Le code criminel

"The Criminal Code" is centered around the theme "An Eye for An Eye." This theme is the reason that young Robert Graham is sent to prison, the reason why the prisoners object to the D.A. becoming the Warden of the prison, and the reason why Graham is sent to "the hole" near the end of the film. For 1931, it was one of the first critical looks at this theme. It raises certain questions as to the morals of the law, and the Criminal Code versus the Prisoners Code. Phillips Holmes gives a good enough performance as Robert Graham, and Boris Karloff came off well as the inmate with a bone to pick (months before becoming Frankenstein), but the performance that I liked the most was Walter Huston, who played the D.A.-turned-prison-warden. Huston's character was a wily one, who said "Yeah" and "Yeah?" about a hundred times throughout the film.

Boris Karloff appeared on the stage of the Belasco Theatre, New York City in the role of Galloway in a Martin Flavin stage play. It was a minor part, however, it was an important one: Galloway, the prison trusty who becomes a killer. On the strength of his performance, he was soon cast in the film version. During 1931-32, twenty-three of his films were released, an average of nearly one a month which included Frankenstein. Criminal Code was the big break Karloff was waiting for and he never gave up acting until the very end.

I would say it is THE best except for my fondness for "Caged." This is a brilliant movie, as shocking as Hawks's "Scarface," released a year later and far better known.

Walter Huston is a district attorney when we met him. Throughout, he is given to the one word, catchall statement or response "Yeah." Huston has rarely if ever been better -- and he was one of the greats of Hollywood history.

Phillips Holmes is excellent as a young man he sends to prison. He is innocent in all senses before he gets there. But he quickly leans the code of the title.

Constance Cummins isn't given much as Huston's daughter but she is appealing. However, Boris Karloff gives one of his very finest performances as a tough but decent prisoner. Of course, of course he is fine in "Frankenstein." And he is wildly brilliant in "Lured" many years later. Here he gives a solid, unadorned, moving performance.

Clark Marshall, a name I do not recognize, is also fine. He plays a sniveling, conniving inmate. And DeWitt Jennings is shocking as a brutal guard.

Amazingly, I had never seen this movie before tonight. It's bone I will want to see again; and I urge you to see it, too.

Sometimes you seem to get into a position where you have to take your medicine for an even unintended actions. That is what happens to poor 20-year-old Bob Graham, and within 10 minutes into the movie, he's in the infinite world of prison, where he must learn yet another set of codes of the criminal sort. Creepy Ned Galloway (Boris Karloff just before his "Frankenstein" turn) takes a rather minor (at least early on) role and fills it with gusto (maybe its that creepy little haircut) in a claustrophobic cell. Later, he does the right thing for rehabilitated and soon-to-be-paroled (maybe) Graham, who does not violate the titular Criminal Code (since he's still a con).

James Whale wanted Karloff for his monster after seeing Boris in this flick, and after you see it, you'll know why.

BTW, who doesn't love a good prison movie yarn, and with Karloff in it, it rates a "9."

In The Criminal Code the bywords of District Attorney Walter Huston is that where there is a crime, someone has to pay. Or if you can't do the time, don't do the crime as a later philosopher named Tony Baretta opined. And it's Huston's job to set the price when he prosecutes.

But Huston recognizes that young Phillips Holmes with a proper criminal defense attorney might do little time or even be acquitted. He smashed some poor guy's head in with a full bottle of bootleg hooch when he thought he was going for a gun. Still Holmes is convicted and he gets a ten year sentence.

Fast forward several years and Huston is no longer the District Attorney, he's now the warden of the prison that Holmes is incarcerated. Huston gives Holmes a chance and he makes him a trustee. Huston's daughter Constance Cummings even falls for Holmes.

But they have a different code among the convicts in prison and the biggest commandment is thou shalt not rat. When Boris Karloff does a particular rat in Holmes almost takes the fall for it because of that code.

The leads do a fine job in this, but the performances of Boris Karloff as the hardened convict and Clark Marshall as his victim really do stand out in The Criminal Code. Marshall especially, you can really feel his fear in his performance.

Beginning originally as a Broadway play, The Criminal Code was remade twice by Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn not being one to let a good property go to waste. The two remakes are Penitentiary with Walter Connolly and John Howard and Convicted with Broderick Crawford and Glenn Ford.

The film holds up very well because the themes are eternal. Criminals have to pay the price when caught and rats are just as unpopular as ever.