User Reviews

I would say it is THE best except for my fondness for "Caged." This is a brilliant movie, as shocking as Hawks's "Scarface," released a year later and far better known.

Walter Huston is a district attorney when we met him. Throughout, he is given to the one word, catchall statement or response "Yeah." Huston has rarely if ever been better -- and he was one of the greats of Hollywood history.

Phillips Holmes is excellent as a young man he sends to prison. He is innocent in all senses before he gets there. But he quickly leans the code of the title.

Constance Cummins isn't given much as Huston's daughter but she is appealing. However, Boris Karloff gives one of his very finest performances as a tough but decent prisoner. Of course, of course he is fine in "Frankenstein." And he is wildly brilliant in "Lured" many years later. Here he gives a solid, unadorned, moving performance.

Clark Marshall, a name I do not recognize, is also fine. He plays a sniveling, conniving inmate. And DeWitt Jennings is shocking as a brutal guard.

Amazingly, I had never seen this movie before tonight. It's bone I will want to see again; and I urge you to see it, too.

The lessons unlearned belong to Walter Huston's character, Mark Brady, but I'll get to that later.

Philip Holmes plays Robert Graham, a young man of twenty who gets into an altercation in a dance hall and ends up killing the other guy, someone he's never even met before. D.A. Mark Brady is not a man without compassion. He even states how, were he the defense attorney, he would get the boy off without serving a day. As a result, he sends him up for manslaughter rather than murder. However, that is still ten years, and six years into the sentence Graham is a man who is losing hope and his sanity.

In an odd twist of fate D.A. Mark Brady becomes warden of the prison, a place inhabited by many of the men he helped convict. The prison doctor comes to Brady with a request - let Graham be Brady's private driver for awhile, to get him out of the prison factory. Brady agrees. A few short months later and Graham is beginning to have a new lease in life. Plus, there is a complication - he is falling in love with Brady's daughter. However, an event soon occurs at the prison that threatens Graham's hope for a better future.

As for the lessons unlearned, the one quirky thing about this film is how D.A. turned prison warden Brady keeps saying "you've go to take things how they break", never realizing that in many cases - exhibit A being the case of inmate Robert Graham - Brady is in total control of how things break, in particular the fact that Robert Graham, a basically square kid, is an inmate in the first place. However, at least Brady is not a hypocrite, since he seems to be willing to take the good with the bad in his own life as well. A pretty complex character for an early 30's film.

Of course all classic movie fans are familiar with Walter Huston and his many abilities and roles. However, most people will not have heard of Philip Holmes. Partly this is because his early successes in film did not lead to better things as the 1930's progressed, and the rest of the reason is that many of his early successes occurred at Paramount, whose early films have been largely unseen for decades. This is worth checking out. The screenplay was nominated for an Oscar, and the performances are quite good.

Twenty year-old Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) accidentally kills another man in a drunken brawl. District Attorney Mark Brady (Walter Huston) has to prosecute the young man, despite feeling sympathetic towards him. Graham is convicted to ten years in the state penitentiary. Six years later, D.A. Brady has been appointed warden of the prison and is appalled at what prison life has done to Graham. With help from his daughter (Constance Cummings), who falls in love with Graham, Brady gets the young man back on the right track. But all of it may come to naught when another prisoner is murdered and Graham is forced to choose between snitching and keeping quiet.

Phillips Holmes is not a name that most people, including myself, are familiar with. He retired from acting in 1938 and died in a mid-air collision in Canada four years later. This is probably his most well-known role and that's not saying much since this is hardly a well-known film. But he does a terrific job. Expectedly good performance from Walter Huston, arguably Hollywood's best actor in the early talkies. Also features Boris Karloff in one of his best pre-Frankenstein roles as a vengeful inmate who hates squealers.

Great early Howard Hawks crime drama. Nice Hawksian banter and overlapping dialogue, particularly in the early scenes with reporters. Remade twice, as Penitentiary in 1938 and Convicted in 1950. A must-see for fans of Hawks, Huston, and Karloff.

