Condamné

This Ronald Colman film was his second talkie, following a rousing success in Bulldog Drummond earlier in 1929. For these two films, Colman received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his work in this one is good. Samuel Goldwyn went through great pains to prepare Colman for talkies and for audiences' expectations of his voice to match his on-screen persona. In this film, Colman plays a suave thief who is sentenced to prison on Devil's Island. Once there, the warden employs him to aid his wife in household chores and there Colman falls in love with the beautiful Ann Harding.

The plot is surprisingly not too ridiculous as both Colman's and Harding's characters really don't want to start an affair out of respect for each other and for the warden (a solid Dudley Digges). However, once the warden buys into local gossip that his wife is having an affair, he cannot help but constantly become angry. Each time the plot has a chance to become silly and over-melodramatic, it takes a step back and seems to have a conscience. For an early talkie, that is impressive. Further more impressive were the many dolly moves employed by the cameraman. This is not too static for such an early sound film and there is good use of sound effects being layed over the montage. All that being said, it is not a great film. It is never fully engrossing as Alibi and Applause were at times, but for a film from the class of 1929 this one is a winner and Colman, Harding, Digges and Louis Wolheim as Colman's convict friend are all excellent.

This was produced just a year after those famous words - the first words in the first talking picture. What is amazing is how creative it was with sound - techniques that rarely appeared in theatre and some that were entirely new.

First there is the overlaying of the sound of the prisoners "choir" over sound and pictures inside the governors house cutting with continuity to pictures of the prisoners singing - all in sync. And, entirely novel the sound of the governors voice as he looks in the mirror - we are hearing the voices in his head. The sound of drums in sync with the guarding soldier's walk.

It was not until after WW2 that magnetic tape recording - with multitracks was available. I can only guess that this film was all done with gramophone discs.

I was for a while a videotape editor in the earliest days so appreciate how revolutionary and sophisticated was the use of sound just one year after it started. Had radio pioneered this or was it entirely the work of the new talkie movies?

Seen on Talking Pictures TV - yet another overlooked historic film with exceptional qualities.

There is such an element of unreality to the idea that the warden at the Devil's Island penal colony would allow one of the inmates to act as a servant in his home and to be alone with his wife throughout the day, that you'll have to go into this movie suspending your disbelief. Ronald Colman is suave as the convict, and it's always a joy to see him, and here he is opposite Ann Harding, who varies between down to earth and over-emoting. The film does set the stage with some nice 'hard prison' scenes, including one of a man howling in solitary confinement, but next to Colman smooth-talking Harding, something seems off. Perhaps Colman is a little too debonair. On the other hand, the film is entertaining and worth seeing. I liked the supporting cast most, and thought that Dudley Digges turned in the best performance as the warden, angrily spewing his bile.

This film was based on the bestselling fictionalized account of the escapes of René Belbenoît, a prisoner on the Devil's Island penal colony in French Guiana, written by Blair Niles. The novel helped raise awareness of conditions there which eventually led to its closure.

In his second talking film Ronald Colman plays Michel Oman, an unrepentant thief condemned to Devil's Island. Michel is not a noble guy or an innocent guy, so immediately the niceties are out of the way. Madame Vadal (Ann Harding) is the wife of the warden of the prison (Dudley Digges). He is a big slob, harsh and rude to his wife. I wondered how this pretty and demure woman came to be married to this brute beast, but apparently at the time of their marriage he looked like St. John. I doubt that St. John ever looked like Dudley Digges! But I digress.

Vidal is quite a snob considering he is also a slob, and thinks someone of "his station" should have a servant. He makes Michel his houseboy because he seems more refined than the other convicts, and Michel likes this job because it keeps him from having to do hard labor with the rest of the convicts. But Michel and Vidal's wife fall in love, although they don't act on it. But the wives of the other prison employees begin to gossip based on absolutely nothing but their own boredom, and soon the gossip gets back to Vidal, who reacts exactly like you'd expect him to.

I have to wonder...what would this pair be like in everyday life? Would they make it? Or would ordinary life in a world populated with plenty of other people to which they could turn break them up? What happens when one of them forgets to pay the electric bill, when the sex stops being hot, when the upstairs neighbors turn out to be flamenco dancers? This film isn't alone in being one about people from completely different backgrounds falling in love because they are the only people available to one another, but these scripts never have the subjects in love talk about these obstacles. But, again, I digress.

Originally this was supposed to be shot on Devil's Island, but the expense and practicality of it all prevented that from happening. Colman gives a very subtle performance as Michel, contrasting with Digges and Harding being more theatrical. That surprised me, since Digges and Harding have acting styles here that seem somewhat like holdovers from the silent era, yet they never acted in silent films, where Colman was a veteran of silent films and does not display that style.

The camera work here is excellent, really giving off the feeling of being shot in a prison even though it was not.

And if you think Louis Wolheim is being wasted here, I will tell you he is a very key part of the resolution. This is a precode, but it is definitely not one in the Warner Brothers tradition.

"Condemned!" is an early prison melodrama with the accent on "melodrama". Admittedly, "melodrama" was much more acceptable to audiences in 1929 than it is today. That being said, this film does have a good deal in its' favor. It has a great cast including Dudley Digges, somewhat miscast as a French prison administrator, and Ann Harding, much better-cast as his meek, put-upon wife. Also, look for a rare appearance by Louis Wolheim (and, admittedly, his presence is very hard to miss) in the role of a convict. Best remembered today for his memorable performance in the 1930 film, "All Quit on the Western Front", Wolheim's career was unfortunately cut short when he died suddenly in 1931 at the age of only 50. Although usually cast as a plug-ugly thug, Wolheim was actually a graduate of Cornell University and a former college professor whose distinctive appearance was the result of a college football injury (apparently football was a rougher game in those far-off days). Lastly, of course, this movie features the great Ronald Coleman in his prime, an actor whose presence was always a major asset to any film.

The overbearing administrator of a French penal colony in South America considers it beneath his dignity for his wife to be seen doing housework. Consequently, overruling his meek and much put-upon wife's protests that she is afraid of the convicts and does not want one of them in the house, the administrator insists upon selecting a convict to serve as their "house-boy". Needless to say, he selects the most handsome and charming of the convicts for the job, Ronald Coleman. This being a melodrama, anyone can immediately predict where that is going to lead except, of course, the woman's husband. It takes him quite a while to catch on to what is perfectly obvious to everyone else. Of course, once he does, his reaction is equally predictably vindictive and nasty.

Being a very early example of a "talkie", this movie inevitably suffers from some technical crudity. However, it also displays some striking visual effects in those scenes which do not require dialogue. In addition, despite this movie's rather dated melodramatics, it is still worth seeing for its' excellent cast.