In several previous IMDb reviews, I've expressed my distaste for Sylvia Sidney's acting. Stop the presses! I've finally seen her give a good performance, in 'Ladies of the Big House'. Yes, it's a women's prison movie, and I was pleased that two of the clichés of 1930s women's prison movies were avoided: for once, the cellblocks are racially integrated, and also there are no smirking references to lesbianism.
The premise of the film is somewhat contrived. Sidney's character is mildly criminal, but she dumps mobster Earle Foxe for a guy she's just met: Gene Raymond, as an engineer who's got a big damn project (I mean, a big DAM project) in South America. They get hitched, but before the marriage can be consummated, Foxe shoots cop Robert Emmett O'Connor and frames the newlyweds. They get sent to a co-ed prison, but they're staying in separate dorms: in fact, Raymond goes to Death Row. Sidney's cellblock has a lovely view of the prison courtyard and the gallows, so she'll be able to watch her husband hang for a murder he didn't commit.
As usual, there's some bad B-movie dialogue. When Sidney enters the prison, a female lag smirks and declares: 'Didja pipe the fish that just came in?' Another inmate is a pregnant Mexican who keeps lapsing into Spanish ... but when she dies, with nobody present to hear her last words, she implausibly lapses into English. On the night before Raymond is scheduled to hang, Sidney tells him: 'Wherever you go, I'm going.' At the end of the movie, there's a rather contrived visual device to mislead the audience about Raymond's fate. Plausibility is also weakened because Sylvia Sidney wears full makeup throughout her prison scenes: yes, I know that most female convicts have access to cosmetics, but in this case I get the impression that Paramount just didn't want to take the risk of letting Sylvia Sidney attempt a natural look.
End of bad news. Now the good news. There are several standout performances in this film. The best performance is by Wynne Gibson, as the tough moll who hates Sidney but (very plausibly) endangers herself to help Sidney when she realises that Sidney's been framed. Roscoe Karns, who was usually given weak material, is superb here as a condemned inmate who passes the time on Death Row by playing Twenty Questions, and then touchingly guesses the right answer just before he hangs. Louise Beavers, reprieved for once from her typecasting as a chucklin' maid, makes the most of a meaty role as an inmate who murdered her husband (who apparently deserved it). There are also fine performances from Evelyn Preer and Edna Bennett as inmates. Sylvia Sidney gives a genuinely impressive and convincing performance as the wife who risks her life in an escape attempt, desperately hoping to clear her doomed husband. The good performances outweigh all the clichés and implausibilities in this movie, and 'Ladies of the Big House' rates a solid 8 out of 10.
The premise of the film is somewhat contrived. Sidney's character is mildly criminal, but she dumps mobster Earle Foxe for a guy she's just met: Gene Raymond, as an engineer who's got a big damn project (I mean, a big DAM project) in South America. They get hitched, but before the marriage can be consummated, Foxe shoots cop Robert Emmett O'Connor and frames the newlyweds. They get sent to a co-ed prison, but they're staying in separate dorms: in fact, Raymond goes to Death Row. Sidney's cellblock has a lovely view of the prison courtyard and the gallows, so she'll be able to watch her husband hang for a murder he didn't commit.
As usual, there's some bad B-movie dialogue. When Sidney enters the prison, a female lag smirks and declares: 'Didja pipe the fish that just came in?' Another inmate is a pregnant Mexican who keeps lapsing into Spanish ... but when she dies, with nobody present to hear her last words, she implausibly lapses into English. On the night before Raymond is scheduled to hang, Sidney tells him: 'Wherever you go, I'm going.' At the end of the movie, there's a rather contrived visual device to mislead the audience about Raymond's fate. Plausibility is also weakened because Sylvia Sidney wears full makeup throughout her prison scenes: yes, I know that most female convicts have access to cosmetics, but in this case I get the impression that Paramount just didn't want to take the risk of letting Sylvia Sidney attempt a natural look.
End of bad news. Now the good news. There are several standout performances in this film. The best performance is by Wynne Gibson, as the tough moll who hates Sidney but (very plausibly) endangers herself to help Sidney when she realises that Sidney's been framed. Roscoe Karns, who was usually given weak material, is superb here as a condemned inmate who passes the time on Death Row by playing Twenty Questions, and then touchingly guesses the right answer just before he hangs. Louise Beavers, reprieved for once from her typecasting as a chucklin' maid, makes the most of a meaty role as an inmate who murdered her husband (who apparently deserved it). There are also fine performances from Evelyn Preer and Edna Bennett as inmates. Sylvia Sidney gives a genuinely impressive and convincing performance as the wife who risks her life in an escape attempt, desperately hoping to clear her doomed husband. The good performances outweigh all the clichés and implausibilities in this movie, and 'Ladies of the Big House' rates a solid 8 out of 10.