Prison Break

It was weird that a fairly middling crime drama from the 1930s had a reasonably high rating and more than 5000 votes on Letterboxd, but this is one of those instances where people have imported their IMDb ratings and those ratings go toward a movie, seeing as shows aren't really on Letterboxd (at least not multi-season ones).

I remember something similar happened to a super obscure 1940s movie called Mad About Men or something - it had a rating of more than 4/5 because it assimilated all the ratings people had given Mad Men the show.

Anyway, 1938's Prison Break is just fine. At least it's not long, and it doesn't overextend itself. It does kind of underextend itself (is that even a term?) but I don't know; it's almost kinda watchable. I feel a bit duper about the whole Prison Break show to movie mix-up that made me intrigued about the high rating, but it is what it is.

Hi, Everyone, When a sailor goes to prison he makes waves. Barton MacLane is quite good in this 1930s tough guy who wants to marry a blonde, psycho-action drama.

The first thing we learn when our hero goes to the Big House is that prisoners in cells in the 1930s did not have toilets. There is a mixture here of stock footage of a real prison and a set on the sound stage that matches pretty well. In the 1930s it was somewhat taboo to show any plumbing fixtures other than the kitchen sink.

Ward Bond is a very good bad guy here. He looks a lot like Lee Marvin in many scenes. Ward made 21 movies in 1938 including this one. He would make 21 more in 1939 including Gone With The Wind. I doubt if anyone appeared in more great movies than Ward Bond did in his 57 years of life. He also worked in It's a Wonderful Life. He also did Maltese Falcon. Even with all his movie roles he is still best remembered as the wagon master on Wagon Train, a former number one TV series.

Barton Maclane made many wonderful movies including Unknown Island and Treasure of the Sierra Madre. He was the only guy in Treasure... who had a girlfriend.

Prison Break could be remade with more expensive sets and effects, but the story here is easy to follow. If you have a little imagination you can enjoy this one. Great cast, good music, good story and interesting examination of the effect of a prison record on someone's life. It also shows us how honorable some people can be when they want to protect a friend.

Tom Willett

From 1937 through 1939, Barton MacLane and Glenda Farrell made seven Torchy Blaine films together--he as the police lieutenant and Farrell as Torchy, a crime-solving reporter. During this same period, the pair made this film at Universal, not at their usual Warner Brothers home.

While "Prison Break" is clearly a B-movie with a modest budget and cast, it is a dandy film--and a nice chance for MacLane to prove he was a very good actor and could play characters other than baddies and cops. It begins with Joaquin (MacLane) working on a tuna boat and planning on marrying his sweetie (Farrell). At the same time, his buddy is planning on marrying Joaquin's sister and all looks great. However, when a man is killed, Joaquin takes the blame in order to help this friend--and ends up in prison. Things get worse when the same guy (Ward Bond) committed the murder is soon admitted to the same prison--and he's aching for a fight with Joaquin. Although Joaquin cannot help it, this fight and future fights against this thug serve to increase his sentence and it looks like he'll never get out at this rate! What's to become of nice-guy Joaquin? See the picture and find out for yourself--as there is a lot more to this film.

The best thing about this film is MacLane--his acting was quite good. Additionally, while the story has some tough to believe coincidences, the film is enjoyable throughout. Plus, it has some reasonable criticisms of prisons and the parole system--ways that they might serve to make a guy who can be rehabilitated into a hardened criminal.

In one of his rare appearances as a lead, Barton MacLane gives what may be his best performance, playing the part of Joaquin Shannon, an Irish-Portuguese tuna fisherman off the Southern California coast who, due to his protection of his younger brother, is wrongfully convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison. The film has an apparent message, i.e., that a parolee has few rights as a citizen, but this takes up little filmic space while the struggle of Shannon to clear his name produces plenty of action, both in and out of the penitentiary, as he must deal with a cruel adversary, Red Kinkaid (Ward Bond) and still find time to woo his sweetheart, played by Glenda Farrell in one of her softer roles. As opposed to today, the Depression era status of released convicts, as this 1938 work demonstrates, proscribed their marrying, and this disappointment in addition to Shannon's inability to find a job propels him into situations which bring about a showdown with the dangerous Kincaid, for whom Shannon unwittingly served his time. Routinely directed by journeyman Arthur Lubin, the film benefits from effective editing by Jack Ogilvie and skillful work by cinematographer Harry Neumann, with scenes varied among commercial ocean fishing, penitentiary life, taverns,and fog-bestrewn docks preventing any slowdown during this rapidly paced movie, although both dialogue and action are marked by cliche and are somewhat predictable. MacLane's staunch performance is matched in impact by the vigorous Bond, while Farrell, although quick with a quip as ever, is rather winning in her turn as a steadfast paramour; others displaying strong interpretations are Victor Kilian as Farrell's father and Paul Hurst as a convict on the lam.

In this very watchable programmer, Barton Maclane is a tuna boat skipper. He and Glenda Farrell are due to be married. The night before a friend's marriage, her brother gets into a fistfight with Maclane and dies. Maclane is sent to prison for manslaughter. His plans to get out after a year are thwarted when tough guy Ward Bond continually riles him into a fight. When Maclane finally gets out on parole, he finds that no one wants to hire him.

Maclane plays the big, bluff, decent guy perfectly and his chemistry with Miss Farrell is fine; they had worked together in the "Torchy Blaine" series at Warners. Although this Trem Carr production for Universal shows signs of unfortunate cheapness -- mostly in the score -- the movie tells its story well and makes some good points about the failings of the parole system without going overboard in its stridency.