The Big House (1930)
Half-baked prison abolition messaging is better than no prison abolition messaging? I guess?
Thanksgiving day. Noon. Most of the screws go to turkey dinner. We'll give 'em a belly full.
The Big House (1930) - watched 7/16/24
Director: George Hill
Writer: Frances Marion
Starring: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, Lewis Stone
Available to watch on most platforms to rent or buy
First Time Watch? Yes
Here we are at the 3rd Academy Awards. We’re entering a new decade of film, where sound is no longer just a novelty, but the standard. The Academy recognized this by introducing Best Sound Recording as a new category (won for the first time by Douglas Shearer for the very film I’ll be reviewing here, The Big House).
For pretty personal reasons that I might get into some day, sound is an aspect of filmmaking that’s become very important to me over the years, something that I tend to pay extra attention to, and I have a deep appreciation for movies that have quality sound design. We talk a lot about acting, direction, cinematography, and effects in movies, but the sound category tends to be at the bottom of the list when it comes to how we determine what makes a film good vs. mediocre.
I’ve kept a running list in my notes app of films that have particularly good or interesting sound design, or films where the sound design is crucial to the plot. I’ve gathered up a few of those titles to share here as sort of a Sound Design 101. If you’re interested in the idea of giving sound in film more of your attention, these would be a great/accessible place to start:
Playtime (1968)
The Conversation (1974)
Nashville (1975)
Tampopo (1985)
Bound (1996)
Let the Right One In (2008)
Take Shelter (2011)
Phantom Thread (2017)
C’mon C’mon (2021)
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Silent films have grown on me through this project (I even willingly bought one recently! The Lonesome Criterion Blu-ray!) but for me, the addition of sound has really made the medium of film feel complete. So I’m happy to celebrate here the first film to win in a sound category, The Big House.
And remember, this prison does not give a man a yellow streak, but if he has one, it brings it out.
We open with Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) being escorted into prison in what felt to me like a very casual way. During his intake, we learn that he’s serving time (a ten-year sentence) for a manslaughter charge—he was driving drunk when he hit and killed someone. With the prison overcrowded, Kent is assigned to a cell with two other inmates, Butch (Wallace Beery) and Morgan (Chester Morris). Butch is an immediately intimidating figure, in prison for full-blown murder, and he makes it clear that he and Morgan run things in the joint.
Out in the yard, Morgan and some other inmates trick Kent into believing that he’s gotten parole. All the while, Butch confides in Morgan that he’s planning to break out of prison. Multiple inmates advise Kent to stay in Butch’s good graces, never to cross him.
In one of the film’s standout scenes, Butch cracks and incites a protest in the mess hall over the quality of the prison’s food. Before being sent into solitary confinement, Butch discreetly passes his knife along to another inmate, and it eventually ends up in the hands of Kent, who then hides the knife in Morgan’s bed. Later on, Morgan meets with his lawyer, who informs him that he’s made parole and will be released from prison the following day. While meeting with his lawyer, Morgan spots Anne, Kent’s sister, who he recognizes from a photo that Kent keeps in his bunk. Once he sees her, it’s total boner city for Morgan.
Back at their cell, the guards find the knife in Morgan’s bed during a routine search. His parole is immediately revoked, but Morgan insists he’s being framed, and he blames Kent for it and vows to get even. For his outburst, Morgan is then placed in solitary confinement. After a whole month, both Butch and Morgan are released from solitary confinement on the same day. Morgan feigns illness and is sent to the infirmary on a stretcher. After being examined and left in the infirmary for the night, Morgan switches places with a dead body that’s headed to the morgue, and makes his escape from the back of the morgue van.
Suddenly he’s free, and suddenly he has a nice, clean three-piece suit and a hat. He’s walking freely in the streets, very conspicuously, and is noticed by a passer-by as he makes his way to the bookstore owned by Anne. She recognizes him, and manages to grab his gun and almost turns him in to the police. But the thing is… Morgan is just so hot. She can’t possibly let a hot man go back to prison! So she changes her mind, and for some reason very easily gives his gun back.
Morgan sets out on the straight and narrow path now that he’s on the outside—he gets a job, and becomes friendly with Anne and her family, none of which we really get to see. He is eventually tracked down and brought back to prison. Once reunited with Butch back in the clink, Butch tells Morgan of his plans to break out of prison on Thanksgiving, at noon. Morgan wants no part of this plan—he tells Butch that he’s going straight. Boring. Kent, who apparently never heard that snitches get stitches, runs and squeals like the little adorable piggy that he is, telling the warden about Butch’s plan.
