The Criminal Code (1930) Online

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.

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."

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.

"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.

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.

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.

When I was in the middle of watching this film, I realized I'd seen it before but with an all-new cast. "Convicted" (1950) is one of the better prison movies ever made so it was nice to finally see the original film and compare them.

A young knucklehead (Phillips Holmes) is provoked into a fight at a dance club. Unfortunately, he hits the other guy with a bottle and he soon dies. The district attorney (Walter Huston) feels a bit sorry for the guy since he isn't criminally-oriented--just some guy who made a very bad choice. But he does his job and convicts Holmes--sending him to prison for 20 years (which does seem excessive). Later, the D.A. becomes the warden at the same prison where this young guy has been for six years and Huston feels sorry for him--and wants to help him make parole. However, before he can do this, there is a murder and Holmes may have witnessed it. And, since the code of prison is that you NEVER squeal, Holmes' refusal to talk puts his freedom in jeopardy. If he talks, he could soon be a free man--but he could also be killed just like that dirty squealer! To make things harder for Huston, his daughter has fallen in love with Holmes and she pressures him to act.

The film has a lot going for it. Its style is simple, tough, straight-forward and effective. It also doesn't hurt that there is a very nice supporting performance by Boris Karloff--in one of his best non-horror roles of his career. He's particularly good at the finale. Overall, it's one of the best prison films I've seen--with only a very few select films (such as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Brute Force") coming to mind that are better.

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.

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.

103: The Criminal Code (1931) - released 1/3/31, viewed 6/25/08.

DOUG: Howard Hawks was no mere studio director; looking at his credits, he appears to have made at least one great entry in every genre in circulation during the studio era, including this provocative look at the prison system in the 1930's. It's definitely a movie of its time: a product of the early sound era, so there's almost no music; the bad guys wield Tommy Guns; references crop up to the Great Depression, WWI, and the rise of organized crime. The standouts are Walter Huston as a no-nonsense DA-turned prison warden, Philips Holms as the man wrongly convicted and sent to prison, and Boris Karloff as a sadistic convict with a score to settle. Huston easily gives the best performance here, with Karloff sneering and growling and chewing scenery while looking really big and scary. Holms, our would-be hero, spends most of the movie looking rather docile and unmemorable, while either Huston or Karloff tower over him. I'm hoping for some kind of Howard Hawks DVD box set that would include this movie along with The Crowd Roars.

KEVIN: This film would've opened 1931, just ahead of Little Caesar. This year, morals and ideals are tested to their limits as director Howard Hawks tackles the gritty prison drama. This film is definitely better than The Big House, which is campy by comparison. Walter Huston is very good, as expected, playing a former district attorney who is appointed as the new warden of a maximum security prison. It is never explained why a city District Attorney has been demoted to a prison warden, and Huston's performance gives the sense that the character doesn't really consider it a demotion. Portraying the sympathetic face of the wronged convict, Phillip Holmes does fine job of selling his character's dilemma, although I had a hard time understanding why Graham clings so much to the code of the inmates when letting that go and confessing what he witnessed would allow him to go free. I didn't believe that what he was doing was right, but I was convinced that he believed it. Constance Cummings was good too, although I think more could've been done with her character. I really wanted to see her turn Graham around and bring him all the way back to the land of truth and morals. And of course, I have to mention the excellently creepy Boris Karloff, whose character comes through as the lead heartless scumbag. By the way, Huston's character does a move here that we would see again in Gabriel Over the White House, when he strolls through a crowd of people that despise him without getting a scratch or batting an eyelash. **SPOILER** I was disappointed with the climax. Graham doesn't confess, but he still manages to come through clean. It seemed like a missed opportunity.**END SPOILER**.

Last film viewed: Monte Carlo (1930). Last film chronologically: Morocco (1930). Next film viewed: The Smiling Lieutenant (1931). Next film chronologically: Little Caesar (1931).

