The Green-Eyed Blonde (1957), one of many exploitative "women in prison" films popular in the 1940s and 50s, was directed by Bernard Girard from a screenplay credited to Sally Stubblefield. Although Stubblefield was an editor in the Warner Bros. story department, she did not write the script. Instead, she acted as a front for the film's actual writer, Dalton Trumbo, a victim of the blacklist by the House Un-American Activities Committee which banned those in the entertainment industry accused of communist sympathies. It was a difficult time for Trumbo, but, unlike many others similarly blacklisted, he continued to work prolifically, often writing several scripts at the same time with help from fronts like Stubblefield.

While Stubblefield did not write The Green-Eyed Blonde, she did come up with the original concept, which she based on her own experience as a recreational director at a girl's correctional institution in Los Angeles. Having seen firsthand what really went on in such a school, she felt that the environment was ripe for story possibilities. Stubblefield took Trumbo to visit the institution, where he was able to find plenty of material to create the screenplay. A few months later, Trumbo's completed script was presented to Warner Bros. and The Green-Eyed Blonde went into production. Because Trumbo's name had to be kept off the credits, he could not be interviewed by the press to promote the film; Stubblefield substituted for him and was able to speak on the subject convincingly. Trumbo later wrote on the cover of his personal copy of the script, "This I wrote on the black market for Sally Stubblefield. It was produced at Warners by Marty Melcher and utterly ruined by the director [Girard]. Because Mr. Melcher published music he wrote a horrible song for the film called The Girl with the Green Eyes." Trumbo's reaction to the film must have come second-hand, as he reportedly never saw it. However, Trumbo would eventually have his writing credit restored to him by the Writers Guild in the decades after the Hollywood Blacklist ended.

The film had several working titles, including Tender Fury and Blonde and Dangerous. Produced by Melcher for Arwin Productions, Inc., The Green-Eyed Blonde was the only film produced by Melcher that did not star his wife, Doris Day. The final title, The Green-Eyed Blonde, was misleading. Although Susan Oliver's character was nicknamed "Greeneyes," she wasn't the main character of the film, just one of several girls incarcerated at the Martha Washington School for Girls, a juvenile institute in Southern California. Margaret Wilson (Sally Brophy) arrives at the school on her first day to find that the administrator, Mrs. Nichols (Jean Inness), is a cold, hard woman who has been at the school for 23 years but has little sympathy for the girls, like unwed mother Betsy (Linda Plowman). Betsy was secretly impregnated by her mother's boyfriend, Ed (Tom Greenway), but refuses to name her baby's father, despite threats from her mother, Sal (Anne Barton) to take him away. Cuckoo (Norma Jean Nilsson) a girl suffering from mental illness, learns that the baby is in the backseat of Sal's car and hides him in the school. The girls secretly care for the baby, who they call "Buddy," for two weeks until they are discovered and Buddy is taken away, which results in a riot. Greeneyes has another six months tacked onto her sentence at the school for refusing to tell the authorities that Cuckoo originally took Buddy, but she can no longer cope with more time at Martha Washington. Instead, Greeneyes escapes with her fiancé, a reformed drug addict and parolee, Clift Munster (Raymond Foster) who steals a car, which results in tragedy.

Sources:

Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood Rebel: A Critical Survey and Filmography by Peter Hanson (n.d.): Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=0g9eCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA127&dq=the+green-eyed+blonde+dalton+trumbo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiznKT8jOXiAhWJwFQKHVxTCn8Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=the%20green-eyed%20blonde%20dalton%20trumbo&f=false
Radical Innocence: A Critical Study of the Hollywood Ten By Bernard F. Dick (n.d.): Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=mKAeBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA200&dq=the+green-eyed+blonde+dalton+trumbo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiznKT8jOXiAhWJwFQKHVxTCn8Q6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=the%20green-eyed%20blonde%20dalton%20trumbo&f=false

By Lorraine LoBianco