Up the River

This is an OK film that would probably not be worth watching if it were not for its place in film history - the only pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy and an early performance for the both of them. Here the pair both play a couple of convicts. Bogart is Steve Jordan, finishing up a sentence for manslaughter, and Tracy as Saint Louis is just starting one at the same prison. There are several strange aspects to this film about prison life and what comes afterwards. The first is that Bogart is playing the naive smiling kid whose one punch landed him in prison - you just don't run across a smiling nice-guy Bogart committed to celluloid every day of the week . The second odd aspect is that Tracy is playing a seasoned con, though with a bit of a heart of copper if not gold. It's strange to see Tracy taking "the kid" Bogart under his wing when in fact Bogart was a year older than Tracy. What makes the film better than average is that it is a believable performance by both actors.

The other strange aspect of this film is the depiction of prison life. The women are housed in the same prison as the men with just an iron gate separating the areas where the two groups have outdoor recreation. Bogart, who works in the prison office, gets to wear a suit and tie when he is at work there. The warden's little daughter walks around unguarded and treats the convicts all like uncles, and they reciprocate by treating her like a niece and reading her stories. The whole thing comes across like you are looking at life inside a Catholic high school with strict rules about the interaction of men and women, not a prison where you might have a few characters like Bogart's and Tracy's, but by and large most of these guys didn't get here by dropping out of Sunday school.

The worst part of the film is a rather inane musical number that gets inserted into the film at about the half-way point, with the convicts putting on a show. Ford got better at putting music into his films later on, but here it just intrudes on the plot.

I'd recommend viewing this. It's enjoyable enough, just be aware that the elements are in shaggy shape and that even the restored version by Fox has lots of skipping frames.

Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart are "Up the River" in this 1930 film directed by John Ford and also starring Claire Luce and Warren Hymer. The movie makes for tough going, as the print I saw kept skipping and the sound along with it. Well, the movie is nearly 80 years old after all. Bogart is so young-looking in this it boggles the mind. He's actually playing the romantic lead, Steve, a young man from a good family. While in prison for a fight (in which it's implied the other man was killed), he meets a woman named Judy (Luce) who was involved in a shady bond racket. She took the fall for her boss, Frosby (Morgan Wallace). Judy and Steve fall in love, and when his parole comes up, he says he'll wait for her. After being back with his family for awhile, Forsby sets up his racket in town and is cheating Steve's mother. His friends, Saint Louis (Tracy) and Dannemora Dan (Hymer) break out of prison during a variety show and come to his rescue.

I probably liked this better than most of the people who reviewed the movie here. The ongoing problems with the baseball team ("the pitcher got paroled right before the big game") are amusing. I also liked the free-for-all atmosphere of the prison, with the warden's daughter and her dog wandering around the jail yard, friendly with all the prisoners. The warden's a lovable fellow too. I also liked the bit where notes are hidden in the hem of a charity woman's skirt on the women's side, and when she enters the men's yard, they all rush over and dust off her shoes, retrieving the letter at the same time. Finally, there's an ongoing bit based on the fact that Saint Louis deliberately drove off and left Dannemora in the lurch previously. They're now in the same prison together, Saint Louis swearing up and down that he thought the car had a rumble seat.

Besides the bad sound, the film has the usual politically incorrect blackface number. I will say that the black prisoners seemed to be on an equal footing with the whites, if that means anything.

"Up the River" is fascinating, too, for the use of microphones throughout the set and actors needing to be near them. No one really has figured out screen acting yet - Bogart speaks quickly while the woman playing his mother drags out every sentence. Tracy appears very natural, however.

Films had a long way to go. This one was made quickly by a man destined to become one of the screen's greatest directors and two actors who would become two of the greatest stars ever. Humble beginnings.

