La loi des bagnards

Broderick Crawford, (George Knowland) plays the role of a District Attorney and has to bring to justice a man named Joe Hufford, (Glenn Ford) who was drunk and struck a man in a night club and killed him. George Knowland knew that Joe Hufford was a good man who had an excellent military service record and told Joe he should obtain a good lawyer to represent him in a court of law. However, Joe did not obtain a good lawyer and he had to serve one to ten years as a prison sentence. Years go by and eventually George Knowland becomes the Warden of the prison where Joe Hufford is serving his prison sentence. George Knowland shows some mercy to Joe along with his daughter, Kay Knowland, ( Dorothy Malone ) who starts to fall in love with Joe. There is plenty of problems in this prison and lots of surprises. Great 1950 Classic to view and enjoy.

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.

Joe Hufford is an honest and affable man, but during an altercation in a bar he punches out a man who sadly dies from banging his head on the floor. All and sundry realise that this is a tragic accident, including the prosecuting DA who tries to feed the inept defence lawyer ammunition in which to keep Hufford out of jail. Found guilty, Joe is sentenced to one to ten years in the pen, working hard and buoyed by the support of his fragile father on the outside, Joe gets about doing his time and hoping for parole. However, bad news comes his way and pretty soon Joe's term in jail will turn bitter - can the new warden and his pretty daughter be his salvation?

Incarceration based films is a favourite genre of mine, so you can imagine how delighted I am when I happen upon a first time viewing. When the said film turns out to be a positive delight, well I'm in incarceration heaven! Convicted, directed by Henry Levin, adapted by William Bowers from Martin Flavin's play, and starring Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford, Millard Mitchell and Dorothy Malone (Ed Begley has a cameo), is not so much underrated I feel, more like under seen and sadly forgotten.

One of the erstwhile reviewers on IMDb has suggested that this picture offers nothing new and that we have seen it all before! Really? In 1950? Are you sure? Truth is, that in spite of this being an update of Flavin's own 1931 piece, The Criminal Code, is that yes! this film now looks like standard formula - an unlucky prisoner is forced to join the convict code of ethics, the yellow snake in the grass, tough guards, the planned break outs, the crusty old lag destined to enact revenge for injustice, but arguably few prison based pictures from the black and white era are as tight and as enjoyable as this one. It boasts a wonderfully reined in performance from Glenn Ford as Hufford, with the first quarter - where Hufford is struck by the incredulity of his situation - is particularly memorable stuff from Ford. Then we also get a special effort from Crawford as DA/Warden Knowland, one scene as he fearlessly walks amongst the cons is a genre highlight to me. But both these men are in the shadow of a quite grizzled and effective turn from Millard Mitchell as Malloby, so much so it quickly became one of my favourite bitter lag performances.

It's not without failings, the love interest is misplaced and clearly improbable in practicality (though it should be noted that Dorothy Malone is fine here as Kay Knowland), and the finale blows out the basis for "solitary" confinement completely. But really to me these are minor quibbles for a 1950 prison based picture. Steadily directed and acted with skill, it also benefits from the considerable talents of Burnett Guffey in the photography department. All in all it's a fine picture that I highly recommend to genre hound dogs such as myself. You can probably knock off a point for my obvious bias, but I'm definitely giving this one 8/10.

A remake of Howard Hawks' 1931 The Criminal Code, Convicted serves up Glenn Ford as an average Joe sent up the river for accidentally causing the death of a man in a night-club brawl. Even the district attorney who prosecuted him (Broderick Crawford) finds his crime pardonable, but a bungled defense sent him to the big house. Parole should come early, but members of the board are cronies of the dead man's father, a prominent citizen, so Ford's in for five years.

In stir, Ford grows embittered and embraces the curious codes of the cell block. He tries to eschew the obvious dangers of a Draconian guard (Carl Benton Reid) and the obligatory stoolie (Frank Faylen, most vividly remembered as the sinister male nurse in the alcoholic ward of The Lost Weekend). But prison life is grinding him down and he decides to join in a break out. But he ends up in solitary after assaulting a guard minutes after learning his father has died, so escapes the destiny of his comrades, who are slaughtered..

Next, a change of regime: the new warden is none other than good-hearted Crawford, and with newfound liberties as a trusty he grows sweet on Crawford's daughter (Dorothy Malone). But the skies have not yet cleared, because there's a movement to kill Faylen for causing the deaths of the men involved in the prison break....

While not so truculent a prison drama as Brute Force, three years earlier, the more staid Convicted develops with cumulative power. Burnett Guffey photographs the decrepit squalor of the prison with loving revulsion. The script, too, is well written (if lacking the edge of the same year's Caged, set in a women's penitentiary), with a streak of gallows humor shot through it – the warden counts among his household staff a cook who poisoned his wife and a barber who slit a man's throat. The story gets driven by character, as well, and the characters are sharply acted: Millard Mitchell, as Ford's cellmate, and Faylen are especially memorable.

Ford, on the other hand, plays the masochist a little too readily, a point that would not be so finely drawn if it didn't parallel so many of his other roles in the noir cycle. As a result, that quintessential bull-in-a-china shop, Crawford, upstages him scene after scene. Despite a wrap-up that's a bit too sunny to swallow, Convicted holds an honorable place in the long line of movies that have peered into the national psychosis we like to refer to as rehabilitation.

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.