O Sentenciado

The more I see of GLENN FORD, the more I appreciate the range of his underrated talent. CONVICTED is a low-budget crime melodrama from Columbia that co-stars BRODERICK CRAWFORD with DOROTHY MALONE and ED BEGLEY in supporting roles.

Ford is a victim of circumstance, landing in prison after slugging a man at a nightclub who insults the woman he's dancing with. The man dies and Ford is sent to prison for five years.

Crawford becomes the prison's new warden and soon discovers that things aren't being run the way he approves of. It's nice to see Crawford in a sympathetic role as the warden who takes an interest in Ford's prison record and attempts to help him. He asks daughter Dorothy Malone to treat him respectfully when he assigns him to be her chauffeur.

The dialog is terse and full of wisecracks and Henry Levin's direction is taut with suspense. There's the usual prison breaks, the prison snitch (FRANK FAYLEN), and suspense building with the usual twists and turns as a prison break is imminent and the snitch is about to get his comeuppance.

Summing up: Good dialog and tense situations make this a better than average prison drama. Broderick Crawford is especially strong as the good-hearted warden and Ford is more than competent as the wrongly accused inmate.

Excellent "prison" movie , with several extremely suspenseful scene,particulary the death of convict (informer) Ponti (Frank Feylen ) in a terrifying atmosphere ,with the crowd of cons "yammering" and this clock (featured in almost all the shots of the scene) the hands of which seem stopped on 1:25.

In its first part,it's pure film noir,devoid of sentimentality: one is spared the trial with the interminable pleas (it lasts barely one minute) ,and the scene of the telegram avoids pathos and melodrama.

But the most interesting thing in the rapport con Joe has with his ex-prosecutor turned jail director :"I was your prosecutor, I won't be your persecutor ";as the movie progresses,their relationship almost becomes a father/son one ; and one can go as far as to say that he suffers as much as him when he sends him to the solitary ;Knowland can't refrain from admiring -in spite of his disapproval- his protégé's honor code .Glenn Ford and Broderick Crawford ,sparing of gestures and words ,are extremely convincing. Knowland's daughter is a more conventional character, but Dorothy Malone (who would shine in Sirk's movies) makes all her scenes count .

This is your no-frills prison yarn of a man convicted for involuntary manslaughter. The chief asset of this film is the cast, which is led by the highly competent Broderick Crawford and the talented Glenn Ford. The supporting cast does a great job as well. The filming is stark and realistic. Crawford does some of his best work in this film and Ford is very convincing as the tough luck convict trying to stay straight. Worth viewing.

Fresh from his Oscar in 'All the King's Men' Broderick Crawford stepped into Walter Huston's role in version Number Three of 'The Criminal Code', photographed by Burnett Guffey (who had worked with Crawford on 'All the King's Men' and later collected the second of two Oscars for his work on 'Bonnie and Clyde'). In places it recalls 'Each Dawn I Die' and the prison scenes in 'White Heat'; and even includes a scene as in the latter where the hero loses it upon receiving bad news in the slammer.

As usual for the period it's enlivened by it's supporting cast, this time including Millard Mitchell in the role played twenty years earlier by Boris Karloff, a relatively young Ed Begley, Will Geer (the latter soon blacklisted) and Whit Bissell, who since 'Brute Force' had moved to the other side of the prison bars and would do so again along with squealer Frank Faylen in 'Riot in Cell Block 11'.

The presence of a brunette Dorothy Malone as Crawford's demure young daughter makes you realise just how long ago this all was...

Broderick Crawford plays a district attorney that reluctantly prosecutes a defendant for accidentally killing a man in a fist fight in defense of a lady's honor. Realizing that Ford was being severely under-defended by his own lawyer, Crawford tries to pass every break in the book to the defense attorney, who's too stupid to pick up on it. In the end, Ford is convicted of murder and sentenced to prison. Later, Crawford is assigned as the new warden and attempts to help Ford further.

This is a very good, highly underrated movie. It's worth a look.