The Big House (1930)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It's hard to see how this early Talkie about life Inside could have been much better. In the brief running time (under 90 minutes) it contains Social Commentary on the Prison System, fantastic settings evoking the claustrophobic, debilitating, and mechanized environment. Some of these look frightening and foreboding even today.There are three Lead Performances that are fine and the last third containing the Prison Break is Action Packed. The Film contains some striking visuals and employs its new found voice quite well with interesting Sound Effects (containing virtually no Music). The Dialog evokes effectiveness (the Script won an Oscar and surprisingly was Written by a Woman who did Her Research) and is taught and tough but playfully believable.This is quite a remarkably interesting beginning of a Genre that is still quite popular today. The Prison film is still with us and unfortunately so is the controversy surrounding our exploitation of the incarceration institutions and its reluctant residents.

It was hard for me to believe that this film story was written by a female named Francis Marion who had studied prison life at San Quentin. Chester Morris plays the role as a con named John Morgan and is good friends with Butch Schmidt, (Wallace Berry) who is a hard nose prisoner with lots of power and connections among the other prison mates. Robert Montgomery, (Kent Marlowe) is a man who comes from a rich family, however, Kent is a weak minded guy or you could also call him a stool pigeon. There is a big prison break scene with all kinds of bullets flying all over the place and machine guns blasting away. Even the National Guard is call to action in one of the worst prison breaks I have ever seen. This is a great film with great actors and an outstanding Classic Film from 1930.

(Some Spoilers) Brutal prison drama that ends in a storm of fire and bullets with a jail break that turns the state penitentiary into a free-fire zone. Young Kent Marlow, Robert Montgomery, is given ten years for a New Years Day car accident that killed a pedestrian. Kent is put in a cell with two hardened and career convicts murderer and hold-up artist Butch "Machine Gun" Schmidt, Wallace Berry, and professional forger and stick-up man Joe Morgan, Chester Morris. Not being able to take prison life Kent is willing to do anything to get out even rat on his fellow convicts in order to get an early parole. Getting under the wings of prison rat-fink Oliver, Fletcher Norton, Kent learns the ropes and about selling out his friends by making friends with convicts like Butch and Morgan then winning over their confidence getting the goods on them; then running to Warden James Adams, Lewis Stone, and ratting, or selling, them out to get his early out. It seems that Kent hasn't learned that a rat has no friends on either side of the prison gate and will learn that hard lesson when he pulls off his biggest sell-out of all by not only getting the news to the warden Adams about a Thanksgiving noon prison break. Kent gets his very honest and ethical cell-mate Joe Morgan to take the blame for the break-out in him ratting out his friends like Butch who engineer the breakout. Morgan and Butch are by far more sympathetic then Kent by being straight forward and on the level. Where Kent is an opportunist who's life of luxury, before his car accident that landed him in the clink, and high status on the outside made him in a way looked down on those he was incarcerated with. Both Butch and Morgan end up in the hole, solitary confinement, Butch for starting a food riot in the prison mess hall and Morgan for having a shiv, or knife, in his cell that Kent planted on him. Morgan later escaping from prison on the meat wagon, the autopsy truck, has a new life on the outside and even meets and falls in love with Kent's sister Anne, Leila Hyams. At first being accepted by Anne, and Kent's, family Morgan is caught before he can get out of the country and ends up back in the pen, with seven more years added on to his sentence. Back behind bars Morgan is determined to go straight and distanced himself not from his friends in the pen but in what they plan to do in breaking out of prison and it's that non-involvement on Morgans part that leads to the disastrous prison beak-out at the end of the movie. It was Kent who gave the news of the breakout to Warden Adams but it was Morgan who ended up getting blamed for it which cost the lives of over 50 prisoners and guards. Stomach crunching action as the screen lights up with not only small and heavy arms fire but also an assault on the revolting convicts fortress, the prisoners quarters, with an armored unit of early combat ready tanks. Powerful performances all around that has some of the most unforgettable characters ever put in an American Prison flick who have been copied in scores of prison movies over the years but have never been equaled.

Warner Bros. did these prison dramas better -- the prison here seems a bit too clean and quiet, the convicts too polite and well-pressed to be believable. Nothing really seems at stake here, despite the contrivances of plot. The film lacks noise, grit, tension, though it is fast-moving, competently directed and decently acted.Wallace Beery does his usual gruff routine, though he doesn't dominate the proceedings as one might expect him to. Neither does Robert Montgomery, which is usual with this curiously unlikeable actor. He was good-looking enough and always gave a good and thoughtful performance. And yet he never makes a strong impression, coming across like a lightweight despite his intelligence and skill.The revelation to me was Chester Morris, a popular actor of the '30s and '40s who is now virtually forgotten. With his strong jaw and ax blade profile, he looks just like the Dick Tracy of the comic strips. Here he gives a relaxed performance and shows great charm, warmth and humor, all with a certain intriguing restraint. In fact he is extremely handsome, sexy and appealing and in a very distinctive way -- something about his brow and nose suggest Joaquin Phoenix, kind but feral too. Check him out.