Although when Howard Hawks died in 1977, his reputation was described as legendary, when he was actually making movies he was often referred to as a good all round director, specialising in men's movies ie "The Dawn Patrol" and "Red River". "The Criminal Code" is one of his lesser known films (maybe because he was uncredited as director). It is simply a superlative film that is dominated by powerhouse performances by Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes and Boris Karloff. Holmes acting was occasionally flat in films but when he was given the right role he was fantastic as he definitely was here. "The Criminal Code", which opened on Broadway in 1929 and lasted a very respectable 179 performances, was another acting honor for Walter Huston. He plays Mark Brady, a wiley District Attorney, who finds himself Warden of the State Prison, populated by many of the men who he had "sent up". One of these is Robert Graham, sent to prison for 10 years for manslaughter only because Brady feels compassion for Robert ("do they ever call you "Bob") knowing he killed in self defence.

After six years Robert is at breaking point - he is desperate to experience freedom and when his cell mate talks of escape Robert wants to go with him. When Adams becomes Warden, on the doctor's advice that he sees something fine in Robert, Adams takes him out of the jute mill and puts him to work as a chauffeur. Within three months, with the help of Mary (Constance Cummings) the Warden's daughter, Robert is "mended". The escape still goes ahead, without Robert, but is thwarted , thanks to a stool pigeon, Runch (Clark Marshall). When Runch is killed, the officers and Warden try to break Robert, who saw the murder, but he is standing by the criminal code - not the book that happens to be Adam's bible but the code of the criminal, that he will not rat on his comrades.

I felt that Walter Huston's best scenes were - 1. when he was interviewing Robert's dance partner (Mary Doran) and with a few "yeahs" and "you don't say" strips off her innocent facade to expose her as the floozie she is. 2. On his first day braves a "yammering" from the hostile men to walk into the prison yard. Boris Karloff seemed to have more a variety of roles in the early 30s. Here he plays a menacing but essentially decent criminal albeit with a grudge, who from the first tries to help Bob. An unintentionally funny scene occurs when he is serving tea to Mary's aunt(?). She says something about "not creeping up on her like that" and he replies "Sorry Madam" in his best Frankenstein's Monster voice. Apparently James Whale saw Boris Karloff in "The Criminal Code" and thought he would be the perfect Monster!!! Constance Cummings was excellent in her first film, even though the film essentially belonged to the three male stars. She played her role in a very understated way and she was noticed.

Highly, Highly Recommended.

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.

Criminal Code, The (1931)

*** (out of 4)

Terrific acting highlights this pre-code prison-drama about an overbearing D.A. (Walter Huston) who sidelines an innocent man (Phillips Holmes) into prison where he learns the "criminal code" way of doing things. The D.A. eventually becomes the prison warden where he runs into contact with many of the men he sent away including the innocent one who will once again find himself at the wrong place during the wrong time. There's no question this Columbia film was made to cash in on the previous years THE BIG HOUSE but that doesn't mean we get a watered-down copy. Instead director Hawks takes a pretty simple storyline and adds various dimensions simply by showing the stuff in a raw and realistic detail. THE BIG HOUSE is certainly a classic but to me this is the better film of the two. What makes this film work so well are some amazing performances with Huston leading the way. There was no one in Hollywood better for a role like this and God knows that Huston played his fair share of hot-tempered, "my way only" type of characters. He brings a lot of energy to the role and manages to make the character very memorable with a performance that many would copy in the future. Another major plus is the supporting performance of Boris Karloff who pretty much steals the film. Karloff has an uncanny and natural performance that brings a certain rawness as well as a coldness that is a real joy to watch. He's the type of bad guy here you just want to love. Constance Cummings plays Huston's daughter and she's pretty good even though the screenplay offers her very little except to be a love interest for Holmes. As for Holmes, I think he gives a good performance but I'd say he's several notches below both Huston and Karloff. Again, it's a fine performance but at the same time if they had someone on the same level as the other two men the film might have been even better. Hawks makes the film as realistic and as raw as he can, which I guess you could say was a trademark during this early portion of his career. I think the film gets off to a somewhat slow start but picks up at the twenty-minute mark and pretty much sails home. The final thirty-minutes are pure Hawks magic and are the most powerful of these early prison films.

