San Quentin (1937)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The acting in this movie is really good.

One of the better early prison movies is SAN QUENTIN directed by Lloyd Bacon for Warner Brothers. A fast paced drama starring Pat O'Brien as(Captain Stephen Jameson), a former military officer who accepts a job at the infamous San Quentin prison and brings with him ideas of military-style-reform. His changes don't go over easy with hardened criminals like 'Sailor Boy' Hanson(Joe Sawyer) and fresh new 'fish' like Joe Kennedy(Humphrey Bogart). An uprising of discontent begins when a bitter guard(Barton MacLane)informs some of the prison population that Jameson is dating Kennedy's attractive sister(Ann Sheridan).Movies like this flourished in America during the Great Depression and it is very odd that it was actually banned in Finland. Rounding out the cast: Joe King, James Robbins, Garry Owen, Veda Ann Borg and William Pawley.

Perhaps not as good as it should have been considering the talent on show? But San Quentin remains an above average drama that achieves its aim. The formula is a familiar one with the genre, in that we get a Governor who wants to do good, he believes in rehabilitation, but can he straighten out the unruly and etc etc? The situation is further complicated because here Governor Jameson {a solid Pat O'Brien} has to deal with the interesting slant of having his lover's Brother {Bogart} serving time under his tenure. The character build up is adequate considering the relatively short running time of the film, and some sequences are well executed and have genuine tension. But the film's ultimate bonus point is the ending, which quite took me by surprise, so much so I was really impressed that they chose to go down this route.This is not merely a film for Bogart completists, it's a well laid out genre piece from a great age of cinema, and, thankfully, it is acted out accordingly to get it a thumbs up recommend. 7/10

"San Quentin" as the name implies is a trim little prison movie (it runs a scant 70 minutes) from Director Lloyd Bacon and Warner Brothers.Ex Army Captain Steve Jameson (Pat O'Brien) takes a job as Captain of the Yard of San Quentin prison replacing acting Captain Druggin (Barton MacLane) whose handling of the prisoners was questioned by Warden Taylor (Joseph King).Before taking up his duties, Jameson meets singer May Kennedy (Ann Sheridan) in a nightclub and the two become attracted to each other. May's brother "Red" Kennedy (Humphrey Bogart) is on the lam and comes to her for money but is arrested at the club in front of Jameson. Guess which prison Red will be sent to.Jameson takes up his duties and vows to instill discipline and respect in the prisoners. Meanwhile Red turns up at the prison in the company of hard timer Sailor Boy Hansen (Joe Sawyer). Hansen plots an escape and asks Red to go along.Meanwhile Jameson begins to make progress in Red's rehabilitation to the point of where Red is refusing to go along with Hansen's escape plan. However the envious Druggin learns from the prison fink (Ernie Adams) of the planned escape. He arranges Hansen's assignment to the road gang along with Red. One night the fink lets it slip that Jameson is "taking advantage" of Red's sister May. Red becomes enraged and decides to go along with Hansen and....................An oddity in the casting has Bogey playing Ann Sheridan's younger 25 year old brother. In fact Bogey was some 15 years older than Sheridan, although to both of their credits, they manage to pull it off. Pat O'Brien was born to play authority figures and does his usual excellent job here. Bogey for once, gets to play a character far removed from his usual one dimensional gangster portrayals, and proves his range as an actor.Others in the cast include Garry Owen as Dopey the preacher, Veda Ann Borg as Helen, Hansen's moll and James Robbins, Marc Lawrence, William Pawley and Al Hill as various convicts.Another of Warners long list of 30s gangster/prison classics.

This is an early Humphrey Bogart film in which he plays a tough young hood about to start his first stretch in prison. At the same time this occurs, a new supervisor of the guards (Pat O'Brien) begins working there--taking the place of the sadistic and brutal Barton MacLane. It seems MacLane was demoted due to the way he treated the prisoners and it was obvious early on that he had it out for O'Brien and would try to get his revenge.At the same time all this is occurring, O'Brien coincidentally meets Bogart's sister (Ann Sheridan). They hit it off great and when O'Brien is later lenient with Bogart, the prisoners begin talking as if this is being done strictly because O'Brien is dating Bogart's sister. Eventually, these rumors make it back to now model prisoner Bogart who vows to break out of jail, as he doesn't want anyone doing him favors (yeah, right--most prisoners would LOVE to try to exploit a situation like this). But, after Bogart breaks out (thanks to help from MacLane), he realizes that O'Brien is a swell guy and honestly wanted to help, so, shot and wounded, he crawls his way back to prison to turn himself in--thus saving O'Brien's reputation as a tough but very fair captain of the guards. Sure.While the script is pretty syrupy in places and tough to believe, the production values are high and the acting and dialog are very good and typical of an A-quality Warner Brothers film. Exciting and fun to watch but also with some faults in plotting as well as an impossible to believe ending.