"The Criminal Code" is centered around the theme "An Eye for An Eye." This theme is the reason that young Robert Graham is sent to prison, the reason why the prisoners object to the D.A. becoming the Warden of the prison, and the reason why Graham is sent to "the hole" near the end of the film. For 1931, it was one of the first critical looks at this theme. It raises certain questions as to the morals of the law, and the Criminal Code versus the Prisoners Code. Phillips Holmes gives a good enough performance as Robert Graham, and Boris Karloff came off well as the inmate with a bone to pick (months before becoming Frankenstein), but the performance that I liked the most was Walter Huston, who played the D.A.-turned-prison-warden. Huston's character was a wily one, who said "Yeah" and "Yeah?" about a hundred times throughout the film.

Absolutely loved the idea for the story, which sounded suspenseful and intriguing. Howard Hawks did a lot of fine films, especially in screwball comedy and westerns. Walter Huston was a great actor, my first exposure to him being in Rene Clair's 'And Then There Were None' but my favourite performance of his is in 'Dodsworth'. Also have always liked Boris Karloff a lot since the 'Frankenstein' films and there are some fine prison films, including the film that this has been compared to 'The Big House'.

'The Criminal Code' on the whole was a good film, it was intriguing, suspenseful, well made and acted. Part of me did feel though that it could have been even better than it was with not everything coming off completely successfully, this did have potential to be a great film considering what it was seen for by me but ended up being a strong good one. Which is good enough, one can say.

Plenty of good things here in 'The Criminal Code' here. The two big pluses being the performances of Huston and Karloff. Huston has such a powerful presence and plays his part with dignity and eloquence. Karloff mesmerises even more, not many actors achieve a mix of menacing and moving and not only balance them beautifully but excel at each individually but Karloff does this and one of the best at the time at this. Hawks directs slickly and the film is stylishly and atmospherically made.

Script flows very well, makes one think and has tension on the most part. The story gets bogged down a little at times, but it often intrigues, the more menacing moments are suspenseful and it all feels plausible. Nicely scored too.

Not much wrong here actually. Phillips Holmes and Constance Cummings don't fare as well as Huston and Karloff. Cummings does fare better as she is charming and touching, her problem is that she doesn't have a lot to work with. Holmes however struck me as rather bland.

Likewise with the central romance, which is fairly underdeveloped and can tend to slow the film down.

Drawbacks aside, on the whole as said this was to me a good film. 7/10

Sometimes you seem to get into a position where you have to take your medicine for an even unintended actions. That is what happens to poor 20-year-old Bob Graham, and within 10 minutes into the movie, he's in the infinite world of prison, where he must learn yet another set of codes of the criminal sort. Creepy Ned Galloway (Boris Karloff just before his "Frankenstein" turn) takes a rather minor (at least early on) role and fills it with gusto (maybe its that creepy little haircut) in a claustrophobic cell. Later, he does the right thing for rehabilitated and soon-to-be-paroled (maybe) Graham, who does not violate the titular Criminal Code (since he's still a con).

James Whale wanted Karloff for his monster after seeing Boris in this flick, and after you see it, you'll know why.

BTW, who doesn't love a good prison movie yarn, and with Karloff in it, it rates a "9."

Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) accidentally kills a man and is imprisoned for manslaughter. Some years later, the district attorney who - applying the criminal code verbatim - had got him into jail (Walter Huston) becomes prison warden and tries to rehabilitate him. That turns out to be hard because Graham has meanwhile learned another kind of criminal code: the values and standards that govern the behaviour of the prisoners. This is a well-intentioned film that is critical of the way the US prison system was run. It tells a good story and manages to generate a lot of suspense. The pacing is good, too - the thing gets never dull. There is even a bit of a romance, though this plays a rather minor role. I found the quality of the acting somewhat mixed. Huston, Holmes and Boris Karloff (who plays another prisoner) are doing very well, Constance Cummings (Huston's daughter and Holmes love interest) less so: At least in some scenes, she appeared rather wooden and stiff. What I found disappointing is the quality of the dialogue. Huston's default answer to almost anything he is told seems to be 'oh yeah?!' (a few years later - in 'It Happened One Night', 1934 - Clark Gable would make fun of dialogues that consisted of nothing but 'oh yeah?!'s). Whoever wrote the dialogues for 'The Criminal Code' did this otherwise good film no service.

I was with this movie until the end. A hard look at the ironic effect the criminal justice system can have on men caught up in it through happenstance, it suddenly gives our characters an easy way out instead of taking the story to the darker places it probably needed to go. Up until those final minutes, Hawks' The Criminal Code was a solidly told tale, but it simply cannot follow through on the promise of its first 90 minutes.

