Mutiny in the Big House

Charles Bickford as usual is brilliant in the lead and makes as credible a character as ever. The interesting thing about this film is its realism, it is actually based on a true story and true characters, and the event is rather common in America - it is known to be happening too often, and here at least there are not many casualties. It's a gloomy environment and you make the acquaintance with the worst kind of characters as well as with some merry types for a contrast - there is humor also in prison, you know. Being mainly all about prison life only it is predominantly claustrophobic, but of increasing interest, not only as tension grows but mainly for the human interest. You can't sympathize with the brutal gang leader, although even he has a sense of humor, but you do learn to sympathize with all the others. They are all there for a reason, but one and another, like the protagonist, actually didn't deserve what they get. It's an interesting development of both humanity and inhumanity.

Although Martin Mooney based this story on real events and a real priest who worked in the prison system, I couldn't help but think that this film seemed a bit too sappy and hard to believe. Maybe you'll like it more than I did--I just see it as a heavy-handed time-passer.

Dennis Moore plays a convict who was given an unusually harsh sentence for his first offense. For writing a bad check for $10, he was given 1-14 years in the penitentiary--and the priest in the institution (Charles Bickford) feels sorry for him and wants to keep this nice guy from becoming a career criminal. However, the guy is assigned to bunk with a real hard-core jerk (Baron MacLane--who made a career out of playing such roles). Can the good priest keep Moore's character on the straight and narrow or will he be manipulated by his bunkie and live a life of crime? Overall, it's not a terrible film despite its low budget. But it also is handled poorly--coming off as too saccharine to be taken very seriously.

Ostensibly based upon journalist Martin Mooney's own experience while in jail, this crisply directed work from a fictional story by Mooney is a tribute for Father Patrick O'Neil of the Order Of St. Benedict, because of his heroic efforts to quell a deadly prison riot before it could worsen (after 12 fatalities), at Canon City, Colorado in October of 1929, for which O'Neil was awarded the Carnegie Medal For Heroism. Young Johnny Gates (Dennis Moore) is assigned to a state penitentiary to serve a stretch of one to fourteen years to atone for forging a ten dollar check meant to assist his indigent mother, and he naturally is bitter and also susceptible to the plotting of his cellmate Red Manson (Barton Maclane) who is organizing a widespread escape attempt. The prison chaplain, Father Joe (Charles Bickford) tries to cultivate a friendship with Johnny, the priest believing that he can help the youth in adjusting to his new surroundings, but Gates is immune to the clergyman's cordiality and, although he accepts a job, through Father Joe's influence, in the prison library he does so due to the urging of Red who intends to use marked passages in library books as code among the conspiring inmates. In several scenes during which Father Joe berates the penal institution system and parole board for their inflexibility when dealing with convicts, some of his arguments are quite strongly advanced. As the breakout try nears, the largely cardboard characters that populate the unabashedly sentimental scenario are placed in expectedly hackneyed circumstances, although the briskly moving affair wins over a viewer because of the general mood of sincerity that is expressed from the screenplay. Bickford is very effective with his playing as Father Joe, granitic as ever and displaying perfect timing, while Dennis Moore, who seldom gains a featured role during his career, contributes a strongly focused and consistent turn as sullen Johnny Gates. Commendably released upon DVD by Alpha Video with indifferent but acceptable quality, remastering would be helpful to those desirous of adding to their personal collections what is one of the more effective films produced for the Men In Prison genre, so popular during the Great Depression.

Charles Bickford is the prison's warden. When Dennis Moore starts serving his 5-14-year sentence for forging a $10 check, Bickford thinks he can be saved. But Moore's cellmate is Barton Maclane, who tries to figure every angle, and is working on a plan to break out. When that's frustrated, he starts a prison riot.

It's a pretty good movie from Monogram directed by William Nigh, one of those directors who fell out of favor with the switchover to sound movie. The ending is a bit abrupt, but a large cast of players (mostly from the B westerns) delivers in a tough environment.

Bickford was moving from being a leading man to being a star supporting actor, and he gives a good performance in what is essentially an ensemble piece. His presence would enliven many a movie and TV show through his participation in THE BIG VALLEY. He died in 1967, aged 76.

Although some of the scenes have some real poignancy to them in the end Mutiny In The Big House ends up a melodramatic mess with every prison cliché in the book thrown into the plot.

The two leads and two opposite poles of good and evil are Charles Bickford as the prison chaplain and Barton MacLane as the toughest con in the joint. Parts that both are well cast in, especially MacLane.

The main part of the story line involves young Dennis Moore sent to prison for forging a $10.00 check for his mother's medicine. Sounds like he didn't have a good lawyer if indeed it was his first offense. Over Bickford's objections Moore is assigned as cell-mate to MacLane who tries to wise him up in prison ways. Bickford of course sees something redeemable in Moore and the conflict begins.

Best scenes are with old time institutionalized con George Cleveland. When he's released he can't adjust to life on the outside. Long before James Whitmore perfected the part in Shawshank Redemption, Cleveland gives a touching performance and Bickford actually goes to bat for him to get him sent back to prison.

The climax includes a prison break and what normally happens, happens in Mutiny In The Big House.

Charles Bickford was in a much better prison film Brute Force and a lot of these same situations were handled better in that classic film.

You can't pass up a film with Bickford and MacLane in classic parts, but don't expect all that much from Mutiny In The Big House.