User Reviews

Even after 77 years, The Big House is still the grand daddy of all prison films. Though films like Shawshank Redemption and a personal favorite of mine, Brubaker, with no Code restrictions can be a lot more graphic, still The Big House will shock as well as entertain.

Wallace Beery got a Best Actor nomination for being hardened killer Butch Schmidt who's a lifer in the state penitentiary. He and cell mate Chester Morris have a new man in their little abode in the person of a young Robert Montgomery.

Montgomery's only a kid, but he's done a man size crime of manslaughter in a vehicular homicide where he was no doubt good and sloshed on prohibition rotgut. Montgomery is a weakling in a place where that's not a good thing.

All the clichés about prison films really do start here, culminating in the final crash-out where a whole lot of people get themselves killed. It's a scene well staged, very similar to the breakout in Brute Force.

As the story progresses you'll see plot elements from Brute Force and from Warner Brothers Each Dawn I Die. The cast does a marvelous job and that also includes Lewis Stone as a Judge Hardy like warden.

If you like prison films, this one's the grand daddy of them all.

Remember when Caged was such a big deal, shocking the censors and lifting the lid on what really goes on inside a women's prison? Twenty years earlier, and without the constraints of the Hays Code, there was The Big House, a gritty drama lifting the lid on what goes on inside a men's prison. Robert Montgomery is convicted and sent to an overcrowded prison after a drunk driving incident. His cellmates are hardened criminals Wallace Beery and Chester Morris, no match for the innocent newcomer. The latter two have a very interesting dynamic: Wallace is the biggest, baddest criminal on the block, and everyone's afraid to cross him, yet he backs down like a puppy whenever Chester scolds him. It's 1930, and the lack of censors can only show so much, but if you want to, you can definitely interpret their relationship as more than just cellmates.

I enjoyed The Big House as well, since I love seeing Robert Montgomery's curly hair flopping in his face as his eyes light up with liquid fire. There's a lot more to the movie than just eye candy, though, including episodes of solitary confinement, riots, convict gangs, and escape attempts. If you like this oldie, check out Public Hero Number 1 next. It's another great prison drama starring Chester Morris, and the warden is once again Lewis Stone!

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.

I saw "The Big House" last night as part of Turner Classic Movies' tribute to Frances Marion, the great female screenwriter. Marion became the first woman to win an Academy Award for screenwriting for her work on this film.

"The Big House" is a fascinating character study, showing how three very different men deal with being imprisoned. Butch (Wallace Beery) lords over all of the men with a knife and threats of violence. John Morgan (Chester Morris) is smart enough to befriend Butch and his crew, but keeps his own set of values. Newcomer Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) is terrified of prison and eventually turns "rat" in hopes of being released.

The film also infers that the public at large is partly to blame for the discontent (and eventual unrest) within the prison: at one moment, the head warden says something to the effect of the public wanting to put criminals in prison, but not wanting to spend the money to build more prisons to accommodate them. This is issue is still debated to this day.

I also found the portrayal of the lone female character, Anne Marlowe (Kent's sister, played by Leila Hyams), very refreshing and unexpected. Instead of the crying, simpering type we might expect in a prison movie, we are given a smart and compassionate woman who owns her own business.

All of the actors gave excellent, realistic performances and Frances Marion's screenplay was well-deserving of the accolades it received. The insight and sensitivity that she used to write about these characters and this place surpasses most of the scripts written by men on the same subject.

Kent (Robert Montgomery) arrives in prison and is put in a cell with Butch (Wallace Beery) and Morgan (Chester Morris), a couple of hardened criminals who run the place. Kent is warned by them to choose his friends wisely. He doesn't.

This is a strange film in that it starts out as Kent's story but gradually turns into Morgan's story. The film moves at a good pace climaxing in the attempted escape where old pals Butch and Morgan have a final confrontation. Robert Montgomery is a wimp/coward/creep in this film while Wallace Beery is the thug.