Sure enough, at noon on Thanksgiving, the prisoners riot. Despite capturing many of the guards, the inmates are blocked from being able to actually escape. Butch threatens to shoot each guard unless they let him out, but this doesn’t move the warden to act. Butch makes good on his threat and kills one of the guards. In the chaos, Morgan finds Kent in hiding, and Kent eventually cracks and confesses to being the one who tipped the warden off. He leaves in a panic, attempting to break out, but ends up getting shot and killed.
Morgan locks the guards into a room, effectively saving them from the violence that persists in the halls and the yard. Someone tells Butch that Morgan was the one who snitched, and so Butch sets out to kill him. The two former friends end up in a shootout, both catching bullets—Butch’s wounds end up becoming fatal. As he’s dying, Morgan tells him that Kent was the true informer, and they reconcile just in time for Butch to croak. As reward for saving the guards, Morgan is pardoned. He reunites with Anne and his new life begins.
How's all the dames outside? See my initials carved on many bed posts?
I’m writing this a few days after I’ve watched The Big House, and the more time I’ve had to chew on it, the more I think I liked it. It’s by no means perfect—it suffers from the issue of morality that a lot of films of this time often suffer from. While the movie does a good job of portraying the real conditions of prison, ultimately it seems to serve more as a cautionary tale rather than an indictment of the prison system. The conditions in prison are bad because they’re supposed to be bad. Why would we treat prisoners with any level of humanity? The point is that you, as an American citizen, are supposed to stay out of prison, even though the system actively works against that as a reasonable goal or reality for people who weren’t born under very specific circumstances.
ANYWAY.
We’re led to believe from the opening scene that we’ll be following Kent, the young man who was convicted of manslaughter after driving drunk on New Year’s Eve. Early on, the focus shifts from Kent to his two cellmates, Butch and Morgan. Wallace Beery gives an incredible (Oscar nominated) performance as Butch—we know that this man is a cold-blooded murderer, and he pulls off the role of the intimidating, mean-mugging inmate well, but Beery brings a sympathetic quality to the character that has you rallying behind him as the leader of every prison protest. The mess-hall scene, in particular, is stunning and powerful, and even if it’s only temporary, in this moment you can’t help but be on Butch’s side.
Chester Morris seems to be making a habit out of playing a bad boy criminal, and I’m not mad at it. He’s nailed the balance of hardened criminal and cutie sweetie that a dame can’t help but swoon over. I’m happy to report that his character here, Morgan, is written with more depth and more motivation than his character in Alibi. Morgan has an arc and a goal—he wants to change, not just for himself but for Anne, Kent’s sister and the woman he befriends once he escapes from prison. Morgan and Anne’s story could stand to be more fleshed out—it’s not even clear whether or not these two had a full-blown romance. But I’m also not sure that this story needed a romance. The plight of the inmates attempting to break free is compelling enough, to the point where I kind of wish they hadn’t introduced Anne as Morgan’s motivator at all (sorry, girl).
It might be too early in this round of Best Picture nominees to have a concrete opinion, but it seems to me that The Big House definitely earned its Best Sound Recording Oscar—sound is an integral part of the story, from the pounding of metal cups in the mess-hall to the relentless rounds of gunfire during the prison riot. It’s one of the first talkies so far where I didn’t feel like a lot of the sound effects were superfluous—there wasn’t a random squawking parrot in the background with no bearing on the storyline, no song-and-dance numbers shoehorned in. Sometimes having the best sound means that the sound is integrated so well within the story that you barely register it.
The only things that would have made this a better experience for me is seeing a smidge more of the inmates’ inner lives (Butch especially), and better hammering home the cruelty of how prisoners are treated. The film is too busy trying to convince the audience that the inmates deserve their treatment, and only when Morgan saves the prison guards from the riot are we allowed to see him as human, and a good human at that, rather than just a criminal. Thankfully, as we enter the 1930s, we’re getting closer to protagonists that aren’t expected to be perfect, law-abiding heroes. The Big House is a respectable first step toward seeing more of the anti-hero archetype.
Say, listen. Don't let the guys know you've gone straight. They used to have a lot of respect for you.
Quick Facts:
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, won 2
Best Writing (Frances Marion, won)
Best Sound Recording (Douglas Shearer, won)
Best Picture
Best Actor (Wallace Beery)
For her “Best Writing” win, Frances Marion became the first woman to win an Academy Award for something other than acting
First film to receive an Academy Award for Best Sound
Generally considered to be the “first” prison film
My Rating: ⭐️⭐⭐
Next Up: Disraeli (1929)