Dir. Russell Rouse. In this racy little B-movie, scarlet woman Beverly Michaels cons saloon owner Richard Egan into bilking his boozy wife out of her dough, then toys with the affections of slavering devotée Percy Helton. But she plans on dumping them both and leaving a dust trail to Mexico.

THE STORY OF MOLLY X, 1949, Universal, 82 min. Writer-director Crane Wilbur had an obsession with prison stories, but this ultra-rarity has a twist: The protagonist is a brass-knuckled dame (June Havoc) who takes over her boyfriend's Frisco gang when he's killed. After murdering the culprit in cold blood, she winds up in women's prison -- and you know what happens in those places. Part melodrama, part documentary look inside the Women's Correctional Institution at Tehachapi, this shot-on-location drama is also notable for its frank take on sexual abuse leading to a life of crime.