Murder in the Big House

This is quite comparable with "His Girl Friday" a few years earlier, it is the same kind of virtuoso journalism with the dialog rocketing like crossfire all through, and the story is ingenious and interesting. A new journalist happens to get the chance of a first rate scoop, when he notices irregularities in a prematurely executed convict, who had something to tell and had threatened to do it, if he was executed. He didn't have to do it, as the journalists posthumously found it out anyway by clever tactics and maoeuvres, and the road through this mess of smokescreen jungles is a sustained thriller, Van Johnson doing his first great lead, followed by many others, in spite of his rather undramatic appearance but demonstrating his stage presence entirely by his integrity and personality. It also reminds very much of Richard Brooks' "Deadline" ten years later, an even more advanced virtuoso journalism thriller, while this one has a good position between the two chief masterpieces in the genre.

Louis B. Mayer lent Jack Warner one of his up and comers Van Johnson for this B film from Warner Brothers Murder In The Big House. Van is eager for a reporter's job and because the regular man gets himself sloshed before covering an execution Van and Faye Emerson fill in.

But before the big event occurs the condemned man is found electrocuted in his cell on death row. He had been quoted as threatening to name names in his final remarks from the chair so a rush execution was in somebody's interest.

Roland Drew the victim's partner was slated for the chair the next night and he and his wife Ruth Ford could be targets. Johnson and the inebriated guy he was filling in for George Meeker are also nearly killed.

The original story given out was that the Deity couldn't wait and the victim was struck by lightning in his cell. As if anyone would believe that.

Some obvious references here to His Girl Friday. Johnson is more Ralph Bellamy than Cary Grant.

This 1942 Warner Bros. B movie was Van Johnson's first major role and even given the limitations of the plot he displays the boy-next-door likeability that was soon to make him an MGM star. Unfortunately Faye Emerson is miscast in the typical tough-girl-heart-of-gold role that made Jean Arthur famous. Fans of newspapermen stories will not be disappointed, however. They'll find the usual suspects: the wise-cracking card-playing police reporters, the irascible editor-in-chief, the prison warden, the crooks that we love from FRONT PAGE and countless other 1930s movies. Ruth Ford who was Zachary Scott's wife at the time has a small role as Irene Gordon. The film was directed by B.Reeves Eason, more famous as one of the best second-unit directors in town. He staged the chariot race in the 1925 BEN HUR, the charge in THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936) and the burning of Atlanta in GWTW (1939).

"Murder in the Big House" is a B-movie. And, like other Bs, it was quickly made and done on the cheap....even if it was made by a top studio, Warner Brothers. So, a few of the mistakes and problems with the story I can look past...and it turns out to be a dandy film in spite of its problems.

When the story begins,'Dapper Dan' Malloy is awaiting execution. His lawyer insists that the governor will commute the sentence, but it seems the lawyer is telling him this for one reason....to stall. This is because Malloy has promised to spill the beans IF he's going to be executed...and someone wants him to be kept quiet. In fact, just before the execution and before he can talk to reporters, Malloy is 'accidentally killed' by a bolt of lightning!! And leading the investigation is a brand new reporter, Bert Bell (Van Johnson).

The film excels with plot twists and turns. It also features a better than normal cast for such a movie...and this is thanks to Van Johnson being a relative newcomer and MGM loaning him out to Warner for the picture. Just a year or two later, Johnson would become one of the top actors for MGM...and loan-outs like this would be a thing of the past.

So what didn't I like about the movie? Two main things....a poorly choreographed fight scene where it is too painfully clear that the guys are stuntmen as well as too many cliches typical of a B-mystery film. Still, it's not bad and kept my interest throughout...making it better than just another time-passer.

By the way, my favaorite moment was during a terrible thunderstorm the night of the scheduled execution. One of the guards comments "Nature sure picked a strange time for a barbecue"!

If "The Front Page" had been written by the boys at Warner Brothers instead of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur; and if Howard Hawks going over it with his script girl and converting it into "His Girl Friday" had been Briny Foy's boys and girls in the B unit at Warner Brothers; and if it had starred Faye Emerson and Van Johnson in his debut as a leading man, instead of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, it might have turned out pretty much like this movie, a decent locked room mystery with great visuals by cinematographer Ted McCord.

Unfortunately for this movie, none of that stuff is true and this might be worth a look to see Miss Emerson in a role with some snap in it. Alas, that's for the guys like me who will look at dental x-rays. Go look at the Hawks version again.