It's an enjoyable film with a touch of romance thrown in by the storyline involving Anne (Leila Hyams) and Morgan. Morgan escapes and hangs out with Anne and her family. She is Kent's sister. There are tense moments involving him and the policeman that finally re-arrests him. Morgan maintains a smart outlook throughout the film and goes out of his way to protect Kent even though Morgan knows what a traitor Kent has been. Shagging his sister must only increase his inner torment as to what he should do. It all works out nicely in the end!

The archetype prison break picture may show it's age but it has some decent action scenes, good performances and an oppressive and intimidating setting that enables it to retain a creaky toughness.

Imprisoned after being convicted of a drunk driving, death resulting charge privileged Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) finds himself in an inhuman environment of an overcrowded prison. There he meets the likes of hardened criminals Machine Gun Schmidt (Wally Beery) and cell mate John Morgan (Chester Morris) who attempts to teach him the ropes. Marlowe in turn sets up Morgan causing him to be denied parole. Morgan is forced to go over the wall but is recaptured and returned just in time to participate in a major break out.

Some of the Big House is downright preposterous with stilted dialog and lame brain logic but Beery and Morris come across well as pretty tough mugs and Montgomery's Marlowe is a suitably craven rat. There's a bravura prison riot at the tail end of the film that is well edited and suspenseful pitting Beery against the warden played by Lewis Stone who refuses to meet inmate demands and stoically responds to the threat of hostage sacrifice by calling in tanks. In its own way and especially in its time The Big House is as uncompromisingly tough as the warden.

One of the earliest prison break movies and a Best Picture nominee from the 1929-30 award year at the Academy Awards.

"The Big House" suffers from lack of focus. Wallace Beery, as a hardened inmate, received the Best Actor Oscar nomination, but the film is really much more about Robert Montgomery, newly incarcerated and navigating the ins and outs of prison life, until it's no longer about him and is instead about Chester Morris, who escapes and falls in love with Montgomery's sister before being captured and sent back to the slammer. The film's money shot is a big shoot out at the end, during which all of the principal characters die. This grim, gritty stuff distinguishes the film as pre-Code, and it's the movie's pre-Code status that allows it to get away with the moral ambiguity in not really having good guys and bad guys and making the audience unsure of who it's supposed to be rooting for.

Being an early sound film, "The Big House" is almost by definition uneven, since filmmakers were trying to figure out what movies should look and sound like with the addition of the new medium. But many clearly thought Douglas Shearer, brother of Norma and head of the MGM sound department at the time, handled sound well, as this film has the distinction of being the very first winner of the Sound Recording Oscar. Workhorse screenwriter Frances Marion also won an Oscar for Best Writing, in a year that saw her go up against the formidable competition of "All Quiet on the Western Front" no less.

Grade: B

THE BIG HOUSE - prison of no hope - the last terminal for lost souls. Only the strong survive; the weak crack or are corrupted. As the warden shrewdly tells a new arrival, the place won't make you go yellow, but it you already are yellow it'll bring it out.

MGM was the only studio in Hollywood which would have let a female write the script for such a strong story. But in Frances Marion they not only had the most celebrated screenwriter in the industry, but also a person uniquely qualified to write about any situation. She headed off to California's notorious San Quentin Prison to observe the conditions & learn the lingo. Cheerfully deflecting the jibes & taunts of guards & prisoners alike, she reminded them that after being a frontline correspondent in the Great War there were few situations she couldn't handle.

The result is a wonderful film, tough, hard-bitten & stark. MGM did itself proud by supplying a terrific cast and production values. The scene where belligerent Wallace Beery refuses to eat the commissary slop remains a classic.

Chester Morris does a fine job as a resourceful crook who is actually helped by his time in prison, reformed against his will. This excellent actor is too often ignored when the histories of 1930's cinema are written. Wallace Beery, as murderous Butch, is absolutely unforgettable. Marion wrote the part with him in mind & it is difficult to imagine anyone else playing it. Lovable & dangerous in equal measure, he steals every scene he's in. THE BIG HOUSE would set Beery firmly on the road to major talkie stardom.

Robert Montgomery, on the cusp of his own salad days as a sophisticated, romantic leading man, here plays quite a different role. As a weak, cowardly stool pigeon, he's cast very much against type. It would be 1937's NIGHT MUST FALL before he received another such finely-nuanced role.

