Lady Gangster

A product of Warner Bros.' B-movie unit, Florian Roberts' (aka Robert Florey) Lady Gangster is a 62-minute crime drama that wastes no time -- except ours, overall -- telling its story. Derived from a very clean 35 mm source, the image is crisp and sharp throughout, resembling the quality of modern cablecasts of older movies. There are no marks or blemishes of any kind in the film source and the audio is clean as well, and mastered at a decent volume -- the only flaw is a momentary film-to-video glitch near the end that most viewers may not even notice. Alas, that means that one is faced with trying to enjoy the ridiculous story and plot developments (including the convicted felon/heroine's ex-boyfriend visiting her in prison by pretending to be her sister, in one of the silliest-looking drag outfits this side of a Three Stooges movie). The presence of Jackie Gleason in a supporting role will make this an essential acquisition for serious fans of "the Great One," but that's it for anything but camp appeal. The six chapters are as suited as anything else to this 62-minute genre movie, whose plot bears as little delineation as it does repetition here.