The Criminal Code
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Criminal Code is a 1931 American pre-Code romantic crime drama film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Walter Huston and Phillips Holmes. The screenplay, based on a 1929 play of the same name by Martin Flavin, was written by Fred Niblo Jr. and Seton I. Miller, who were nominated for Best Adaptation at the 4th Academy Awards but the award went to Howard Estabrook for Cimarron.
The film is the first of three film adaptations of the play released by Columbia Pictures. It was followed by Penitentiary (1938) and Convicted (1950).
Plot
Six years of hard labor in the prison jute mill has taken its toll on young Graham, convicted of manslaughter after a drunken brawl. The penitentiary's doctor and psychiatrist recommends that he be offered a change of duties before psychological damage become irreversible. When the warden recalls that it was he, as district attorney, that helped put him behind bars, he makes him his valet. Graham enjoys the change, especially the company of the warden's pretty young daughter, Mary.
One of Graham's cellmates tries to escape with two others but one is a stool pigeon and inadvertently gives away the plan. The guards shoot dead one escapee. Ned Galloway, Graham's other cellmate, vows to avenge this death, planning to murder the informer and warning Graham to stay away from him. However, Graham walks in on the crime. Despite finding him with the body, the warden believes that Graham is not the murderer but knows who is. Promising him parole, the warden demands the name of the killer. Graham remains loyal to the Prisoner's Code of silence so the warden sends him to "the hole," hoping it will change his mind.
Mary returns from a trip and is shocked when she finds out Graham has been punished. She proclaims her love for him and urges his release. The warden promises to do so but meanwhile Captain Gleason is putting pressure on Graham to confess. Galloway is grateful that Graham has stayed true and arranges to be sent to the hole and protect him by killing Gleason, for whom he had a longstanding grudge.
Cast
- Walter Huston as Mark Brady
- Phillips Holmes as Robert Graham
- Constance Cummings as Mary Brady
- Boris Karloff as Ned Galloway
- DeWitt Jennings as Yard Captain Gleason
- Mary Doran as Gertrude Williams
- Ethel Wales as Katie Ryan
- Clark Marshall as Runch
- Arthur Hoyt as Leonard Nettleford
- John St. Polis as Dr Rinewulf
- Paul Porcasi as Tony Spelvin
- Otto Hoffman as Jim Fales
- John Sheehan as McManus