Walter Huston plays Mark Brady, the district attorney in an unspecified city, who is tasked with the job of prosecuting Phillips Holmes' Robert Graham, a young man new to town who had a bit too much (illegal) gin at a nightclub and killed a man pawing his date by hitting him over the head with a water bottle. Brady talks to his assistant about how, if he were the boy's defense, he could get it so that the boy wouldn't serve a day I prison, but as district attorney he fights as hard as he can to get as punitive a sentence as possible which ends up being ten years.

Six years go by. Graham has whittled away the years working in one of the jail's manufacturing plants, and Brady has gone on to run unsuccessfully as governor of the state. Brady takes the job as prison warden at Graham's prison in a post electoral loss move. He's there to do his best in the job, to mete out justice where he can. He's a good public servant, and he's going to do his best to run the prison as best he can. All of this takes about half an hour to set up, and it's a quality thirty minutes of character-based storytelling that gets all of our pieces together.

Brady makes an impression on the inmate population by breaking up their unified protest of his presence (having put about a thousand of the inmates there himself, according to one estimate) by simply walking through the population unarmed and unguarded in the yard. His machismo impresses them into silence. Shortly afterwards, Graham collapses from the fumes, heat, and pressure of his job, and the prison doctor recommends a change of work to something easier. Brady, having had some level of sympathy for Graham ever since his district attorney days, allows Graham to enter his household as a servant, attending his car and Brady's daughter, Mary.

Graham, being a good guy, falls for Mary and Mary falls for him, but the romance is never central or overwrought. It's balanced just right so that we can see and understand the budding feelings without it entering melodrama. So much of the movie is handled so well, I say.

The plot that ends up developing is around a squealing inmate who accidentally gave away the game on an escape attempt that involved Graham's cellmate, leading to the cellmate getting shot. Not only did this stool pigeon foul up an escape, he got an inmate killed. He now has a target on his back, and Brady knows it. Brady keeps him in his office for protection, and we get an incredibly great sequence where Graham's other cellmate, Galloway (played really well by Boris Karloff), who is also a servant in the warden's quarters, sneaks into Brady's office in the middle of a prison wide jeer session, and kills the stool pigeon. Scored only with the sound of a thousand men calling out at once over and over again, it's a tense sequence that would have made Hitchcock proud.

I was ready to love this movie in the end, but then the ending started and I could feel my enthusiasm waning instantly. There are a complex set of pieces to put in place involving Graham in solitary confinement because he won't give up the killer, Galloway trying to get down to solitary to kill the captain of the guard with whom he has a personal grudge before, he thinks, Graham will do it himself, a knife hidden in Graham's food, and a pistol. As this was all rolling out, I just knew where it was going to end.

The movie has an almost literary feel (not entirely unsurprising considering it was adapted from a play) where so much gets a double meaning, and that starts with the film's title. At the beginning, it's emphasized that Brady calls the Criminal Code of the city his Bible, but by the end the criminal code is the code by which criminals in prison live by, dictating Graham's silence even though he knows that Galloway killed the stool pigeon. There are repeated lines from the beginning of the movie that get repeated in completely oppositional context in the later parts of the movie. This is really strong stuff that never gets highlighted. You need to pay attention to pick it all up, but it's there. What the movie is doing is showing the deleterious effects of over-enthusiastic sentencing on men and how the pursuit of justice, even nobly done, can go too far to destroy people. Graham is the center of all this, and he's caught between loyalties, to the law and to his comrades in prison, and then the movie gives him an out.

Galloway goes down, takes a guard's gun, hides Graham's knife in his coat, and, after a quick standoff, surrenders himself to the captain of the guard only to take him prisoner and then admit to the warden that he killed the stool pigeon. Well, there goes Graham's moral quandary, saved by Galloway's tangential vengeance. The pieces that go into Galloway getting his vengeance and saving Graham's hide are exceptionally well made, though. Galloway is introduced early, as well as his antipathy against the captain of the guard. The knife, the solitary confinement, and all of the pieces coming together work exceptionally well, but they undermine the movie's central point completely, undercutting a serious look at the contemporary prison system that may have no easy answers and giving us an easy dramatic out for the audience to hang onto. I wonder if this is a result of the nascent Hays Codes, which weren't really enforced vociferously until 1934, but this ending just doesn't fit.

