Women from Headquarters (1950) Poster

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7/10
OK, but just
gordonl5615 November 2014
Warning: Spoilers
WOMEN FROM HEADQUARTERS – 1950

Republic Pictures produced this lightweight story of Policewomen with the Los Angeles Police Force.

Virginia Huston headlines as a woman just out of the Military who is looking for a worthwhile job. Barbara Fuller, Huston's roommate, is grabbed up as an underage drinker in a bar ran by low-life criminal, Otto Waldis. Fuller has been hanging with Norman Budd. Budd makes a living selling dope.

The Police bring Fuller home and release her to Huston's custody. Huston has a talk with the Policewoman who brought Fuller home. Huston decides that being a cop might be the life she is looking for.

Huston joins up and after training is soon put to work out in the field. She helps on several undercover jobs and makes a few big arrests. Her partner, Robert Rockwell falls for the pretty Huston. The two are soon an item when off duty.

The brass like her fearless take charge attitude and bring her into the drug squad. She is to go to work as a b-girl at Otto Waldis' club. The Police have long suspected that Waldis and his crew, besides rolling drunks, is a link to the heroin trade higher ups.

The crooks tumble to the undercover and ruin the Police play. They do manage to pull in Waldis on a murder beef, when a drunk dies while being rolled in the bar. The Police catch a break when former roommate, Fuller reappears in town. Fuller had married crook Budd and moved to Chicago. Budd however had killed a man during a deal gone bad and the couple had returned to L.A.

Budd was picked up on a charge here and is going away for 20. Huston talks him into helping set up the big boss. Huston promises to make sure that Fuller gets back to her family out east.

Budd introduces Huston to all the proper people and Huston soon has a meet with the narcotics gang boss, Grandon Rhodes. The meet goes bad and Budd catches a bullet in the gut. Rockwell and the Police rush the place and capture Rhodes, but several of the crooks make off in a car with Huston as a hostage.

Huston manages to get away and returns to headquarters with the address of the main drug storage. Rockwell, Huston and another Detective raid the place. Rockwell and the other Detective are gobbled up by the crooks. Huston manages to reach a phone and call for reinforcements. A carload of uniform types are soon booting in the door. After a brisk gunfight with the villains, they rescue Rockwell and company.

This one is a rather mild film for the usually on the button director, George Blair. The story starts slow, then, it becomes a recruiting film for the LA Police. It does pick up the pace in the last 10-15 minutes, but by then the viewer has lost interest. (A better print might have helped) Since I'm a fan of the director, I'll give him a pass on this one. Blair knocked out several first-rate low budget crime and film noir during his time at REPUBLIC PICTURES. These include, END OF THE ROAD, EXPOSED, POST OFFICE INVESTIGATOR, UNMASKED, FEDERAL AGENT AT LARGE, LONELY HEART BANDITS, SECRETS OF MONTE CARLO and INSURANCE INVESIGATOR.
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7/10
An intriguing story about a much-overlooked group of 1950s working women
Thunderbird9811 October 2022
While this film wouldn't win any Academy Awards (the plot feels a bit rushed to be crammed into a shorter run time), there is plenty of unique drama to make this film a satisfactory evening viewing. From Joyce's rise through the police ranks to Ruby's fall into crime (an interesting, but tragic side plot), the film does at times take on a noir feel, which is aided by the more dramatic black and white cinematography. Many today do not even realize that hardworking ladies like Joyce existed in that era today, so beyond being an interesting movie, Women From Headquarters is a terrific preservation of the legacy of America's early female police officers (and is quite progressive in tone). All in all, definitely worth your time, if you have realistic expectations for a B-movie (albeit a good one).
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Republic's look at the 1950 Los Angeles Women from Police headquarters
horn-526 November 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Joyce Harper (Virginia Huston) is an ex-Army nurse who enters police work with the L.A. Police Department, when her friend Ruby (Barbra Fuller) gets involved with a petty crook, Max Taylor (Norman Budd), is taken in with his smooth line, refuses to listen to Joyce's warnings, and eventually marries Smooth Max. Whether she was pregnant when she marries Max is not known, but she is when she next shows up a couple of months and reels later on her way to the Hospital delivery room.

It takes Joyce about a reel to get through the detailed trained required to become an L.A. policewoman---you PC freaks stick it, this is 1950---and she and her newly-assigned detective partner, Harvey Gates (Robert Rockwell)go out and cleanup up a skid-row Bar-girl scheme, and this gets rid of Joe Calla (Otto Waldis) and Bartender Sam (Jack Krushen) in about a reel.

And she and Gates are told to get the goods on a narcotics gang ran by Richard Cott (Grandon Rhodes), and this is when Ruby and Max Taylor reappear.
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7/10
Very Good For A B Movie
boblipton25 February 2024
A policewoman brings lifelong friend and current room mate Barbra Fuller home from a bar; her boyfriend, Norman Budd disappeared, and they want to be sure she's legal to drink. Virginia Field consesses that since she left the Service, she's grown tired of having her boss put the moves on her. So she joins the police, and soon is collecting headlines and a partner, Robert Rockwell, who wants her at home too.

There's a lot of fun in this Republic flick, with Miss Fuller getting to act the b-girl and drug dealer without upsetting the audience about her real intentions. There's also a fine exciting finale that makes this a superior B movie. With Jack Kruschen and Leonard Penn.
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Republic Pictures speaks about women again
searchanddestroy-119 April 2023
Yesterday, I reviewed a Philip Ford's film, also from Republic Pictures, made the very same year, and also involving women in men's roles; yesterday it was in jail mostly, and here gals in LAPD.... And as I explained, Philip Frd was just the equivalent of George Blair, all their movies were barely over sixty minutes, fast paced, grade Z pictures, but worth watching for movie buffs interested in such films and from this period. It is not crap, just a rare little gem, but certainly not a jewel. The story has really nothing to be told about; it was just new in those times to shw a female cop, that's all. After the inmates in petticoat, the policewomen....
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