Accidentally killing a man in a drunken brawl, 20 year old Phillips Holmes gets 10 years for manslaughter. Unable to forget the loss of freedom, he manages to get a job as trustee for new warden Walter Huston who happens to be the former D.A. who sent him and a bunch of other inmates to prison in the first place. Falling in love with Huston's daughter, he gets deep into prison intrigue which threatens his chance at parole.

Brilliantly acted and nicely paced, thus is crisp crime drama from a different perspective than others released around the same time. Huston, one of the best film actors of the golden age, is a law enforcer with a strict morale conscience, at one point giving his perspective on how he could get Holmes off if he wasn't defense attorney. Boris Karloff has a prominent supporting role as one if the darker of inmates who will give an old lady a knock out drug to reach his nefarious goals.

One of the spooky moments comes with the revenge he seeks on a snitch and the countdown to retribution. Every performance is dead on, with moments of tension that are brilliantly scripted. It gets even grittier than MGM's hit prison movie "The Big House". For a film made by B studio Columbia before they moved to near the top, this is a total classic of the crime drama genre, giving an indication of what film noir would look like more than a decade later.

***SPOILERS*** Howard Hawks Crime & Punishment drama about upholding the Criminal Code in the court system as well as behind bars.

It's when 20 year old Bob Graham got into a fight at the notorious New York City speakeasy Spelvins over his date Gertrude Williams with Young Parker that he ended up cracking Parker's skull open with a water bottle killing him. Despite Parker initiating the violence by trying to pull something out of his back pocket, which turned out to be a handkerchief, Graham was handed down by the local D.A Mark Brady a 10 year sentence at Sing Sing Prison for manslaughter.

The broken young man-Bob Graham- with no future to look froward too is now in with the most dangerous criminals around, murderers armed robbers rapists and just plain Nogoodnicks. Graham also has to endure ten years of total hell and at the same time follow the code of the prison and suffer the consequences if he doesn't. Sent to work in the prison's jute mill Garham starts to come apart and is soon examined by the prison doctor Rinewulf who advised the prison warden and former NYC D.A, who sent Graham away in the first place, Brady to get Graham out of the Jute mill before he ends up either killing himself or a fellow convict or even prison guard!

It's when Graham is giving the cushy job as Warden Brady's personal driver and delivery boy that his miserable life suddenly turns around for the better. Cleaned up from the muck that filled his lungs in the jute mill Graham also falls in love with Warden Brady's young daughter Mary, Constance Cummings, who also took a liking to the sensitive and handsome young man. Now a model prisoner Warden Brady works hard to get Graham an early out, or pardon, so he can be able to start his shattered life back again.

***SPOILERS*** It's when one of Graham's cell-mates Jim Fales tries to break out of prison and is shot down due to him being ratted by his fellow escapee Runch, who got cold feet, that his now improved lifestyle took a drastic turn for the worst! As the criminal or prison code dictates Runch ended up getting wasted despite all the efforts by Warden Brady to keep him as safe and far away from his fellow, and vindictive, convicts as possible! Grahm is arrested for Runch's murder not in that he had anything to do in getting Runch killed but in that he later covered up the identity of the convict Ned Galloway, Boris Karloff, who murdered him. Galloway's action has Graham holding the bag in Runch's murder and is now facing not a pardon but a lifetime sentence, if he's lucky, behind bars or him being executed in Sing Sing's electric chair!

Heart wrenching prison drama that leaves you emotionally drained in Graham's predicament in the murder of that snitch Runch that he's totally innocent of! In a round about way it's non other then Runch's killer Galloway who in the end straightens thing out for the hard luck, in the raw deal that life gave him, Bob Graham. Seeing that Graham was willing to take to rap for what he did Galloway with no hope of ever seeing freedom again takes the opportunity to both settle matters with the person who, like the dead Runch, snitched him back behind bars as well as exonerate Graham of the murder that he committed! And the way Galloway ended up doing that was with his very life!

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.

