Convict's Code

Five years ago, Sidney Blackmer framed Robert Kent for a robbery. Now Kent's friends have gotten him out on parole, and he's to work for Blackmer, who wants to keep a watch on him; he figures he can always violate him back to prison. Kent is trying to find the witnesses who falsely identified him, but he and Blackmer's sister, Anne Neagle, have fallen in love.

It's a B movie plot, and John Krafft's script is B movie material, and it's a Monogram picture. The cast is good, though, and the director is Lambert Hillyer, who had been an A director for William S. Hart, and he works the scenes at a crackling pace and his actors make their lines sound convincing, turning the film into a variation of the Good Bad Man movies that Hillyer and Hart had done. It's clear that the production was done on the cheap, and Hillyer would never venture beyond B westerns and the occasional serial again. However this is a nice little movie to cap his non-western career.

I was unfamiliar with Robert Kent and Anne Nagel. After reading their bios on IMDb, I was glad I didn't have a razor blade nearby. And Victor Killian of Mary Hartman fame was murdered, which I didn't know. A very sad group.

Dave Tyler (Kent) is released on parole. He was accused of murder unjustly, with the jurors paid off. He is determined to clear himself. He goes to work for a man (Sidney Blackmer) - who is the one who actually framed him, though he is unaware of this.

As an added problem, he falls for Blackmer's sister (Nagel).

Victor Killian plays Tyler's parole officer, and he's very strict. I don't know if they're that strict today, but Tyler really had to toe the line.

Not terribly interesting - but the biographies of these actors are something else.

Convict's Code is a surprisingly engaging little film noir about Dave Tyler, a man on parole who tries to clear his name while trying not to get thrown back in the slammer. While the reasoning why Dave is hired by a man who wants him thrown back into prison is highly ridiculous, as is the totally melodramatic conclusion, the in-betweens are great, with Robert Kent doing a fine job as the tormented parolee, and Anne Nagel equally fine as his (of course!) blonde haired girlfriend, who mustn't know that he's a parolee, because of course, they have to get permission from his parole officer! (Oh, and she's also the heavy's sister). Actually, this film carefully describes parole life back in 1939, and seems to be more of a burden on a person then it is now. Quite interesting and entertaining!

B-movies in the 1930s and 40s were inexpensively made and relatively short films that were shown as part of a double-feature. Many were made by "poverty row" studios--tiny independent companies that often rented space on the major studio lots at night. For the most part, Bs are entertaining enough, but also tend to have lesser actors, writers and directors--sort of like the minor leagues for movie people. Because of this, most B-films are not the quality or entertainment level of an A-picture--though there are many, many exceptions. As For me, I often prefer the Bs--they can be fun, entertaining and usually very fast-moving--as a typical B is about 60 minutes (more or less).

The film starts with a relatively dumb ex-college football star getting out of prison after serving three years for a robbery. Dave continues to deny that he did anything wrong and vows to look up all the witnesses who testified against him and make them tell the truth. However, he needs to be careful, as he is on parole--one slip and he's back in the can. Interestingly, all but one of the witnesses against him are either dead, have moved or are killed as the ex-con talks with him. And, most importantly, they all were known criminal-types. You'd think if the guy could show that all six turned out to have such questionable backgrounds that there'd be reason for the police to re-open the case, but he tells no one--remember, he IS kind of dumb. What else is dumb is that later he does a lot of things that would violate his parole in order to try to prove his innocence. Having a gun, involvement in a NEW robbery, not returning home at night, etc. all further prove the guy is a moron. Then, when he DOES learn who the guy behind the frame-up is, he doesn't go to the police--as he's fallen in love with that man's sister. Just how stupid can a guy be?!

"Convict's Code" is a pretty good B and might have earned a 4 despite its no-name cast--mostly because the story is pretty interesting-even if Dave is a certifiable idiot. However, the ending of the film is sort of like a "scene missing here" film--one where important action takes place off camera and it seems like this is dealt with in a slap-dash manner. It's a shame, but the ending is clearly an example of scene missing here film making--as the guy who REALLY committed the crime admits it but apparently says all this off camera!! Cheesy, clearly at the end and probably not a film to watch unless you are a B-movie fan, too.

By the way, the best thing about the film is a bit role played by Maude Eburne. She plays the most amazingly ambivalent landlady I've ever seen and she is pretty funny. Eburne played in a lot of films over the years and was always fun--including her stint as Dr. Christian's housekeeper in the RKO series.

Former football star Dave " Whizz " Tyler is convicted of a robbery and spends three years in jail . Given parole he faces completing the remaining six years if he breaks his parole but vows that he's innocent of the crime and will do everything to prove it

You don't need to be a jailbird to know the convicts code - you don't snitch . If a tunnel suddenly appears in the next cell and you suddenly find a pneumatic drill in your own cell then you invoke the Nuremberg defence of " I didn't hear anything , I didn't see anything , this has got nothing to do with me " and you'll probably live long enough to complete your sentence

With a title like CONVICT'S CODE you could be forgiven for thinking you're going to be watching the similar sounding premise of EACH DAWN I DIE where an innocent man who has been framed trying to clear his name surrounded by hardened criminals . This isn't how the film works out . Instead we get Whizz Tyler walking about from one cheap studio set to another with not very good actors who are marginally just less wooden than the sets

There's also something that puzzled me and that is Whizz continually claims to be innocent to everyone including the prison Warden and his parole officer and I kept wondering how the parole board works in America . In Scottish and English law someone is only eligible for parole if they admit to the crime and are genuinely sorry they did the crime . Someone claiming they are innocent wouldn't in theory qualify . Of course the practise is entirely different and we've been treated to some truly hideous sights like Johnathan King calling a press conference on his day of release saying his victims were lying and he can prove it . Needless to say we're still waiting for this evidence to surface . I was under the impression that America does tend to be a lot stricter about parole and its granting of it