RKO turned David Lamson's blistering account of his 13-month stay in San Quentin into a film that, though it strays significantly from the truth, anticipates the rise of film noir. In place of Lamson's account of going through four trials after being falsely accused of killing his wife, the studio constructed the tale of an unemployed aircraft engineer (John Beal) kidnapped by mobsters who frame him for murder. Where it took the Supreme Court to free Lamson, Beal's fate hinges on his determined fiancée (Ann Dvorak), who has to convince the case's lead inspector (Preston Foster) that it was all a big frame. What survived from the original was the unstinting picture of prison life, with cinematographer Robert Planck pouring on the atmosphere years before he took a more glamorous turn filming such MGM musicals as Anchors Aweigh (1945) and Royal Wedding (1951). The film also benefits from a strong cast, with Foster at his tough-guy best as the police detective, Dvorak (on loan from Warner Bros.) powerful as the fiancée and Beal as the sympathetic victim of circumstances. There's also a scene-stealing turn by J. Carrol Naish as an Italian gangster involved in the crime.

By Frank Miller