Lewis Stone is very effective in the small role as the tough-as-nails warden. Beautiful Leila Hyams is well-cast as Mongomery's spunky sister. George F. Marion & DeWitt Jennings are both memorable as elderly security guards. Champion stutterer Roscoe Ates provides a few moments of much needed comic relief.

Karl Dane is easily spotted as a hulking convict in several scenes, but he is curiously mute. Doubtless, his thick Danish accent was already giving the Studio trouble. Even though he had been an important comic star in silent pictures, he was quickly relegated to talkie bit parts. He was eventually further reduced to selling hot dogs from a cart outside the MGM front gates. This was the final indignity. He committed suicide in 1934.

Preview audiences were curiously cool to THE BIG HOUSE, until MGM executive Irving Thalberg figured out that female viewers didn't like con Chester Morris romancing another prisoner's wife. Thalberg instructed Marion to rewrite a few scenes and refilming made it clear that Leila Hyams was Robert Montgomery's sister, not his spouse. This pleased the patrons and the movie was a big hit.

I suspect The Big House helped birth many of the conventions, staples and slang terms which have come to define prison films. Many of the classic elements are here but they manage to feel fresh instead of coming off as worn out clichés.

The big impact this film had for me was that it made me a fan of two of its main stars, Robert Montgomery and Wallace Beery. The Big House made Beery a star, establishing his loveable lug persona and making him one of the biggest stars of the early 30's and one of the most unconventional stars in Hollywood history. Beery has a contradictory screen persona as seen here as his role of Butch; a thuggish brute one minute but as gentle as a puppy the next. However, I feel Robert Montgomery is the one who steals the show, even If he doesn't have as much screen time as Beery and Chester Morris. Montgomery strikes me as the most interesting character in the film, as a privileged pretty boy convicted of manslaughter while drunk driving; he appears to be barely ready for adulthood, let alone ready for serving 10 years in prison. Throughout the entire film, you can tell he's completely out of his element with his trembling manner and naive wide-eyed stare. Unlike the rest of the prisoners, he is not a criminal in the common sense, displaying how it's a scary possibility for any regular person to end up in prison regards of their background or social standing.

Being an early talkie, The Big House features many long static camera shots, muffled sound and no background music. However, I feel these technical limitations are one of the film's greatest assets as they heighten the claustrophobia of the cells and other confined areas of the prison. If The Big House was made or remade later in the sound era with more advanced cinematography and clearer sound and a music score, it would not be as effective. The sound design itself is impressive, with the sound effects of whistles, prisoners marching or turning their plates in perfect unison in the mess hall showcase the routine nature of prison life and its mundanity.

The film's screenwriter, Frances Marion interviewed actual prisoners and prison personnel when writing The Big House, making the film an as authentic as possible look at the American prison system in 1930. Director George W. Hill apparently threatened to fire anyone caught acting and forbade the use of makeup in the film. The sets don't look like Hollywood sets and this is not a romanticized look at prison such as movies like Ladies They Talk About. At the beginning of the film the prison's warden (Lewis Stone), delivers a monologue about the general public wanting criminals locked behind bars but don't care about their treatment or rehabilitation once in prison. Here the prisoners have nothing to do all day in the overcrowded prison but grow animosity towards the guards and plot on how they are going to make their escape. Shortly after watching The Big House, I heard a discussion on the radio regarding the deteriorating conditions of prisons in the UK in 2014 and a caller phoned in and mirrored the exact points Lewis Stone made in The Big House; 80 years later and nothing has changed.

There were prison and gangster films during the silent era. "The Godless Girl" and "Alias Jimmy Valentine" are examples of such films before sound came along. However, sound gave such films an added dimension. "The Big House" is one of the earliest and best examples of the prison film during the sound era. It allows the din of human beings living on top of one another, the prison riot, and the armed escape attempt and stand-off to come to life.

