Numbered Men (1930)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

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

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is the story of a group of men in an honors unit at the local prison. Because these men have earned the warden's trust, they are able to work in the community and have special privileges. Unfortunately, somehow a complete thug was admitted to the honors unit and threatens to ruin the program for everyone. And, when this bad egg escapes, the rest of the inmates in the program help track down the guy and dispense justice. In the midst of all this is a story about a guy who was framed--framed by the same guy who just escaped.Have you ever seen a film that is pretty good only to have an ending so preposterous and stupid that it made you wish you hadn't wasted your time? That's exactly my experience with "Numbered Men". The plot isn't bad at all and there are some nice performances--but the ending was just so dumb it pretty much sours me on the film. It earns a 4 simply because the first 90% of the film is decent and probably would have earned a 6.

The acting by the lead characters is amateurish at best.The film discusses the honor system among the road gang in jail. It's as if there is an advantage to doing road work. Remember, "I Am a Member of A Chain Gang," that got to the real gritty about road or chain work in prisons. This picture actually thinks it's an honor to achieve such a task.As the head of the road workers, Conrad Nagel acts more like he is a college professor; the guy who is known as the kid is more like a college preppy. When you hear the latter speak, you know that the only thing he is guilty of is appearing in this corny film.Then there is Mary, who works on a farm near the road gang. She does this so that she can be near the kid. She falls for the claims of the guy who framed the kid who tells her that he can help her guy escape.There is the typical member of the gang who sounds like he came out of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. He really did a great imitation of Leo Gorcey of the Our Gang Group.Nagel takes the fall for the kind. That doesn't surprise one. He may have taken the fall for the entire 75 minutes of this junior high school type production.

The opening credits, listing the jail characters only by their numbers, and an opening title card, grandly proclaiming how convicts give up the right to a name, promise a grim drama of men imprisoned, and railing against their fate. The director -- Mervyn LeRoy, who would later helm I am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang -- also promises something serious, and perhaps grim. Instead, however, what is delivered is entertaining for all the wrong reasons, as, when the script does not dwell on all the long-standing prison clichés, it fixes on some of the most absurd plotting ever seen in a prison movie.The story features Conrad Nagel as a good-hearted ex-counterfeiter who takes a callow new inmate under his wing, and who, later, helps out the warden when a really nasty convict escapes by generating a prison riot. Nagel's performance is fine, but gets lost in the plot silliness, typified by a prison "honor system" where the warden shows a lack of concern about security that rivals Col. Klink. Other moments of plot outrageousness (mostly involving the lengths Conrad Nagel will go to sacrifice himself for the somewhat dimwitted juvenile hero) destroy any sort of believability, but add a sort of Ed Wood zaniness to the proceedings, particularly in the movie's final reel. LeRoy is a good enough director that the action in this film does not drag, so, if you like "so bad its good cinema", you will probably like this.

If only prison was like this. The "numbered men" seem mostly to sit around in the lounge of privilege, play games, smoke and josh each other like they are just fellas at the fire house waiting for an alarm. The object is to get on the road gang where they will be on "the honor system". Those words are always spoken with quotes, by the way, by any of the actors. A special treat after work is to pile into the old truck like it's a hayride and visit a farm for home-made doughnuts. Very early talkie and shows the seams of that transition. Bernice Claire has a corn-fed niceness with a touch of vinegar that is appealing.The rest of the cast does not fare well. From a play and not much removed from a stage. Mervyn LeRoy directed. This is where so many prison picture clichés come from, it fun to ring the bell on them, although I don't remember another big house drama with doughnuts.