And that's unfortunate. The movie that precedes that ending is the work of something perhaps special, definitely solid. The ending kind of ruins it, but only kind of. The great murder scene is still there. The solid character work throughout is still there. The good performances from everyone involved (especially Boris Karloff) remain. It just doesn't come to the right place in the end.

In The Criminal Code the bywords of District Attorney Walter Huston is that where there is a crime, someone has to pay. Or if you can't do the time, don't do the crime as a later philosopher named Tony Baretta opined. And it's Huston's job to set the price when he prosecutes.

But Huston recognizes that young Phillips Holmes with a proper criminal defense attorney might do little time or even be acquitted. He smashed some poor guy's head in with a full bottle of bootleg hooch when he thought he was going for a gun. Still Holmes is convicted and he gets a ten year sentence.

Fast forward several years and Huston is no longer the District Attorney, he's now the warden of the prison that Holmes is incarcerated. Huston gives Holmes a chance and he makes him a trustee. Huston's daughter Constance Cummings even falls for Holmes.

But they have a different code among the convicts in prison and the biggest commandment is thou shalt not rat. When Boris Karloff does a particular rat in Holmes almost takes the fall for it because of that code.

The leads do a fine job in this, but the performances of Boris Karloff as the hardened convict and Clark Marshall as his victim really do stand out in The Criminal Code. Marshall especially, you can really feel his fear in his performance.

Beginning originally as a Broadway play, The Criminal Code was remade twice by Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn not being one to let a good property go to waste. The two remakes are Penitentiary with Walter Connolly and John Howard and Convicted with Broderick Crawford and Glenn Ford.

The film holds up very well because the themes are eternal. Criminals have to pay the price when caught and rats are just as unpopular as ever.

I have always held Walter Huston in high esteem as an actor who almost always communicated a believable character, whenever he played one in films of the 1930s. Rain and The Treasure of Sierra Madre are two of his finest roles. In this film, he plays a warden who would have preferred to have won the governor's race, but lost. Disappointed, he puts all of his efforts into trying to make the Big House a useful part of society to reform the inmates he has been given to administer. Of course, there are complications, and the inevitable Hollywood formula uprisings, but Huston rises above all the turmoil and projects a reasonable response to the actions of the inmates. Well worth viewing.

Walter Huston is in some great in motion pictures from the early 30s. This however is from the very, very early 30s and isn't one of them. Although he's the only decent actor in this, compared with his outstanding performances just a year later, such as in 'American Madness' or 'Rain,' it's like seeing him with ten years less acting experience. He is still the embodiment of integrity but he doesn't come across as remotely authentic. Howard Hawks is directing this but he's not the Howard Hawks the world will soon get to know.

In 1930 a small number of directors made a few great innovative motion pictures, this isn't one of them. Although Hawks tells the story completely enough, he doesn't really invest any warmth or heart into it making it difficult to develop any empathy. It might be because the cast is virtuality all male, it might be because Howard Hawks and certainly Harry Cohn were not known for embracing their feminine side but there's a very macho, testosterone-rich feel to this.

When Phillips Holmes' character is (slightly unfairly) thrown into the big house, the contrast between that brutal, cruel world and his own gentle, sweet natured personally is meant to engender sympathy for him. Unfortunately because he's such a limp, spineless amoeba you just end up hoping that he'll get ten years in solitary so we never have to see his miserable pathetic face again. As for the rest, Huston is Mr On-The-Level integrity, Karloff is menacing, the chief guard is vindictive, the daughter is innocent..... it's just a parade of the stereotypes.

DA Brady sends young Graham to prison unjustly, and must redeem himself once he becomes the prison's warden.

The credits indicate icon Howard Hawks as the director; IMDb uncharacteristically lists no one; while Hawks' bio-site states he's the uncredited helmsman. I include this rather puzzling movie pedigree because I see very little of Hawks' characteristic style on screen. He may well have been adjusting to the new factor of sound (as others point out), but whatever the reason, the screenplay could have been filmed by any number of solid Hollywood craftsmen.

The movie itself has been made several times over, so the material is familiar. But except for Huston's dynamic performance and Karloff's formidable presence, there's not much to recommend beyond the story itself. The prison yard scenes are riveting with their marching phalanxes of inmates. Sort of like a non-musical Busby Berkeley. I also like that early scene where DA Brady (Huston) strips away shady lady Gertie's thin façade of respectability. To me, its spirited air bespeaks Hawks' guiding hand, as does Brady's surprisingly intense grilling of Graham. However, what should be a highlight, Ned's (Karloff) revenge killing of the squealer, is unnecessarily down-played for this pre-Code period.

