The film title is "She Made Them Do It," suggesting that Sarah Jo Pender coerced women in prison to assist her in her escape and her subsequent struggle to evade the long arm of the law on the outside. But the interpretation of Pender's character by the filmmakers is enormously sympathetic and implies that Pender's associates were getting something in return, rather than being forced.
Yet another choice of the filmmakers was to portray Pender's likely innocence of the crime of murdering two people for which she was convicted and sent to prison. Until a brief "alternative" flashback clip at the end, it was clear that Pender asked her boyfriend to request that a couple of his friends to leave their home and he killed them. To this day, the real Sarah Jo Pender maintains her innocence.
Pender made America's Most Wanted television show as the master manipulator and a predator, whose victims "end up dead or in jail." But the film portrays a savvy and even sensitive Pender, who uses her intellect to help her fellow inmates understand the law. The most moving relationship is with a young hooker who was separated from her children for acts of solicitation. Pender helps reunite a mom with her kids.
A limitation of the film was in the depiction of the U.S. Marshall who became obsessed with the Pender case and tracked her down like the unscrupulous Inspector Javert pursuing Jean Valjean in "Les Miséerables" for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. It is nearly impossible to watch "She Made Them Do It," and not root for the Sarah Jo Pender in the film, as well as for the real Sarah Jo languishing in solitary confinement in an Illinois prison to this day.
Yet another choice of the filmmakers was to portray Pender's likely innocence of the crime of murdering two people for which she was convicted and sent to prison. Until a brief "alternative" flashback clip at the end, it was clear that Pender asked her boyfriend to request that a couple of his friends to leave their home and he killed them. To this day, the real Sarah Jo Pender maintains her innocence.
Pender made America's Most Wanted television show as the master manipulator and a predator, whose victims "end up dead or in jail." But the film portrays a savvy and even sensitive Pender, who uses her intellect to help her fellow inmates understand the law. The most moving relationship is with a young hooker who was separated from her children for acts of solicitation. Pender helps reunite a mom with her kids.
A limitation of the film was in the depiction of the U.S. Marshall who became obsessed with the Pender case and tracked her down like the unscrupulous Inspector Javert pursuing Jean Valjean in "Les Miséerables" for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. It is nearly impossible to watch "She Made Them Do It," and not root for the Sarah Jo Pender in the film, as well as for the real Sarah Jo languishing in solitary confinement in an Illinois prison to this day.
