Wonderful character development!

Waste of time

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Absolutely Brilliant!

Accidentally killing a man in a drunken brawl, 20 year old Phillips Holmes gets 10 years for manslaughter. Unable to forget the loss of freedom, he manages to get a job as trustee for new warden Walter Huston who happens to be the former D.A. who sent him and a bunch of other inmates to prison in the first place. Falling in love with Huston's daughter, he gets deep into prison intrigue which threatens his chance at parole.Brilliantly acted and nicely paced, thus is crisp crime drama from a different perspective than others released around the same time. Huston, one of the best film actors of the golden age, is a law enforcer with a strict morale conscience, at one point giving his perspective on how he could get Holmes off if he wasn't defense attorney. Boris Karloff has a prominent supporting role as one if the darker of inmates who will give an old lady a knock out drug to reach his nefarious goals.One of the spooky moments comes with the revenge he seeks on a snitch and the countdown to retribution. Every performance is dead on, with moments of tension that are brilliantly scripted. It gets even grittier than MGM's hit prison movie "The Big House". For a film made by B studio Columbia before they moved to near the top, this is a total classic of the crime drama genre, giving an indication of what film noir would look like more than a decade later.

Another Overrated Howard Hawks Film. Here are Two Examples when that "Hawksian" Touch just about makes the Movie Unbearable. First in the Opening Scene Two Policemen are Playing Cards and one loses 42 cents. They are Called Out on a Case, They Argue about 42 cents in the Police Station, out the door, in the car, out of the car, and into the Crime Scene. This is not Entertaining, Funny, or Natural. It is Howard Hawks just being His Obnoxious Self.The Second Thing. He Allows Walter Huston to say "Yeah" Every time He Opens His Mouth. He Prefaces Sentences with "Yeah", He Ends Sentences with "Yeah", He says "Yeah" in the Middle of Sentences, and He says "Yeah" just for Emphasis. This is Hawks Once Again Annoying Audiences with His Style Until They Scream for Relief.The Rest of the Movie is Not Bad. Boris Karloff Steals the Show as a Truly Scary Looking Inmate and some of the Mugs in the Yard are some Hard Bitten Characters (No Blacks). The Film is Talky and some of the Conversations go on for Ever and the Dated Dialog Deliveries can be Cumbersome at Times, but Overall it is Worth a Watch for an Example of Early Hollywood despite Everything the Director does to Drive You Away.

***SPOILERS*** Howard Hawks Crime & Punishment drama about upholding the Criminal Code in the court system as well as behind bars.It's when 20 year old Bob Graham got into a fight at the notorious New York City speakeasy Spelvins over his date Gertrude Williams with Young Parker that he ended up cracking Parker's skull open with a water bottle killing him. Despite Parker initiating the violence by trying to pull something out of his back pocket, which turned out to be a handkerchief, Graham was handed down by the local D.A Mark Brady a 10 year sentence at Sing Sing Prison for manslaughter.The broken young man-Bob Graham- with no future to look froward too is now in with the most dangerous criminals around, murderers armed robbers rapists and just plain Nogoodnicks. Graham also has to endure ten years of total hell and at the same time follow the code of the prison and suffer the consequences if he doesn't. Sent to work in the prison's jute mill Garham starts to come apart and is soon examined by the prison doctor Rinewulf who advised the prison warden and former NYC D.A, who sent Graham away in the first place, Brady to get Graham out of the Jute mill before he ends up either killing himself or a fellow convict or even prison guard!It's when Graham is giving the cushy job as Warden Brady's personal driver and delivery boy that his miserable life suddenly turns around for the better. Cleaned up from the muck that filled his lungs in the jute mill Graham also falls in love with Warden Brady's young daughter Mary, Constance Cummings, who also took a liking to the sensitive and handsome young man. Now a model prisoner Warden Brady works hard to get Graham an early out, or pardon, so he can be able to start his shattered life back again.***SPOILERS*** It's when one of Graham's cell-mates Jim Fales tries to break out of prison and is shot down due to him being ratted by his fellow escapee Runch, who got cold feet, that his now improved lifestyle took a drastic turn for the worst! As the criminal or prison code dictates Runch ended up getting wasted despite all the efforts by Warden Brady to keep him as safe and far away from his fellow, and vindictive, convicts as possible! Grahm is arrested for Runch's murder not in that he had anything to do in getting Runch killed but in that he later covered up the identity of the convict Ned Galloway, Boris Karloff, who murdered him. Galloway's action has Graham holding the bag in Runch's murder and is now facing not a pardon but a lifetime sentence, if he's lucky, behind bars or him being executed in Sing Sing's electric chair!Heart wrenching prison drama that leaves you emotionally drained in Graham's predicament in the murder of that snitch Runch that he's totally innocent of! In a round about way it's non other then Runch's killer Galloway who in the end straightens thing out for the hard luck, in the raw deal that life gave him, Bob Graham. Seeing that Graham was willing to take to rap for what he did Galloway with no hope of ever seeing freedom again takes the opportunity to both settle matters with the person who, like the dead Runch, snitched him back behind bars as well as exonerate Graham of the murder that he committed! And the way Galloway ended up doing that was with his very life!

"The Criminal Code" is centered around the theme "An Eye for An Eye." This theme is the reason that young Robert Graham is sent to prison, the reason why the prisoners object to the D.A. becoming the Warden of the prison, and the reason why Graham is sent to "the hole" near the end of the film. For 1931, it was one of the first critical looks at this theme. It raises certain questions as to the morals of the law, and the Criminal Code versus the Prisoners Code. Phillips Holmes gives a good enough performance as Robert Graham, and Boris Karloff came off well as the inmate with a bone to pick (months before becoming Frankenstein), but the performance that I liked the most was Walter Huston, who played the D.A.-turned-prison-warden. Huston's character was a wily one, who said "Yeah" and "Yeah?" about a hundred times throughout the film.