Mutiny in the Big House

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 focussed 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.

"Mutiny in the Big House" was released by a Hollywood studio in 1939. The viewer will correctly anticipate that it's portrait of a men's prison conforms to the restrictions of the Production Code of that period. No toilets in the cells, "hardbitten" dialogue with no obscenities, no homosexuality. So if you hanker after the more realistic presentations of contemporary prison films, this film is not for you.

Still, within its narrow confines, the picture is not at all bad. The central character is a prison chaplin, played with his customary quiet professionalism by the veteran Hollywood actor, Charles Bickford. No doubt his portrayal reflects the lives of many dedicated clergymen in such positions, whose usually unheralded efforts brought a measure of hope to inmates who otherwise would have few other occasions on which to encounter it. In the film, a young first-time convict has been sentenced for a crime of desperation - forging a check to help his destitute mother. For some reason, this man is placed in the same cell with a hardened criminal, who plays on his bitterness and seems likely to lead him into a life of crime. The story focusses on the efforts of the chaplain to prevent the prison environment from creating yet another long-term criminal. The "mutiny" in the title is the climax of the drama.

There are also a few imaginative characterizations of convicts in secondary roles.

Superb quick service always from Johnny!! Alpha slightly dropped the ball on this one by using either a VHS or a duped master print-- oh well, better than nothing for we prison movie afficionados!!

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