Nothing like a film where a sultry dancehall babe in fishnets and heels catfights with a jealous wife clad in a white silk gown. Hair will be pulled. Faces will be scratched. Garments will be yanked off. Men will eventually have to save the day. Ah, the Old West! Where men were men and women were women (unlike modern day America). In the frontier days , a women's path to empowerment was seduction, fishnets, and a hotel room on the floor above the dancehall. Today's path of empowerment for a women is a worthless university degree...and that empowerment is only an illusion. Today we look at 1952's "Outlaw Women" (IN COLOR!), directed by Sam Newfield and Ron Ormond.
Everyone is getting out of the soon to be ghost town of Silver Creek. Good pals, Woody (Richard Rober) and Dr. Bob (Allan Nixon) scheme. Woody is a businessman and Bob is a pure-at-heart. After a lame gunfight, babe cowgirl Beth (Carla Balenda) needs a shard of glass dug out of her shoulder. Bob does this well and now Beth tells him her town desperately needs a doctor. The town? Las Mujeres, a town run by women, more specifically saloon owner Iron Mae McLeod (Marie Windsor). Bob wants no part of a town run by women...smart. Still, Beth is persuasive and gets him there at gunpoint. Seeing all the sultry dancehall cuties and sexy cowgirls there, Bob reconsiders. Both Beth and her sister, the dancing girl Ellen (Jacqueline Fontaine) become sweet on him.
Uh oh...gunfighter Frank (Richard Avonde) wants Mae to give him operation of the town. Mae refuses, enjoying independence for her and her gals. Uh oh again, her old beau, Sam (Leonard Penn) is out of prison and he wants the operation. Mae resists. Uh oh...Woody wants the operation. Even though Mae is sweet on him, she does not intend to sell. Now all three of these men bring in forces consisting of ruthless cowboys. Poor Beth, in leather chaps she will have the snot kicked out of her by these forces. Her sister, in fishnets, will not fare as well. War is brewing. Bob calls for cooler heads. Now the future of Las Mujeres looks like it will depend on gunfights and a poker game.
In addition to slapping each other, will the dancehall girls get slapped around by brutish cowboys, too? Realistically, does Iron Mae need a real man to run things for her town to succeed? Will Ellen and Beth square off in the mud to see which one gets Dr. Bob? This film would never make it in the Women's Studies departments at American universities...but for men who love dames in fishnets engaging in catfights, this is the perfect film. See "Outlaw Women" and harp back to a day when the film industry knew what a man was, what a woman was, and how to make a movie.
