The Big House / Revolte dans la prison / El presidio (1930) DVD9 + DVD5
on September 12th, 2018 at 15:11
One of the first and most powerful prison films ever to come out of Hollywood, The Big House (1930) played a decisive role in creating and defining the prison movie genre. Its influence on the hundreds of other prison films that have since followed is incalculable.
The film opens with an incident of vehicular homicide. While driving drunk, Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) kills some pedestrians and is sentenced to a 10-year manslaughter term. Montgomery quickly loses his identity as he is photographed, fingerprinted, stripped, measured, numbered and outfitted in prison drab. He is then tossed in a tiny cell with two hardened cons: forger and petty thief John Morgan (Chester Morris), and the cellblock leader Butch Schmidt (Wallace Beery), aka "Machine Gun," a crude, calculating thug who lives for the day that he can break out of prison. In order to procure some favors from the warden (Lewis Stone), Kent rats on Butch about his escape plans and is murdered during the climactic breakout as a consequence. However, John behaves courageously during the ensuing riot, saving the warden and the guards from Butch's murderous rage; as a reward, he earns a reduced sentence and the love of Kent's sister Anne (Leila Hyams), whom he met during a previous escape attempt.
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