Murder in the Big House

Prisoner Dan Malloy is set to get the electric chair. He calls in intrepid reporter Scoop Conner to ask about a pardon from the governor. When Scoop gives him no chance, he tells Scoop that he's got names and he's ready to take them all down. He keeps threatening to squeal and then lightning strikes. New reporter Bert Bell is eager for a big assignment from managing editor Pop Ainslee and Gladys Wayne falls for him.

It starts out with an interesting premise but it slowly grinds down as it goes along. It's a crime B-movie. It's not the worst but it isn't the best. I don't think there are any stars. This could work if it has more fun with the material. It seems to try but non of the actors are able to exceed beyond the rat-tat-tat of the reporter standard characters.

"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"!

I'm not sure if Johnson had already signed with MGM or did so afterwards, but this was a dandy role to open his film career with - the lead in one of WB's many hour long B features of the 30s and 40s. This has an alternate title of "Born For Trouble" which makes no sense given the subject matter.

A man who is convicted of killing a crusading district attorney is scheduled to die in the electric chair the following day. He tells his lawyer that if his sentence is not commuted to life that he will spill all he knows to the papers about the syndicate that hired him to commit the killing right before he is executed. He has previously promised "Scoop" of the Morning News that any singing he does will be an exclusive for him.

So the governor does not commute the guy's sentence. But for some reason "Scoop" is drunk the night of the execution, so reporter Gladys Wayne grabs the ticket to the execution out of Scoop's pocket and gives it to Bert Bell (Van Johnson), who wants to be hired by the Morning News, and tells him to come with her, this is his big chance. Why is it not her big chance? Why does Scoop decide to go on a bender on the biggest night of his career? We only have 60 minutes folks. You'll have to see "My Girl Friday" or "Come Fill the Cup" if you want answers to those kind of newspaper caper questions.

But the murderer isn't executed and doesn't have time to tell all to the tabloids, because according to the warden the man was struck by lightning through the window of his cell and killed. Bert Bell takes a photo of the dead man while nobody is looking, and when he gets back to the paper notes that the marks on the man definitely look like those of a man killed in the chair not killed by lightning. But people were in the actual death chamber testing the electric chair at the time the man died, so nobody could have dragged him in, electrocuted him, and dragged him back to his cell. So Bell is on the case to figure out what happened.

This is an action packed little B that kept my interest throughout. I'd highly recommend it not only because it is interesting but it shows Van Johnson had what it took from the very beginning.

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).