Nonureva Really Surprised!

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

mark.waltz Accidentally killing a man in a drunken brawl, 20 year old Phillips Holmes gets 10 years for manslaughter. Unable to forget the loss of freedom, he manages to get a job as trustee for new warden Walter Huston who happens to be the former D.A. who sent him and a bunch of other inmates to prison in the first place. Falling in love with Huston's daughter, he gets deep into prison intrigue which threatens his chance at parole.Brilliantly acted and nicely paced, thus is crisp crime drama from a different perspective than others released around the same time. Huston, one of the best film actors of the golden age, is a law enforcer with a strict morale conscience, at one point giving his perspective on how he could get Holmes off if he wasn't defense attorney. Boris Karloff has a prominent supporting role as one if the darker of inmates who will give an old lady a knock out drug to reach his nefarious goals.One of the spooky moments comes with the revenge he seeks on a snitch and the countdown to retribution. Every performance is dead on, with moments of tension that are brilliantly scripted. It gets even grittier than MGM's hit prison movie "The Big House". For a film made by B studio Columbia before they moved to near the top, this is a total classic of the crime drama genre, giving an indication of what film noir would look like more than a decade later.

Michael O'Keefe Howard Hawks directs this terrific crime drama based on a play by Martin Flavin. Walter Huston plays the wily District Attorney Mark Brady, who fashions a 10 year conviction of a young man, Robert Graham(Phillips Holmes)who he knows for a fact killed a man in self defense. After a failed run for the governorship, Brady becomes the warden of the prison holding Graham. Brady wants to give the young man a break after serving 6 years of his term and is bitter and almost burnt out. Graham is given a valet's job for the warden. In no time the prisoner's actions earns the respect of the warden and his lovely daughter Mary(Constance Cummings). The young man is only days away from a pardon and is put in the hard position of snitching or not snitching on a cell-mate named Galloway(Boris Karloff). Coming into play is not the criminal code, but the prison code of silence. The film is well directed and the photography is superb. Supporting cast includes: DeWitt Jennings, John Sheehan, Mary Doran and Otto Hoffman.

MartinHafer When I was in the middle of watching this film, I realized I'd seen it before but with an all-new cast. "Convicted" (1950) is one of the better prison movies ever made so it was nice to finally see the original film and compare them.A young knucklehead (Phillips Holmes) is provoked into a fight at a dance club. Unfortunately, he hits the other guy with a bottle and he soon dies. The district attorney (Walter Huston) feels a bit sorry for the guy since he isn't criminally-oriented--just some guy who made a very bad choice. But he does his job and convicts Holmes--sending him to prison for 20 years (which does seem excessive). Later, the D.A. becomes the warden at the same prison where this young guy has been for six years and Huston feels sorry for him--and wants to help him make parole. However, before he can do this, there is a murder and Holmes may have witnessed it. And, since the code of prison is that you NEVER squeal, Holmes' refusal to talk puts his freedom in jeopardy. If he talks, he could soon be a free man--but he could also be killed just like that dirty squealer! To make things harder for Huston, his daughter has fallen in love with Holmes and she pressures him to act.The film has a lot going for it. Its style is simple, tough, straight-forward and effective. It also doesn't hurt that there is a very nice supporting performance by Boris Karloff--in one of his best non-horror roles of his career. He's particularly good at the finale. Overall, it's one of the best prison films I've seen--with only a very few select films (such as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Brute Force") coming to mind that are better.

Michael_Elliott Criminal Code, The (1931) *** (out of 4)Terrific acting highlights this pre-code prison-drama about an overbearing D.A. (Walter Huston) who sidelines an innocent man (Phillips Holmes) into prison where he learns the "criminal code" way of doing things. The D.A. eventually becomes the prison warden where he runs into contact with many of the men he sent away including the innocent one who will once again find himself at the wrong place during the wrong time. There's no question this Columbia film was made to cash in on the previous years THE BIG HOUSE but that doesn't mean we get a watered-down copy. Instead director Hawks takes a pretty simple storyline and adds various dimensions simply by showing the stuff in a raw and realistic detail. THE BIG HOUSE is certainly a classic but to me this is the better film of the two. What makes this film work so well are some amazing performances with Huston leading the way. There was no one in Hollywood better for a role like this and God knows that Huston played his fair share of hot-tempered, "my way only" type of characters. He brings a lot of energy to the role and manages to make the character very memorable with a performance that many would copy in the future. Another major plus is the supporting performance of Boris Karloff who pretty much steals the film. Karloff has an uncanny and natural performance that brings a certain rawness as well as a coldness that is a real joy to watch. He's the type of bad guy here you just want to love. Constance Cummings plays Huston's daughter and she's pretty good even though the screenplay offers her very little except to be a love interest for Holmes. As for Holmes, I think he gives a good performance but I'd say he's several notches below both Huston and Karloff. Again, it's a fine performance but at the same time if they had someone on the same level as the other two men the film might have been even better. Hawks makes the film as realistic and as raw as he can, which I guess you could say was a trademark during this early portion of his career. I think the film gets off to a somewhat slow start but picks up at the twenty-minute mark and pretty much sails home. The final thirty-minutes are pure Hawks magic and are the most powerful of these early prison films.