Up the River

The famous Director, John Ford presented a great 1930 film starring Spencer Tracy, (Saint Louis) who plays the role as a big time crook who has gone in and out of correctional facilities and he encounters Humphrey Bogart, (Steve) who is also a convict in the same prison. A pretty young blonde gal named Judy, (Claire Luce) becomes a prisoner and meets Steve and they become immediately attracted to each other and Steve has only a few weeks before he is released. There is plenty of comedy in this film and it is great to see how very young Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart appear in this film who were just starting out on their great careers on Hollywoods Silver Screen. John Ford made another film with Spencer Tracy after twenty-eight years and Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart never made another picture appearing in the same picture. There is great acting by the entire cast and do not miss this film, it is worthwhile to enjoy this great entertainment.

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.

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.

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.

UP THE RIVER is a landmark in many aspects. It's the feature film debut for both Humphrey Bogart AND Spencer Tracy. It is the only time these two lifelong friends worked together. John Ford wanted to make a prison drama, but MGM, the bigger studio had plans for THE BIG HOUSE. John turned his prison film into a comedy, with convict Spencer Tracy breaking IN and OUT of prison at will. My video copy is off a 16mm print that was surely on it's way out. Through the scratches, breaks in the film, Bogies and Spence's screen presence explode on the screen. You know stardom is around the corner for both.