Howard Hawks directs this terrific crime drama based on a play by Martin Flavin. Walter Huston plays the wily District Attorney Mark Brady, who fashions a 10 year conviction of a young man, Robert Graham(Phillips Holmes)who he knows for a fact killed a man in self defense. After a failed run for the governorship, Brady becomes the warden of the prison holding Graham. Brady wants to give the young man a break after serving 6 years of his term and is bitter and almost burnt out. Graham is given a valet's job for the warden. In no time the prisoner's actions earns the respect of the warden and his lovely daughter Mary(Constance Cummings). The young man is only days away from a pardon and is put in the hard position of snitching or not snitching on a cell-mate named Galloway(Boris Karloff). Coming into play is not the criminal code, but the prison code of silence. The film is well directed and the photography is superb. Supporting cast includes: DeWitt Jennings, John Sheehan, Mary Doran and Otto Hoffman.

The Criminal Code explores the issue of turning a normal person who made a mistake into a criminal through time spent in prison and ends up abiding by the criminal code itself. The same subject matter is also explored in the movie Caged made 19 later; nothing seems to change. Robert Graham (Phillip Homles) is a sheltered pretty boy who got a rotten break (similar to Robert Montgomery in The Big House). However, unlike Montgomery in The Big House, Graham is put in a cell with two guys (including Boris Karloff's Galloway) who look out for him. Although you do have to suspend your disbelief a bit over the movie fast forwarding six years and Graham not being remotely criminalised within that time. Among the film's examination of the American legal and penal system, Walter Huston explains how it would be possible for someone to get off the hook for a crime such as manslaughter; "A year's delay, a new trial, the witnesses would fade away, they always do, the whole mess would get cold, the papers would have something else to yap about. I'd get him off; he'd never serve a day". Great thought provoking stuff.

Walter Huston plays the warden of the unnamed prison. He is stern but fair and a real "Yes sir!" type as evident from his first appearance with the manner in which he addresses a female witness ("Never mind that, pull down the shade"). The man is one lightning-fast talker who can interrogate like a boss but his greatest moment of badassery comes from the scene in which he goes into the prison yard to confront protesting, yammering prisoners face to face without any guards. Just look at the way he walks into the yard and lights up a cigar. As he approaches the prisoners the yammering stops and they don't lay a hand on him. Simply put, this guy is badass. Perhaps unrealistically so but that's why we have movies.

The Criminal Code was Boris Karloff's first significant screen role in the part of Galloway. With his dominating, tall, lanky figure he steals the show; his monologue on why's he's in the slammer with the shadows across his face is hair-raising stuff. Galloway has a vengeance with a guard named Gleason which gives the film some dark comic relief such as the two awkwardly passing each other on the stairs to Karloff's recurring use of the lines "I don't like you" and "I got an appointment with you". Likewise, the other memorable cast member, albeit in a very brief role is Andy Devine who is very hard to miss with that highly distinctive voice of his.

The Criminal Code uses the same set created for MGM's The Big House released the year before. With its more intricate cinematography, the film doesn't capture the sense of claustrophobia seen in The Big House but still captures the mundanity of prison life. As an early talkie, there is no music present in The Criminal Code but rather the sound of prisoners marching along with various other sound effects are just as effective as any music score could be.

The Criminal Code is also host to one of the most shocking moments in pre-code cinema (and was even featured in Karloff film Targets from 1968). When Galloway chases a squealer into a room while yammering is going on in the background from the prison yard, Galloway walks into the room with the squealer cornered as he slowly closes the door as the squealer looks on in terror. What happens next is up to the viewer's imagination.

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.

Forgotten today, despite being directed by the well regarded Howard Hawks, "The Criminal Code" is a 1931 crime film starring Walter Huston as a District attorney who convicts a young law intern (Phillips Holmes) for ten years. As he feels guilty, Huston later offers the recently-released young man work as a valet.

Based on Pulitzer Prize winner Martin Flavin's stage play, the film's title has a double meaning, referring both to a district attorney's law-book and the "code of the streets", the unwritten, unspoken codes to which criminals adhere. Much of the film thus finds these two rule books clashing, Walter Huston playing a by-the-books attorney, and the legendary Boris Karloff playing his mirror image. Caught between them is Holmes' character, who must choose between loyalty to the prison yard and loyalty to his new benefactor.

The film sports fine, raw performances by Phillips Holmes and Constance Cummings, but is mostly thin and theatrical. Hawks preferred to remain uncredited for his work here.

7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.