AMUSEMENTS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20179, 6 March 1931, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS.

CRYSTAL PALACE. "THE BIG HOUSE." To phoosa prison life as a subject for a book, play, or a moving picture requires a good deal of boldness, but in "The Big Huuse," the talkie which will begin to-mor-row at the Crystal Palace, a film has been made that is entertaining, highly dramatic, and intensely gripping, "Tl)e Big House" is a picture that for dramatic intensity and sheer thrill is difficult to beat. The most-talked-about incident will undoubtedly bo the. tremendous prison riot that brings the lilm to a smashing climax. This is drama of the heroic sort. Six desperate criminals, a mere handful of the thousand persons incarcerated 1r this huge American penitentiary, make a daring break for liberty. Few situations so intense have been-drama-tised on the talking screen us that in which the six selected men, whose venture seems doomed to certain failure, arm themselves secretly while participating in divine service in the prison chapel. Prom this point on it Is all glorious melodrama of th<? most realistic kind, with sanguinary battles in which rifles, machineguns, and tanks are' brought into play to quell tha mutiny. While no attempt has been made to spare the more grim and ruthless side of prison life, an undercurrent of humour, sometimes carefree, sometimes sardonic, runs through the 81m from begiiming to end. The comic honours chiefly go to Wallace Beery as Butch, the hardened gangster and ring-leader of the riot.