The Big House (1930)

Too much of everything

Absolutely Fantastic

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The Big House is a 1930 crime-drama film, set in a prison. The story follows several inmates who are all willing to do anything to get out of jail. Whether it is cutting deals, informing on one another, or planning a breakout, each character is pushed to the limits of what a person is willing to do for freedom. As the story progresses, each character must ultimately face the consequences of whatever choice they make, which seems to be the moral of the film. The Big House is surprisingly sympathetic toward the flaws in the penal system and makes no attempt to hide the horrors of prison. The jail in the film is almost medieval at times with a dungeon for solitary confinement, roach-infested, rotten food, and three men to a closet-sized cell. The story is well-written and the acting is great, for the most part.The bad parts of the film mostly consists of the silliness, such as obviously fake punches, the phony tough-guy routine, and the cringe-worthy "Who...Me?" line that is repeated throughout. The comedy aspects of the film also fall flat, such as the cross-eyed stutter routine and the exaggerated wide-eyed stupidity role. These elements drag the film down.Overall, The Big House is worth watching. Honest, enjoyable, and intense, most viewers will have a lot of fun with this film. Despite a few flaws and bad comedy, the amazing prison scenery will keep you drawn to the screen.

It's hard to see how this early Talkie about life Inside could have been much better. In the brief running time (under 90 minutes) it contains Social Commentary on the Prison System, fantastic settings evoking the claustrophobic, debilitating, and mechanized environment. Some of these look frightening and foreboding even today.There are three Lead Performances that are fine and the last third containing the Prison Break is Action Packed. The Film contains some striking visuals and employs its new found voice quite well with interesting Sound Effects (containing virtually no Music). The Dialog evokes effectiveness (the Script won an Oscar and surprisingly was Written by a Woman who did Her Research) and is taught and tough but playfully believable.This is quite a remarkably interesting beginning of a Genre that is still quite popular today. The Prison film is still with us and unfortunately so is the controversy surrounding our exploitation of the incarceration institutions and its reluctant residents.

It was hard for me to believe that this film story was written by a female named Francis Marion who had studied prison life at San Quentin. Chester Morris plays the role as a con named John Morgan and is good friends with Butch Schmidt, (Wallace Berry) who is a hard nose prisoner with lots of power and connections among the other prison mates. Robert Montgomery, (Kent Marlowe) is a man who comes from a rich family, however, Kent is a weak minded guy or you could also call him a stool pigeon. There is a big prison break scene with all kinds of bullets flying all over the place and machine guns blasting away. Even the National Guard is call to action in one of the worst prison breaks I have ever seen. This is a great film with great actors and an outstanding Classic Film from 1930.

(Some Spoilers) Brutal prison drama that ends in a storm of fire and bullets with a jail break that turns the state penitentiary into a free-fire zone. Young Kent Marlow, Robert Montgomery, is given ten years for a New Years Day car accident that killed a pedestrian. Kent is put in a cell with two hardened and career convicts murderer and hold-up artist Butch "Machine Gun" Schmidt, Wallace Berry, and professional forger and stick-up man Joe Morgan, Chester Morris. Not being able to take prison life Kent is willing to do anything to get out even rat on his fellow convicts in order to get an early parole. Getting under the wings of prison rat-fink Oliver, Fletcher Norton, Kent learns the ropes and about selling out his friends by making friends with convicts like Butch and Morgan then winning over their confidence getting the goods on them; then running to Warden James Adams, Lewis Stone, and ratting, or selling, them out to get his early out. It seems that Kent hasn't learned that a rat has no friends on either side of the prison gate and will learn that hard lesson when he pulls off his biggest sell-out of all by not only getting the news to the warden Adams about a Thanksgiving noon prison break. Kent gets his very honest and ethical cell-mate Joe Morgan to take the blame for the break-out in him ratting out his friends like Butch who engineer the breakout. Morgan and Butch are by far more sympathetic then Kent by being straight forward and on the level. Where Kent is an opportunist who's life of luxury, before his car accident that landed him in the clink, and high status on the outside made him in a way looked down on those he was incarcerated with. Both Butch and Morgan end up in the hole, solitary confinement, Butch for starting a food riot in the prison mess hall and Morgan for having a shiv, or knife, in his cell that Kent planted on him. Morgan later escaping from prison on the meat wagon, the autopsy truck, has a new life on the outside and even meets and falls in love with Kent's sister Anne, Leila Hyams. At first being accepted by Anne, and Kent's, family Morgan is caught before he can get out of the country and ends up back in the pen, with seven more years added on to his sentence. Back behind bars Morgan is determined to go straight and distanced himself not from his friends in the pen but in what they plan to do in breaking out of prison and it's that non-involvement on Morgans part that leads to the disastrous prison beak-out at the end of the movie. It was Kent who gave the news of the breakout to Warden Adams but it was Morgan who ended up getting blamed for it which cost the lives of over 50 prisoners and guards. Stomach crunching action as the screen lights up with not only small and heavy arms fire but also an assault on the revolting convicts fortress, the prisoners quarters, with an armored unit of early combat ready tanks. Powerful performances all around that has some of the most unforgettable characters ever put in an American Prison flick who have been copied in scores of prison movies over the years but have never been equaled.