The Big House (1930)

Directed by George Hill. Starring Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone, George F. Marion, Leila Hyams, Karl Dane, DeWitt Jennings, Matthew Betz, J. C. Nugent, Claire McDowell.

The Godfather of Prison Films is, of course, influential, but also pretty badly dated. It’s not that entertainment value can’t be culled from from the bald-faced melodrama, but it sometimes plays out with all the subtlety of an Afterschool special, and imagines a penal corrections world where a whiny schmuck can get away with squealing to a guard, “He took my cigarettes!” Said whiny schmuck (Montgomery) is our entry inside the walls of the prison, but rather than being the protagonist, he’s a weaselly conniver; our sympathies fall upon inmate Morris, whose parole is canceled before plotting to escape. The story can’t be taken seriously, but it offers up a wellspring of archetypal situations that filled out many-a prison drama to come; there’s good and bad fun to be found near the end with an over-the-top (and overlong) prison break/riot climax followed by a laughably improbable denouement. Oscar winner for Frances Marion’s silly screenplay and for Best Sound, the inaugural presentation of the award.

61/100