Chester Morris and Leila Hyams made an attractive, charming and sympathetic couple separated by big walls in this early prison melodrama. Tough convict Wallace Beery and stern warden Lewis Stone engage the audience as well. Even the Renault FT light tanks are kind of cute in the stirring final scene. A fine script by industrious Francis Marion, directed by her talented husband George W. Hill, brought considerable Academy Award attention to this progenitor of the prison genre. Production chief Irving Thalberg made good decisions and no moral offense was given to anyone by the well-crafted "true Hollywood ending."
Review of The Big House
