Taglines: It was a dangerous time to be a woman. And a good time to have friends.
Bad Girls movie storyline. When saloon prostitute Cody Zamora rescues her friend Anita from an abusive customer by killing him, she is sentenced to hang. However, Anita and their two friends Eileen and Lilly rescue Cody and the four make a run for Texas, pursued by Graves and O’Brady, two Pinkerton detectives hired to track them. When Cody withdraws her savings from a Texas bank, the women believe they can now start a new life in Oregon. But Cody’s old partner Kid Jarrett takes Cody’s money when his gang robs the bank, and so the four so-called “Honky- Tonk Harlots” set out to recover the money, with the Pinkertons hot on their trail.
Bad Girls is a 1994 American western film directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and written by Ken Friedman and Yolande Turner. It stars Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Drew Barrymore, Andie MacDowell, James Russo, Robert Loggia, Dermot Mulroney, Robert Loggia and James Le Gros.
The film follows four former prostitutes on the run following a justifiable homicide and prison escape, who later encounter difficulties involving bank robbery and Pinkerton detectives. Kaplan previously directed two of the film’s stars: Masterson in Immediate Family (1989) and Stowe in Unlawful Entry (1992).
The film was written by Jerry Goldsmith, who composed the music as a cross between the style of his 1960s westerns and a contemporary sound. The soundtrack has been released twice; through Fox Records on 10 May 1994 and an extended, limited edition through La-La Land Records on 28 June 2011.
Track list for the La-La Land edition (tracks in italics also on the Fox release, asterisked tracks include previously unreleased material.)
About the Story
Cody, Anita, Eileen and Lilly work together in a brothel. When Anita is abused by a customer, Cody kills the man. Narrowly escaping from a lynch mob, they are pursued by Pinkerton detectives hired by the widow of the man they’d shot. A man they meet on the road, McCoy, warns them of the pursuit.
They discuss riding to Oregon and starting a new life by taking up a claim to land inherited by Anita when her husband died of cholera. Cody offers to fund their new start from savings she has accumulated over the years. They go to the bank where Cody’s savings are held. As she tries to close her account and make a withdrawal, the Pinkerton detectives catch up with her and try to arrest her. Leaving the bank manager’s office, they find themselves in the middle of a bank robbery being staged by Kid Jarrett, a former lover of Cody. He helps her escape from arrest but takes her money and tells her to find him.
During the escape, Eileen is arrested. Cody decides to go after the money and Kid Jarrett, telling Anita and Lilly to wait in hiding. Anita and Lilly return to town to break Eileen out of jail. Cody’s meeting with Kid Jarrett and Frank Jarrett does not go well. Kid Jarrett has not forgiven her for running out on him. He flogs her. Later, she is found unconscious by McCoy, who brings her to a healer in town and puts the Pinkerton detectives off her trail.
McCoy, Cody and the other three women meet up on the ranch of a farmer who’d been guarding Eileen’s cell (and whom they’d tricked into releasing her). Cody plans revenge on Kid Jarrett. They foil a train robbery and steal his loot, at the cost of Lilly being abducted. In turn, they abduct Frank Jarrett, Kid’s father.
Regrouping again on the ranch, Anita leaves the others, frustrated with their revenge-motivated misadventures. She goes to a lawyer in town and finds out that the claim to land is only valid in the hands of her husband – as a woman, she cannot claim the land in Oregon. Frank Jarrett antagonizes his captors until McCoy shoots him. Cody sends away McCoy. Meanwhile, Lilly is being raped by her captors. McCoy stages a one-man rescue attempt and is captured, but Lilly escapes.
Reunited, Cody, Anita and Eileen go to rescue Lilly and meet her on the road. When she tells them that McCoy has been captured, they continue towards Kid Jarrett’s hide out, and offer to trade the stolen loot for McCoy, who has been flogged and tortured. Kid agrees, then shoots McCoy as soon as the loot is handed over. He gives Cody the money he stole from her.
Bad Girls (1994)
Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan
Starring: Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Drew Barrymore, Andie MacDowell, James Russo, Robert Loggia, Dermot Mulroney, Robert Loggia, James Le Gros
Screenplay by: Ken Friedman, Yolande Turner
Production Design by: Guy Barnes
Cinematography by: Ralf D. Bode
Film Editing by: Jane Kurson
Costume Design by: Susie DeSanto
Set Decoration by: Michael Taylor
Art Direction by: M. Nord Haggerty
Music by: Jerry Goldsmith
MPAA Rating: R for western violence.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: April 22, 1994
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