La grande prigione

When the story begins, Warden Carmichael (Tom Tully) is kidnapped by a group of cons who are escaping from his prison. Along the way, the desperate men pick up an innocent guy (John Derek) and force him to drive them. Well, soon there's an accident and several of the convicts are killed. The innocent guy has survived but is unconscious and the remaining con tries to run away with a suitcase in tow. The Warden and the con exchange gunfire...the con is killed and the suitcase, it turns out, is stuffed with $100,000! On impulse, the Warden decides to keep the money...and leaves the innocent guy to take the rap for supposedly helping in the escape. The problem is...that down deep...the Warden is torn apart by his actions. But is it enough to get him to admit the truth? Apparently not, as he even allows the innocent guy to get sentenced to death for the botched escape!

The story is much more interesting and complex than I described and the acting is spot on. I think with big name stars, it wouldn't have worked as well and having some old reliable character actors instead star in the film was a smart choice. Overall, a very gripping and successful 'small' picture...one that is nothing like any other prison film I have ever seen.

A late film noir, with an interesting plot and undeniable potential, unfortunately poorly taken advantage of.

The classic film noir has unscrupulous, false, treacherous characters, always looking for an opportunity to deceive the next. Sometimes, from so much conspiring, they end up suffering the effects of their own poison on their skin or else captured by enemies or the police.

But this Behind the High Wall is a film that is too scrupulous, full of feelings of guilt, regret, too moralistic, precisely the opposite of what characterizes film noir. It is the result of a different era in which traditional values prevailed, in post-war abundance.

Thus a banal melodrama, often implausible, masquerading as film noir.

It begins like a prison break plot, in the line of CANON CITY, CRASHOUT, BIG HOUSE USA, but it appears that this is quite different. The following plot will surprise you, because of the warden character. Not the predictable scheme of good vs evil guys. Abner Biberman made some good films for Universal Studios and this one belongs to his best. NIGHT RUNNER was good too. This is for me an underrated crime film from the fifties. I like being surprised by such daring schemes. I won't tell you the film not spoil it. Please try it, if you can purchase it; it is not so hard to get. Maybe more drama than pure gritty crime yarn.

BEHIND THE HIGH WALL is a little bit of a letdown. The basic idea of the plot is good, if not terribly original: good guy goes bad to try for a better life. The movie starts off just fine with intrigue and some fine action scenes. It's too bad the picture bogs down in talk midway and only barely recovers. What makes BEHIND THE HIGH WALL worth seeing is the dark, sometimes oppressive noir photography and the impressive cast. Tom Tully is excellent as always in a conflicted, yet sympathetic lead role as a prison warden who makes a bad decision. As his crippled wife, Sylvia Sydney--a great actress who is a standout in Fritz Lang's FURY--is almost wasted. But she brings credibility to what could have been merely a maudlin character. The other impressive cast member is John Gavin. Anyone who doubts this chiseled matinée idol's acting talent should see this. Gavin never hits a false note and carries all his scenes with terrific conviction. The movie is populated with many other faces later familiar from TV as well: John Larch, Barney Philips, Peter Leeds, Ed Kemmer (wasted as a frustrated lawyer), Amzie Strickland, and Betty Lynn (later known as 'Thelma Lou' on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW). Lynn's father is played excellently by veteran actor Don Beddoe.

Tom Tully is one of the best examples - possibly *the* best example - of a Hollywood character actor who played prominent supporting roles in many films yet who remains unknown to audiences (even movie-trivia buffs) because he consistently gave understated and subtle performances, refusing to throw a film's storyline off-centre by calling attention to himself. In 'Behind the High Wall', Tully gets a rare chance in a leading role, and he proves himself an actor of great talent and range. Unfortunately, his leading lady here is one of my least favourite actresses: Sylvia Sidney (snaggled of tooth, bulbous of lips, coarse of accent).

Tully plays Frank Carmichael, a prison governor with money problems and a crippled wife (Sidney, not crippled enough to suit me). Some inmates, who have accomplices and money waiting for them on the out, organise an escape... killing a cellblock warder in the process. They take along two hostages: Carmichael and Hutchins, an inmate who wants to go straight. Once they're on the out, the escapees join up with accomplices who have $100,000 in hot swag. A convenient road accident kills everyone except Carmichael and Hutchins. As the loot can't be traced to Carmichael, he decides to keep it, pinning the warder's murder on Hutchins to get him out of the way. But then of course there are complications...

Sylvia Sidney's role here is too similar to her role in 'Fury', a much better movie than this one. In both films, she forces the protagonist to stay honest when I wanted him to benefit from a circumstance of chance that worked illegally in his favour. I have a lot of problems with Sylvia Sidney: I've never liked her in any performance of hers I've ever seen. Yet my all-time favourite director (Fritz Lang) cast her in the lead roles in his first three American films, so he must have seen some merit in her. Damned if I can find it, though.

Shortly after Sylvia Sidney's death, a tribute for her was held at the Players Club in Gramercy Park, New York City (she had lived there on the club's charity, with her yapping little pug dogs). I covered this event as a reporter. One after another, dozens of celebrities related anecdotes about Sidney, but each of those stories boiled down to one of three punchlines: Sylvia wanted some booze, Sylvia said a dirty word, or Sylvia was rude to somebody who didn't deserve it. If you changed the booze to drugs, any of those stories could have been told about John Belushi. The difference was, all the blue-haired dowagers in the Players Club - who laughed merrily at these stories of Sylvia Sidney boozing, cursing and insulting people - would have been profoundly offended by these exact same stories if they had been attributed to John Belushi.

In the key role as Carmichael's fall guy, John Gavin gives a good performance but is miscast. Gavin is so superhumanly handsome, he isn't believable as a small-time criminal. There are fine performances here (in small roles) by Don Beddoe, Ed Kemmer, John Larch, Peter Leeds and satchel-mouthed Barney Phillips. Tom Tully is a revelation, and deserves to be better known. I was annoyed that all the actors kept using the American pronunciation of the name 'Carmichael', with the accent on the wrong syllable, but that's to be expected in a Yank movie. I'll rate 'Behind the High Wall' 7 out of 10. I might have rated it higher if Sylvia Sidney's lips didn't enter the room five seconds ahead of the rest of her body.