[Tutor] Please critique my hangman.py program

[Matt Smith]

Hi,
Thanks again for all of the help. This list is making learning Python much
easier than it could have been.  My second Python program has now reached
a stage where I'd like to show it to people and get some comments.  It's a
fairly no-violent version of hangman as no one gets hung and it's
impossible to lose.  It has taught me alot about using strings, lists and
files.  Here's the program:

# Hangman program by Matt Smith

import random
import string

def random_word(word_length):
    """Returns a random word of length word_length"""
    file = open("hangman_words.txt","r")
    word_list = []
    for word in file:
        word = word.strip()
        if len(word) == word_length:
            word_list.append(word)
    file.close()
    if len(word_list) == 0:
        return 0
    else:
        return random.choice(word_list)

def print_status (correct_so_far,incorrect,guesses):
    """Prints the current status of the game"""
    for i in range(len(correct_so_far)):
        print correct_so_far[i],
    print "\nIncorrect letters:",
    for i in range(len(incorrect)):
        print incorrect[i],
    print "\nYou have had",guesses,"guesses so far."

# Game title
print "\n**************"
print "*Hangman Game*"
print "**************\n"

play_again = "y"
while string.lower(play_again) == "y":

    # Get a word to guess
    while 1:
        try:
            word_length = input("What length word do you want to guess? ",)
            print "Thinking, please wait.."
            word = random_word(word_length)
            if word == 0:
                print "I don't know any words that long!"
            else:
                break
        except:
            print "That's not a proper word length!"
    word = string.lower(word)

    # Setup list to hold correct letters
    correct_so_far = []
    for i in range(word_length):
        correct_so_far.append("_")

    # Setup some other variables
    incorrect = []
    guesses = 0
    letters_guessed = 0

    # Start main game loop.
    print "\nI am thinking of a word",word_length,"letters long"
    while letters_guessed < word_length:

        # Print status of game on each pass.
        print
        print_status (correct_so_far,incorrect,guesses)

        # Get guess from user
        while 1:
            guess = raw_input("Which letter would you like to try? ")
            guess = string.lower(guess)
            if len(guess) != 1:
                print "You can only guess one letter at a time!"
            elif guess in incorrect or guess in correct_so_far:
                print "You've already tried that letter!"
            elif guess not in ["a","b","c","d","e","f","g","h","i","j","k","l","m","n","o","p","q","r","s","t","u","v","w","x","y","z"]:
                print "That's not a valid letter."
            else:
                break
        guesses = guesses + 1

        # Evaluate guess against word
        letter_correct = 0
        for i in range(word_length):
            if guess == word[i]:
                correct_so_far[i] = guess
                letter_correct=1
                letters_guessed = letters_guessed + 1
        if letter_correct == 0:
            incorrect.append(guess)

    # Finish the game
    print "\nWell done! You guessed the",word_length,"letter word",word,"in",guesses,"goes."
    print "You guessed",len(incorrect),"letters incorrectly."
    play_again = raw_input("Do you want to play again? (y/n) ",)
print "Goodybye!"
# End of Program

Cheers,
Matt.