Buried Alive

The cheapo box I had made it seem like a vampire horror movie where someone is buried in a grave. So horror fans beware. But fans of little B movies might find this a pleasant diversion. Most remarkable is the very clear "Of Mice and Men" style relationship between the lead guy and his big, dumb buddy.

Let's see now. A central figure is the guy who throws the switch at electrocutions. There are three guys in love with a woman who works as a nurse at the prison hospital. One of the prisoners gets to dress up in a suit and drive people around. The warden spends all of his time trying to help this guy. The security is non-existent. The nurse falls in love with the convict rather than the three guys who are in love with her. If prisons were run like this, they would be empty. Everyone would have walked away.

My favorite character is the executioner. He has the shakes but can't seem to quit the job. About once a month he puts the juice to someone. He really wants to buy a farm and raise chickens. Oh, there's also a chaplain who is in love with this woman. Then there is an evil reporter who frames the poor schmoe. Does this sound like something you'd like to see?

despite the title buried alive is'nt a horror film,nor is it a film about anyone being buried alive,its a well made PRC poverty row prison melodrama about a prison trustee(Robert Wilcox) who gets in a jam after helping a prison employee in a bar room brawl.he gets hurt and ends up in the prison sick bay and falls in love with the prison nurse(Beverly Roberts)it has the look of an old warner brothers crime drama,i kept waiting for the dead end kids to show up.for a low budget movie its pretty good.warner Oakland and don Rowan(both from the buster Crabbe flash Gordon serials play supporting roles.it was directed by victor halperin(white zombie)i bought this DVD for a buck at a local dollar store,it has 2 features on it,the other is the infamous ;i bury the living with Richard Boone.now thats a bargain.as a fan of vintage horror and dramas I'm always on the prowl for these bargains.buried alive is 7 out of 10,pretty good b-movie.

With its limited settings, slow pacing, and small cast, this "B" movie could almost be staged as a radio drama. It offers little in the way of suspense or romance and has no comic relief but there may be some academic interest in its Roosevelt-era attitudes toward prisons, capital punishment, and the power of the press.

Robert Wilcox, who always deserved better and who has one of the greatest heads of hair in the history of the movies, does what he can as the inmate who suffers a contrived and implausible string of bad luck. His best part came in the following year, however, when he played an inmate who endures a memorable flogging in "Island of Doomed Men."

It's sad that poor production values and some sloppy editing so typical of PRC films. I could have seen someone like James Cagney who in 1939 the same year that Buried Alive came out starred in Each Dawn I Die. Some of the elements of that classic are in Buried Alive.

Robert Wilcox plays a model prisoner and trustee and is looking forward to his parole and maybe settling down with prison nurse Beverly Roberts. But George Pembroke who plays the executioner the guy sets up the electric chair is having angst and in the worst place, a bar. When Pembroke gets into a brawl with bottom feeding reporter Wheeler Oakman, Wilcox steps in and saves him.

Oakman has his revenge in the press and the story he prints kills Wilcox's parole. Later on while trying to stop a break by a mentally deranged prisoner another convict lies and Wilcox is on death row for the death of a guard.

There are some good elements in the story and if this had been done at a major studio with a bit more care it could have been a classic.

As it is it's a sloppy PRC product.