Synopsis
Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.
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Cast
- Chester MorrisJohn Morgan
- Wallace BeeryMachine Gun 'Butch' Schmidt
- Lewis StoneWarden James Adams
- Robert MontgomeryKent Marlowe
- Leila HyamsAnne Marlowe
- George F. MarionPop
- J. C. NugentMr. Marlowe
- Karl DaneOlsen
- DeWitt JenningsWallace
- Matthew BetzGopher
Recommendations
- 100
TV Guide Magazine
Grimly realistic and often brutal, it exposes the inhuman conditions and paranoia that deepen criminal resolve among inmates. - 75
Chicago Reader
The prototype for every saga of the slammer to come, starring Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, and Robert Montgomery. Beery is particularly good in his toughest tough-guy role. - 75
USA Today
The granddaddy of prison pics opens with a lecture on overcrowding and ends with a high mortality rate, in which Chester Morris, a bald Wallace Beery and stoolie Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth's father) are players. [24 Jun 1994, p.3D] - 70
The Dissolve
The Big House is an MGM film, and while it takes on the problem of prison overcrowding, at times it’s more like a window into a secret society, with its own codes and concerns. It’s an outsized, abstracted version of everyday life circa 1930. - 70
The New York Times
It is a film that sweeps swiftly along, with some conspicuously fine episodes and others where the humor is not a little forced. - 70
Variety
As Butch, Morgan and Kent, Wallace Beery, Chester Morris and Robert Montgomery are a great trio in ‘the big house’, where each is serving a stretch for homicide, forgery and manslaughter, respectively. Prison life on the half-shell is plainly exposed.
