CRYSTAL PALACE.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20180, 7 March 1931, Page 7

CRYSTAL PALACE.

"THE BIG HOUSE." To choose prison life as a subject for a book, play, or a moving picture requires a good deal of boldness, but in "The Big House," the talkie which will begin to-day at the' Crystal Palace, a film haß been made that is entertaining, highly dramatic, and intensely gripping. "The Big-House" is a picture that for dramatic intensity and sheer thrill is difficult to beat: The most-talked-about incident will undoubtedly be the 'tremendbus prison riot that brings the film to a smashing climax. This is drama of the heroic sort. Six desperate criminals, a mere handful i of the thousand persons incarcerated in this huge American penitentiary, make a daring break for liberty. Few situations so intense have been dramatised on the talking screen 'as' 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. From this point on it is all glorious melodrama of the most realistic kind, with sanguinary battles in which rifles, machine-guns, and tanks are brought into play to quell the 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 film from beginning to end. The comic honours chiefly go to Wallace Beery as Butch, the hardened gangster and ringleader of the riot. Hardly recognisable with his shaved head and tip, he contributes a remarkable performance, in which a Vigorous masculinity and a running sense of humour are the principal high lights. A tremendously vital performance is also> given by Chester •Morris,* a'fine actorwhose name will always be rememberedby ■ his acting in this film. Leila Hyams is. the girl, and a very fascinating heroine she makeß. These three players; together with others, such as Lewis Stone and Robert Montgomery, once more show how a theme, at first sight unattractive, can be lifted to the highest plane of entertainment by good acting.