Note how we're led to respect the inmates' code of conduct even though they are convicted criminals. Both the law and the inmates have their respective codes, but more importantly, the codes may well be linked by a common sense of justice. When, for example, those codes are broken by the squealer, on one hand, and by head guard Gleason, on the other, we're led to sympathize with the respective acts of retribution, bloody though they undoubtedly are. And since both acts are carried out by the hulking Ned, he becomes something of an avenging angel despite his gruesome appearance. It's the ambiguities of the two codes, united, perhaps, by a common sense of justice that suggests an interesting subtext to the story.

Anyway, in my little book, this is a Walter Huston showcase, proving again that an actor of less than handsome appearance could carry a Hollywood movie.

A little unbelievable in places, but worth watching for its criticisms of the criminal justice system, and for some of the performances. During the Depression all of America's institutions were subject to cynicism, and in the film we see that actual justice is less important than winning at trial, how things will play in the press, and what it all means for upcoming elections, which is all still so relevant today. Walter Huston is excellent as the D.A. turned prison warden, and the scene where he bravely enters the yard full of irate cons, smoking his cigar and staring them down, is the film's best. Phillips Holmes is earnest as the young man convicted following a barroom brawl, and it was interesting to compare the different codes the two men live by - the criminal code ("an eye for an eye"), and the prisoner's code of honor to not to rat on one another.

The film is sympathetic to both men and therefore seems to say that it's the system they're operating under that's the issue, which seems to be a little bit of a cop out, since the D.A. has a tremendous amount of power in America, and could certainly do the right thing. Where it really falters artistically, however, is in the inclusion of a silly love interest with the warden's daughter, played by Constance Cummings in her first film role. I loved seeing Boris Karloff though, who is glowering and brilliant as one of the inmates. Keep an eye out for a very cool circular bread slicing machine too.

Another Overrated Howard Hawks Film. Here are Two Examples when that "Hawksian" Touch just about makes the Movie Unbearable. First in the Opening Scene Two Policemen are Playing Cards and one loses 42 cents. They are Called Out on a Case, They Argue about 42 cents in the Police Station, out the door, in the car, out of the car, and into the Crime Scene. This is not Entertaining, Funny, or Natural. It is Howard Hawks just being His Obnoxious Self.

The Second Thing. He Allows Walter Huston to say "Yeah" Every time He Opens His Mouth. He Prefaces Sentences with "Yeah", He Ends Sentences with "Yeah", He says "Yeah" in the Middle of Sentences, and He says "Yeah" just for Emphasis. This is Hawks Once Again Annoying Audiences with His Style Until They Scream for Relief.

The Rest of the Movie is Not Bad. Boris Karloff Steals the Show as a Truly Scary Looking Inmate and some of the Mugs in the Yard are some Hard Bitten Characters (No Blacks). The Film is Talky and some of the Conversations go on for Ever and the Dated Dialog Deliveries can be Cumbersome at Times, but Overall it is Worth a Watch for an Example of Early Hollywood despite Everything the Director does to Drive You Away.

