Rent The Criminal Code (1930)

3.5 of 5 from 64 ratings
1h 37min
Rent The Criminal Code Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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Synopsis:
After young Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) commits a murder while drunk and defending his girlfriend, he is prosecuted by ambitious Mark Brady (Walter Huston) and sentenced to 10 years. Six years later, Brady becomes the prison warden and offers the beleaguered Robert a job as his chauffeur. Robert cleans up his act, but, on the eve of his pardon, his cellmate drags him back into the world of violence, and he faces a difficult choice that could return him to prison.
Actors:
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Directors:
Producers:
Harry Cohn, Frank Fouce, Howard Hawks
Writers:
Martin Flavin, Fred Niblo Jr., Seton I. Miller
Others:
Fred Niblo Jr., Seton I. Miller
Genres:
Classics, Drama, Romance
Collections:
Instant Expert's Guide to John Huston, The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to Howard Hawks
BBFC:
Release Date:
Not released
Run Time:
97 minutes
BBFC:
Release Date:
22/03/2021
Run Time:
97 minutes
Languages:
English LPCM Mono
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.37:1
Colour:
B & W
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • Audio commentary with film historian Nora Fiore (2021)
  • Behind the Mask (2021, 26 mins): author and critic Kim Newman discusses the non-horror career of actor Boris Karloff
  • Codes and Convictions (2021, 30 mins): video essay by Jonathan Bygraves on the many adaptations of Marvin Flavin's 'The Criminal Code'
  • The Howard Hawks Masterclass with John Carpenter (1997, 36 mins): archival audio recording of a presentation by the cult filmmaker from the British Film Institute's 1997 Howard Hawks retrospective at the National Film Theatre, London
  • Lux Radio Theatre: 'The Criminal Code' (1939, 59 mins): radio adaptation starring Edward G Robinson, Beverly Roberts and Paul Guilfoyle
  • Image galleries: on-set and promotional photography from 'The Criminal Code' and its lost Spanish-language version, 'El codigo penal'
  • World Premiere on Blu-ray

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Reviews (1) of The Criminal Code

Jute and Justice - The Criminal Code review by CH

Spoiler Alert
12/01/2025

The film's title is adroit, applying to lawyer and villain alike. One holds a stout volume which encapsulates the Law; the other is beholden to that ad hoc rule, not set down in print, by which nobody "squeals" to the authorities about another of the fraternity's misdemeanours.

Such is the mainspring of this early film by Howard Hawks, from a play by Martin Flavin. Phillips Holmes has killed a man whom he thought reaching for a gun in a speakeasy and is betrayed by a woman who swiftly departs the scene, leaving him to be arraigned for murder, in fact manslaughter, and consigned to the slammer for a decade at the behest of a politically ambitious DA, Walter Huston.

With a jump of six years, we find him in a cell scarcely better than the prison's health-shattering jute mill where he toils by day. No longer is he suave, but breaking down, his mother's telegrammed death bringing scant sympathy from his two cellmates, one of whom is Boris Karloff near the start of a career which would find that rigid face in demand. As for the other occupant, he is bitter at the betrayal which brought him back to gaol after one illicit beer while on parole. Plot enough, you might think, and that is already but part of it; what's more, a new Warden arrives and is none other than the DA who sent Holmes down and has not gained State office. This time around, he takes aboard the suggestion that Holmes become his factotum. Everthing looks brighter for him, especially when Huston's daughter (Constance Cummings) becomes smitten.

This world of light and shade - real and metaphorical - is caught well by cinematographer James Wong Howe as the suspense becomes physically palpable, vertiably neck-tightrning, when all turns upon Holmes's dilemma: after a wonderfully-staged breakout attempt, will he squeal about the murder which took place in an adjunct to Huston's office? Watch the scenes with him in solitary at yout peril. Even so, Holmes and Constance Cummings do not have the screen presence displayed by many others in a cast whose work is as dialogue driven as any of the work for which Hawks would become better known - whether, here, the upright but self-seeking tones of Huston or the slang of Karloff and his cronies.

Startling to think that to watch this is to look across ninety-five years at something which is as fresh as ever. And among the extras on the disc is one which sets side by side scenes from it with counterparts not only from Hollywood remakes but foreign incarnations of a story which it would be interesting to see again on stage - difficult though it might be to put out of mind the expressionistic hues of this film, which should be better known.

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