Add to this great performances by Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, and Robert Montgomery as inmates with Lewis Stone playing in support as the warden who wants to reform the men but is faced with the constraints of a low budget, and you have a great film. Seeing that stiff performances and static cameras were the norm in sound films just the year before in 1929, the technical accomplishments in this film coupled with its natural performances make it way ahead of its time for a 1930 film. The film did win the first academy award for sound, but it is an often forgotten cinema gem.

It has one really good idea, not that well explored up to that time in prison films - what happens when an average Joe, maybe a bit of a moral weakling, winds up in prison with hardened criminals? This is what happens to Kent (Robert Montgomery) when he is convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sent to prison. You see the whole dehumanizing process of an inmate in the prison intake process.

Beery, as brainless brutal Butch, really lucked out getting this part. It was slated for Lon Chaney, but his cancer prevented him from taking the part. As a result, Beery's career took off. The gray character here is Morgan (Chester Morris). He's a tough guy who is scheduled to be paroled soon, but when he is set up to take a fall and that parole is cancelled, he escapes in an inventive but morbid way.

And what does he do? Rather than hit the road for a place where he is unknown, he goes to see Kent's sister (Leila Hyams) because he had a crush on her from the moment he saw her picture in Kent's possession???? OK, so maybe Butch is not the dumb one after all. MGM just had to find a way to insert romance into everything!

But I'd still recommend it as one of the first sound prison films with good performances by a fine cast.

A young Robert Montgomery initially looks as if he will be the focal point of this superior prison drama from MGM, but we soon discover that he's a sneaky little weasel, and the film's attention is hijacked by his cellmate, the square-jawed robber Chester Morris. Third resident of their toilet cubicle-sized cell is 'Machine Gun' Butch, a violent but childlike killer played with broad strokes by Wallace Beery. Plenty of male posturing, plot twists and drama in this fast-moving, entertaining popcorn flick.

Warner Bros. did these prison dramas better -- the prison here seems a bit too clean and quiet, the convicts too polite and well-pressed to be believable. Nothing really seems at stake here, despite the contrivances of plot. The film lacks noise, grit, tension, though it is fast-moving, competently directed and decently acted.

Wallace Beery does his usual gruff routine, though he doesn't dominate the proceedings as one might expect him to. Neither does Robert Montgomery, which is usual with this curiously unlikeable actor. He was good-looking enough and always gave a good and thoughtful performance. And yet he never makes a strong impression, coming across like a lightweight despite his intelligence and skill.

The revelation to me was Chester Morris, a popular actor of the '30s and '40s who is now virtually forgotten. With his strong jaw and ax blade profile, he looks just like the Dick Tracy of the comic strips. Here he gives a relaxed performance and shows great charm, warmth and humor, all with a certain intriguing restraint. In fact he is extremely handsome, sexy and appealing and in a very distinctive way -- something about his brow and nose suggest Joaquin Phoenix, kind but feral too. Check him out.

(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.

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.

This is one of the first 1930s prison films that set the stage for all later films of that genre. You always had the softie (Robert Montgomery in this case) entering prison, and being befriended by the lifer (Chester Morris). Then there is always the antagonist of the lifer (in this case Wallace Beery) - perfectly cast, by the way. This triangle plays out through the inevitable prison riot that we all know is gong to take place. What we do not know, however, is how the protagonist, Morris, will overcome the bad cards dealt to him by Montgomery, and how he will handle the events of the prison riot. Worth viewing, despite the dated aspects of the film.

Chester Morris and Leila Hyams made an attractive, charming and sympathetic couple separated by big walls in this early prison melodrama. Tough convict Wallace Beery and stern warden Lewis Stone engage the audience as well. Even the Renault FT light tanks are kind of cute in the stirring final scene. A fine script by industrious Francis Marion, directed by her talented husband George W. Hill, brought considerable Academy Award attention to this progenitor of the prison genre. Production chief Irving Thalberg made good decisions and no moral offense was given to anyone by the well-crafted "true Hollywood ending."

As one of the early talkies, with established/upcoming stars and an 'in-the-news' storyline, I can see why this might have been groundbreaking at the time. However, time has not been good to it. The acting is over the top - just out of the silent screen era. The story is crap. Watch only if you're an oldies-buff