Exceptional. A rare Early Talkie that thrives, rather than withers, under the technical limitations of the silent-to-sound transition period, with difficulties in film production turned into dramatic assets. The lack of slickness and weight of each camera movement aiding verisimilitude as much as the strikingly designed sets. Writer Frances Marion covers (or is it invents?) just about every prison pic trope out there, with then-husband George W. Hill’s unflinching direction missing nothing, as young, terrified Robert Montgomery gets ushered into the massive jail for a ten-year stint that will test his character along with cell mates Wallace Berry (brutal, explosive) and Chester Morris (tough but decent). Marion throws us off-balance right after the opening reel, switching her main protagonist from an apparently sympathetic Montgomery to Morris’s seen-it-all wiseguy. All three leads at their best: Montgomery, playing without his usual polish & proving despicably weak (superbly lit to expose character by Hill’s regular lenser Harold Wenstrom); Berry testing limits in bulky threat, yet oddly likeable; Morris in such heroic form, you wonder why he ever slipped into B-pics. It’s a huge production, hundreds of prisoners, a dozen strong character roles, and a remarkably uncompromising action finale that still astounds. Powerhouse stuff.
DOUBLE-BILL: Hill & Marion continued this vein in ‘31 with Berry in THE SECRET 6, finding a new star in sixth-billed Clark Gable whose part seems to grow as the film goes along. OR: Howard Hawks’ nearly contemporary, if not nearly as good, prison pic, THE CRIMINAL CODE/’30.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Note our second poster for what must have been the Spanish version, made before subtitles or dubbing came into common use, probably shot at night on the same sets, but with different leads in the main roles.
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