The Green-Eyed Blonde

There's something about women-in-prison movies that makes them more interesting to watch in an exploitation sense than watching seriously. In the case of The Green-Eyed Blonde, it doesn't help that the plot and dialogue are so nutty.

The movie doesn't start off with the blonde, but instead with brunette Betsy (Linda Plowman). She's just been sent from the juvenile justice system to a girls' reform school/prison that's more like Untamed Youth in that the girls aren't kept in cells, but in some sort of a house with a high fence topped with barbed wire surrounding the whole facility. Betsy, like some of the other girls, has had a baby, something the inmates refer to as "having a kid sister". Betsy is rebellious, hating the warden Mrs. Nichols (Jean Inness) because she's old and stringy!

Among the other girls are Cuckoo (Norma Jean Nilsson), who is perfectly willing to try committing suicide, and has the scars on her arms to prove it; Trixie, the nice black girl; and the titular blonde, nicknamed Green Eyes (Susan Oliver). Green Eyes has a boyfriend in Cliff (Ray Foster), and when he can, he gets down to the fence so that he and Green Eyes can make out through the fence until he can devise a plan to get Green Eyes out of there.

Meanwhile, there's a parental visiting day on Sunday, and Betsy's mom shows up with the baby in tow, ready to give the baby up for adoption. In fact, Mom cares so little about this grandkid that she's left the grandkid out in the car in the parking lot! So Cuckoo goes and kidnaps it so that Betsy can have her son, even though she doesn't particularly care for it. Indeed, all the girls keep the baby hidden away in the walk-in closet off their bedroom, as if nobody will find it or hear it. Not very realistic.

Eventually finding the baby is Maggie Wilson (Sally Brophy), the woman who fits the trope of the well-meaning prison worker who wants what's best for the inmates and hasn't developed enough cynicism to realize that they'll be back, or in a real prison. She actually keeps the baby's presence a secret until another adult finds it. When the kids learn the baby has been taken away, they start a hilarious riot.

Eventually, Green Eyes does get out and runs off with Cliff, at which point the movie has an abrupt denouement, as though the writers (Dalton Trumbo writing this nonsense along with a front) had no idea how to resolve things. Heck, the movie isn't even really about Green Eyes, so why she's the title character is a mystery.

The Green-Eyed Blonde is a mess. It's poorly acted, with bad dialogue and plot holes galore. But it's a fun mess, if you're looking for a movie that's unintentionally funny.