John Ford directs this prison comedy that hasn't held up all that well. Physically, I mean (mostly). A lot of it seems to have been damaged, which leaves the print Fox has included in their Ford set very choppy and sometimes hard to follow. That's not its only problem, though. I liked a lot of it, but it's pretty uneven and, well, you know Ford and comedy. Comedy was not his best area of focus, and the comedy here, while not his worst work, is kind of lame. The film is most famous for being Humphrey Bogart's feature length debut - he was only 31! I've never seen the guy so young (younger than I am!). It's also the only film in which Bogart co-starred with Spencer Tracy (Bogie would sign with Warner Brothers soon afterward, while Tracy stayed at Fox). Tracy and his buddy Warren Hymer are two goofy criminals who are in and out of prison. They meet up with Bogie, a rich boy who accidentally killed a man in a fight. He's been able to keep his prison term away from his family. Bogie has fallen in love with Claire Luce (who is really gorgeous), a prisoner in the women's prison next door. When Bogart gets released, Luce's former partner in crime threatens to reveal his crime, and Tracy and Hymer escape to help him out. If this film were more focused, it could have been pretty good. As it is, it's not exactly bad, just weak.
Review of Up the River
