Static & easy to produce, this one-set ‘Death House’ prison-break drama was a star-making vehicle for Spencer Tracy on B’way and for Clark Gable on the road. (Preston Foster did the forgettable 1932 B-pic.) Three decades on and moldier than ever, it gets a second B-pic iteration, now with a snarling Mickey Rooney as ‘Killer’ Mears, the cell block tough guy who grabs opportunity by the neck (a prison guard’s neck) to escape the inevitable. Made quick & cheap by Howard W. Koch, the first two acts stick close to the play & to the warehouse cell setting, with what might as well be a Community Theater production. The cast, each with a little showpiece to play in their individual cell, go into overdrive as if trying to impress some imaginary Hollywood agent sitting out front. Slightly bizarre. The last act, which is the prison break (threats, squawk box communication, gun waving, cold-blooded murder, heavy breathing) turns far more conventional, with the play opened up for scenes happening outside the confines of the Death House. It’s ‘better’ filmmaking (think Quentin Tarantino ‘guilty pleasure’), but not nearly as interesting as the oddly abstracted earlier parts. Like we changed channels on the old Zenith television set during the commercial and landed on a climax of THE UNTOUCHABLES. Not such a bad idea. Some of those episodes were pretty good!
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Supposedly, toilets made a 1960 film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. But here they are, one per cell, the year before. Kudos to crappers!
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with the ‘mother’ of all Hollywood prison dramas, THE BIG HOUSE/’30, still strong, still effective, still tough as nails.
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