The Big House

I saw "The Big House" last night as part of Turner Classic Movies' tribute to Frances Marion, the great female screenwriter. Marion became the first woman to win an Academy Award for screenwriting for her work on this film.

"The Big House" is a fascinating character study, showing how three very different men deal with being imprisoned. Butch (Wallace Beery) lords over all of the men with a knife and threats of violence. John Morgan (Chester Morris) is smart enough to befriend Butch and his crew, but keeps his own set of values. Newcomer Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) is terrified of prison and eventually turns "rat" in hopes of being released.

The film also infers that the public at large is partly to blame for the discontent (and eventual unrest) within the prison: at one moment, the head warden says something to the effect of the public wanting to put criminals in prison, but not wanting to spend the money to build more prisons to accommodate them. This is issue is still debated to this day.

I also found the portrayal of the lone female character, Anne Marlowe (Kent's sister, played by Leila Hyams), very refreshing and unexpected. Instead of the crying, simpering type we might expect in a prison movie, we are given a smart and compassionate woman who owns her own business.

All of the actors gave excellent, realistic performances and Frances Marion's screenplay was well-deserving of the accolades it received. The insight and sensitivity that she used to write about these characters and this place surpasses most of the scripts written by men on the same subject.

The Big House is a 1930 crime-drama film, set in a prison. The story follows several inmates who are all willing to do anything to get out of jail. Whether it is cutting deals, informing on one another, or planning a breakout, each character is pushed to the limits of what a person is willing to do for freedom. As the story progresses, each character must ultimately face the consequences of whatever choice they make, which seems to be the moral of the film.

The Big House is surprisingly sympathetic toward the flaws in the penal system and makes no attempt to hide the horrors of prison. The jail in the film is almost medieval at times with a dungeon for solitary confinement, roach-infested, rotten food, and three men to a closet-sized cell. The story is well-written and the acting is great, for the most part.

The bad parts of the film mostly consists of the silliness, such as obviously fake punches, the phony tough-guy routine, and the cringe-worthy "Who...Me?" line that is repeated throughout. The comedy aspects of the film also fall flat, such as the cross-eyed stutter routine and the exaggerated wide-eyed stupidity role. These elements drag the film down.

Overall, The Big House is worth watching. Honest, enjoyable, and intense, most viewers will have a lot of fun with this film. Despite a few flaws and bad comedy, the amazing prison scenery will keep you drawn to the screen.

The archetype prison break picture may show it's age but it has some decent action scenes, good performances and an oppressive and intimidating setting that enables it to retain a creaky toughness.

Imprisoned after being convicted of a drunk driving, death resulting charge privileged Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) finds himself in an inhuman environment of an overcrowded prison. There he meets the likes of hardened criminals Machine Gun Schmidt (Wally Beery) and cell mate John Morgan (Chester Morris) who attempts to teach him the ropes. Marlowe in turn sets up Morgan causing him to be denied parole. Morgan is forced to go over the wall but is recaptured and returned just in time to participate in a major break out.

Some of the Big House is downright preposterous with stilted dialog and lame brain logic but Beery and Morris come across well as pretty tough mugs and Montgomery's Marlowe is a suitably craven rat. There's a bravura prison riot at the tail end of the film that is well edited and suspenseful pitting Beery against the warden played by Lewis Stone who refuses to meet inmate demands and stoically responds to the threat of hostage sacrifice by calling in tanks. In its own way and especially in its time The Big House is as uncompromisingly tough as the warden.

THE BIG HOUSE - prison of no hope - the last terminal for lost souls. Only the strong survive; the weak crack or are corrupted. As the warden shrewdly tells a new arrival, the place won't make you go yellow, but it you already are yellow it'll bring it out.