1930's "The Criminal Code" was the tenth feature film directed by Howard Hawks since his debut in 1926, adapted from the hit 1929 Broadway play by Martin Flavin, Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo Jr. Both nominated for Academy Awards for their screen treatment. Hawks loved everything about the play except for the final act, and made enquiries of 20 convicts to come up with a superior conclusion. One particular stroke of luck was securing the services of little known screen actor Boris Karloff to recreate his stage role of inmate Ned Galloway, paroled after 8 years only to return to serve out a full 20 year sentence after an informant told authorities that Galloway had been spotted drinking a glass of beer. After 57 silent credits and nearly a dozen talkies, this served as the biggest break of the 42 year old actor's 12 year career, mostly confined to bit parts of a mainly villainous bent. Seasoned pro Walter Huston was the undeniable star, a District Attorney making the move to warden at a prison of over 5200 men, of which 1000 were cases that he prosecuted. Among these is young Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes), convicted of manslaughter for clubbing a drunk in self defense with one blow, six years behind him on a 10 year stretch resulting in the death of his caring mother. His cellmates are elderly Jim Fales (Otto Hoffman), operating with only one functioning lung, and Karloff's Ned Galloway, speaking in hushed tones about keeping an appointment with the guy who 'squealed' on him, the intimidating guard captain Gleason (DeWitt Gleason). Fales takes a chance to break out but winds up killed, betrayed by the cowardly Runch (Clark Marshall), now a marked man for breaking the code of 'honor amongst thieves.' The man tasked to take out Runch is Galloway himself, a trustee working in the warden's office and apartment, using drugged tea to perform the deed during a riot to cover his tracks. Graham also works for the warden, his pretty daughter (Constance Cummings in her screen debut) approving of Graham's new position as chauffer, until the moment when he finds himself on the spot near the corpse of a stabbed Runch, with full knowledge of the killer but every intention to keep silent. It's a delicate balancing act for Karloff, fearsome yet compassionate, looking for all the world like The Monster even without makeup, playing a large part in a widely seen film that couldn't help but get him noticed after so earnestly paying his dues since 1919. Constance Cummings would twice reunite with Boris, in "The Guilty Generation" and "Behind the Mask," before costarring with Harold Lloyd in "Movie Crazy," while Karloff would find himself cast in Hawks' next project, a Howard Hughes production called "Scarface."

Boris Karloff appeared on the stage of the Belasco Theatre, New York City in the role of Galloway in a Martin Flavin stage play. It was a minor part, however, it was an important one: Galloway, the prison trusty who becomes a killer. On the strength of his performance, he was soon cast in the film version. During 1931-32, twenty-three of his films were released, an average of nearly one a month which included Frankenstein. Criminal Code was the big break Karloff was waiting for and he never gave up acting until the very end.

Chief prosecutor Walter Huston (Brady) lives his life by the 'Criminal Code'. This basically means that someone has to pay when a crime is committed. So, when naïve Phillips Holmes (Robert) kills a man in a nightclub, he has to pay the price, and he gets 10 years in prison. Whilst there, he comes to abide by the 'Criminal's Code'. Basically, don't grass anyone up or you can expect consequences. Huston gets transferred to become the Prison Warden where he has sent over half the inmates who currently reside there. Who gave him that position......!? Anyway, his path crosses once again with Holmes whom he tries to get released but then we get a murder ...... which 'Code' will come out on top?

It's an interesting film set in a prison with memorable performances. Boris Karloff (Galloway) is the standout as a fellow prisoner, whilst Constance Cummings (Mary) as the love interest isn't too memorable although she has an important role in deciding which 'Code' will come out on top. I found floozie Mary Doran a far more entertaining character at the film's beginning. I was a bit upset that she wasn't handed the main female lead.

If you find yourself in prison, don't squeal! In fact, don't wait until you're in prison. Don't tell on people - it's a nasty thing to do. If you have children, make sure to drum this into the heads of those little brats. Nobody likes a goody-two-shoes saying "Miss! Guess what so-and-so has just done!" Be quiet for goodness sake.

Hard, crusty Walter Huston is the warden, appointed to the same prison where he put so many criminals as district attorney. Phillips Holmes is Graham, who killed someone while drunk, and must pay for his crime in that very prison. The awesome, weird Boris Karloff is here as a fellow prisoner. Constance Cummings in her first film role. It's predictable, but pretty good stuff, and an excellent restoration. Great quality picture and sound. Holmes died real young, just after military training for WWII in a midair collision, ironically after training to be a pilot. His personal life was full of bad luck, after losing his girlfriend to his brother, who later committed suicide. Walter Huston had been in broadway, as well as engineering before getting into pictures. He had only been in hollywood about a year when this came along. He made a great version of Rain in 1932, and is probably best known for Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The Criminal Code (1931) is often passed over when it comes to discussion of the films of Howard Hawks, but it's actually one of my favorites from him.

There are a lot of stagey aspects to be sure and the central love story is pretty boring, but there's just so much to love. The film experiments with sound, overlapping dialogue and using crowd noise as a plot element.

The two standout actors are Walter Huston and a pre-stardom Boris Karloff. Anytime either of them walks on screen, everyone else just evaporates. Huston does a great job making the audience love and despise his character. And Karloff is just mesmerizing as Galloway, a convict hell-bent on vengeance.

No masterpiece, but it is an early sign of Hawks' genius. And I would take it over Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940) any day of the week.