The other reviews posted have concentrated on Tracy and Bogart whilst ignoring the fact that this is a very early talkie from John Ford.Many of the traits which we see in his classic films of the 40s and 50s are evident in a rather primitive form here.Warren Hymer plays a role which in the later era would be played by Victor Mclaglen.Many of the antics of his characters can be seen in later films.For example the horsing around between the managers of the baseball team hitting the others players is used again by Ford in a fight scene in Fort Apache.All of the music and comedy is used many times in the future particularly in the Cavalry trilogy.So to see 3 nascent talents in one film makes it fascinating to watch regardless of the scratches and mutilation of the print.

Up the River finds Spencer Tracy and Warren Hymer as a pair of amiable convicts who seem to function far better in the prison environment than outside. Later sociologists would call these two institutionalized and would be thinking it's a bad thing.

Ironically I knew someone who was just like that, he'd been arrested on a couple minor beefs and found he really did function better inside jail than out among the populace. I doubt though he would have found the subject matter in Up the River as entertaining as I did.

Prison seems to be a good setting for John Ford's kind of knockabout, roughhouse comedy. Although I doubt you could ever get away with a minstrel act at the prison variety show and find two black convicts in the audience just laughing and applauding even more than the white prisoners.

Humphrey Bogart is in the film as well and he's a trustee and soon to be released. There's a woman's wing in this prison and Bogey and Claire Luce fall for each other. When Bogey gets released though another and sleazier crook played by Morgan Farley spots him in his proper New England town and threatens to tell mom about her son's prison stay. She thinks he's been in China all this time.

Word of this gets out and Tracy and Hymer crash out to help their friend.

This film would be consigned to the garbage heap of Hollywood were it not for the presence of Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart and the direction of John Ford. Ford directs them and the rest of the cast with a sure hand and the film is entertaining even after 77 years and a far more sensitive populace to racial indignity. You have to remember that in 1930 the most popular show on radio was Amos and Andy.

Some will be surprised to see Bogart cast as a young juvenile, Tracy refers to him as a kid even though Tracy was a year younger in real life. In point of fact on stage Bogart played those kind of juvenile parts so those who knew his stage work back in 1930 would not have been surprised. Still it's not the Bogey we're used to.

As for Tracy, Up the River set the pattern for his Fox career and his early films with MGM, playing lovable mugs. That's what you'll see him as for the most part in his Fox period. MGM signed him as a Wallace Beery backup. But when he played Father Tim Mullin in San Francisco it opened up whole new vistas for him as we well know.

Despite its defects Up the River is still a valuable piece of cinema history. Too bad Tracy and Bogey, good friends in real life, never got to work on a joint project when they both became big names.

I'm a fan of old 1930s movies, but this one really has nothing going for it except a very young Humphrey Bogart & Spencer Tracy. The movie's 92 minutes long, of which about 30 minutes consists of song & dance numbers (amateurish, to say the least) & a prisoners baseball game (with no real baseball action). Heavy on the comedy, but with only 1 or 2 chuckles. Warren Hymer is poor as the comic relief. Spencer is good & his natural delivery is in evidence here. Bogey is fine, playing a guy younger than Spencer (he's actually a year older), & this is one of the only movies where Bogey actually has a parent (a dear old mom); only "Dead End" comes to mind as a role for him with a parent. He's very good, but a little awkward at times, & he overdoes it a bit in one emotional scene near the end. It's very strange seeing Bogart play a romantic part in a standard Hollywood (soft) way, compared with his tough guy romances in his later films. A couple of other striking features of this film: there's only about 3 male & 1 female black prisoners in the jail, & there seemed to be such a "shortage" of black actors available, that they needed two white guys to do a blackface minstrel routine! The Woman's Auxiliary & the warden's daughter walk around the prison yard & mingle with the prisoners unescorted, as if they were at some sort of country club! Bogey gets to nervously shift pebbles from hand to hand in one scene; I wonder if he drew on this experience 24 years later for his similar actions as Lieutenant Commander Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny"? Claire Luce is suitably good as the romantic interest; Joan Marie Lawes is also good as the precocious warden's daughter. The plot, if there is one, is seriously underdeveloped amidst the song & comedy routines, & the expected ending is oddly left hanging without real resolution. I give it 2 points for Bogart & 2 points for Tracy, & rate this movie 4/10.