No need to repeat the plot. Prisons are by nature hothouses of repressed emotion. People locked up in unnatural conditions are grist for strong melodrama. When done right, as in Brute Force (1948) or Riot in Cell Block 11 (1953), the results are powerfully memorable. The trouble with this prison film is that it presents the look but none of the feel of hothouse melodrama. Thus, we get actors hitting their marks and speaking their lines, but with one notable exception, without the needed emotion.
For example, the movie's dramatic climax is the anticipated revenge killing of the prison stoolie Ponti. It should be fraught with fear and mixed emotion. Now, Faylen as the stoolie delivers fear in spades and is the exception to the generally colorless performances. However, watch killer Mitchell and how the scene is staged—he's expressionless, minus the satisfaction that avenging his friends should arouse. Moreover, he's filmed at an impersonal distance, suggesting that this is simply one more set-up on a tight shooting schedule. Thus, what should be a very personal act causing our imagination to both leap and recoil as the door closes on the stoolie, fulfills only half of the equation.
On a less mixed level, there's guard honcho Carl Benton Reid. He speaks his lines well enough and is otherwise an excellent actor. But here his character exhibits none of the intense features the stereotype implies. Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with stereotypes. It's really a matter of how well you do them. In Reid's case, his killing at the end again arouses no particular feeling beyond that of one more plot device. At the same time and on a bigger scale, when warden Crawford walks among the yammering convicts in the yard, the protesters look nothing like angry mob of the earlier stock shot, but more like well- fed extras standing around on a set. The point is (without going on) that the movie fails to rise above strictly programmer status, despite some clever dialogue, Frank Faylen, and a civilized dust-up between attorneys Crawford and Winters— and also, a sparkling, but largely wasted, Dorothy Malone.
The problem, as I see it, lies with the director (Levin) who's responsible for staging the scenes, rehearsing the actors, and creating moods while pinpointing emotions. Mitchell, Reid, Doucette, and Ford are all fine actors, capable of rising to an occasion when called upon. However, they're not called upon here. I'm afraid Levin's preference for frothy comedy shows up in this situation where the material is comedy's polar opposite. So, my guess is that he took the film as simply another studio assignment and coasted through.
In passing—I sympathize with Columbia studios and Broderick Crawford. Someone once pointed out that Crawford's probably the worst actor ever to win a top Oscar, and I think that person's right. He's a car with basically one gear—a blustery fast-forward-- and it does get tiresome. As a result, here he is in 1950, suddenly a big name commodity but without the skills to back it up. He's in an embarrassing spot while the studio wonders how best to cash in. Fortunately for both, serial TV is just around the corner. He makes a game try in this film, but unfortunately his pudgy car is just not geared for nuanced emotions. But then, neither is the movie.
7 out of 16 found this helpful