MGM was the only studio in Hollywood which would have let a female write the script for such a strong story. But in Frances Marion they not only had the most celebrated screenwriter in the industry, but also a person uniquely qualified to write about any situation. She headed off to California's notorious San Quentin Prison to observe the conditions & learn the lingo. Cheerfully deflecting the jibes & taunts of guards & prisoners alike, she reminded them that after being a frontline correspondent in the Great War there were few situations she couldn't handle.

The result is a wonderful film, tough, hard-bitten & stark. MGM did itself proud by supplying a terrific cast and production values. The scene where belligerent Wallace Beery refuses to eat the commissary slop remains a classic.

Chester Morris does a fine job as a resourceful crook who is actually helped by his time in prison, reformed against his will. This excellent actor is too often ignored when the histories of 1930's cinema are written. Wallace Beery, as murderous Butch, is absolutely unforgettable. Marion wrote the part with him in mind & it is difficult to imagine anyone else playing it. Lovable & dangerous in equal measure, he steals every scene he's in. THE BIG HOUSE would set Beery firmly on the road to major talkie stardom.

Robert Montgomery, on the cusp of his own salad days as a sophisticated, romantic leading man, here plays quite a different role. As a weak, cowardly stool pigeon, he's cast very much against type. It would be 1937's NIGHT MUST FALL before he received another such finely-nuanced role.

Lewis Stone is very effective in the small role as the tough-as-nails warden. Beautiful Leila Hyams is well-cast as Mongomery's spunky sister. George F. Marion & DeWitt Jennings are both memorable as elderly security guards. Champion stutterer Roscoe Ates provides a few moments of much needed comic relief.

Karl Dane is easily spotted as a hulking convict in several scenes, but he is curiously mute. Doubtless, his thick Danish accent was already giving the Studio trouble. Even though he had been an important comic star in silent pictures, he was quickly relegated to talkie bit parts. He was eventually further reduced to selling hot dogs from a cart outside the MGM front gates. This was the final indignity. He committed suicide in 1934.

Preview audiences were curiously cool to THE BIG HOUSE, until MGM executive Irving Thalberg figured out that female viewers didn't like con Chester Morris romancing another prisoner's wife. Thalberg instructed Marion to rewrite a few scenes and refilming made it clear that Leila Hyams was Robert Montgomery's sister, not his spouse. This pleased the patrons and the movie was a big hit.

There were prison and gangster films during the silent era. "The Godless Girl" and "Alias Jimmy Valentine" are examples of such films before sound came along. However, sound gave such films an added dimension. "The Big House" is one of the earliest and best examples of the prison film during the sound era. It allows the din of human beings living on top of one another, the prison riot, and the armed escape attempt and stand-off to come to life.

Add to this great performances by Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, and Robert Montgomery as inmates with Lewis Stone playing in support as the warden who wants to reform the men but is faced with the constraints of a low budget, and you have a great film. Seeing that stiff performances and static cameras were the norm in sound films just the year before in 1929, the technical accomplishments in this film coupled with its natural performances make it way ahead of its time for a 1930 film. The film did win the first academy award for sound, but it is an often forgotten cinema gem.

It has one really good idea, not that well explored up to that time in prison films - what happens when an average Joe, maybe a bit of a moral weakling, winds up in prison with hardened criminals? This is what happens to Kent (Robert Montgomery) when he is convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sent to prison. You see the whole dehumanizing process of an inmate in the prison intake process.

Beery, as brainless brutal Butch, really lucked out getting this part. It was slated for Lon Chaney, but his cancer prevented him from taking the part. As a result, Beery's career took off. The gray character here is Morgan (Chester Morris). He's a tough guy who is scheduled to be paroled soon, but when he is set up to take a fall and that parole is cancelled, he escapes in an inventive but morbid way.

And what does he do? Rather than hit the road for a place where he is unknown, he goes to see Kent's sister (Leila Hyams) because he had a crush on her from the moment he saw her picture in Kent's possession???? OK, so maybe Butch is not the dumb one after all. MGM just had to find a way to insert romance into everything!

But I'd still recommend it as one of the first sound prison films with good performances by a fine cast.