Redundant and unnecessary.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Glenn Ford, a middle-class sort of guy, causes an accidental death and is sent up for one to five because his lawyer bungles the case criminally. Broderick Crawford is the DA who convicted him, but believes Ford got a bum bounce. Crawford becomes the prison warden and brings his daughter, Dorothy Malone, along. She and Ford meet briefly and it's love at first sight. There are more sights when Crawford deliberately makes Ford his chauffeur.Malone leaves for a few weeks and when she comes back she meets Ford again in the warden's office. By an unfortunate juxtaposition of circumstances, Ford has suffered mightily in her absence, and when he leaves the office, Malone says to her Dad, "He doesn't seem like the same man." The problem is that Ford actually DOES seem like the same man -- sullen, taciturn, full of resentment. The first time we SEE him, he's glum and he stays that way throughout, as if he were playing a musical instrument that had only one note on it. He's a decent actor with some considerable range -- from melodrama ("The Big Heat") to comedy ("The Teahouse of the August Moon) -- but not here.Dorothy Malone was never much of an actress. Every word sounds like a memorized line from a script. But she's never looked better than she does here. Really, she's very attractive, though not nearly as sexy as she was allowed to be in "Battle Cry." Broderick Crawford had TWO notes on his instrument -- gruff, factual, sneaky, and happy, gullible, and dumb. Here he's in Role Number One. He's -- how you say? -- stern but fair. But his job as warden leaves him towards the end with his huevos in a vice, just like Ford. Crawford's code is the law. Ford's is not squealing on a friend. The two don't mesh.It's an inexpensive production. There are plenty of extras but few outdoor scenes and no panoramas. We see only a few indoor sets. (It was a play before it was a movie.) It's amazing how much difference location shooting can make. Compare the prison scenes in "Call Northside 777." Prison movies are generally kind of depressing. The entire milieu is so drab. And Harry Levin certainly gives us a sense of the tedium involved in working in the laundry, a place full of clattering machinery and steam.I don't know what prison life was like in 1950, probably more brutal than it is today, which is saying a lot. I doubt Ford would get through Day One without being sodomized by two or three big, bald, tattooed goons with names like T-Bone and Ripper. According to my sources, one of whom claims to be a penologist although he seems to know next to nothing about sex, the film only hints at the atmosphere. Ford is loyal to his friends because they happen to be his cell mates. Modern allegiances extend to a much larger group, often based on race, and survival depends on that membership.In his book, Randall Adams, who spent twelve years in the slams after being unjustly convicted of murder, describes an incident in a Texas prison. He and another inmate are sitting at a table playing cards. Another inmate trips on a steel staircase, perhaps in an epileptic seizure, and tumbles to the bottom. Adams and friend continue playing cards. After a few minutes, one of them saunters to the phone and reports the unconscious body at the foot of the staircase. You have your clique, your clique has enemies, and everyone else is treated with complete indifference.

No need to repeat the plot. Prisons are by nature hothouses of repressed emotion. People locked up in unnatural conditions are grist for strong melodrama. When done right, as in Brute Force (1948) or Riot in Cell Block 11 (1953), the results are powerfully memorable. The trouble with this prison film is that it presents the look but none of the feel of hothouse melodrama. Thus, we get actors hitting their marks and speaking their lines, but with one notable exception, without the needed emotion. For example, the movie's dramatic climax is the anticipated revenge killing of the prison stoolie Ponti. It should be fraught with fear and mixed emotion. Now, Faylen as the stoolie delivers fear in spades and is the exception to the generally colorless performances. However, watch killer Mitchell and how the scene is staged—he's expressionless, minus the satisfaction that avenging his friends should arouse. Moreover, he's filmed at an impersonal distance, suggesting that this is simply one more set-up on a tight shooting schedule. Thus, what should be a very personal act causing our imagination to both leap and recoil as the door closes on the stoolie, fulfills only half of the equation.On a less mixed level, there's guard honcho Carl Benton Reid. He speaks his lines well enough and is otherwise an excellent actor. But here his character exhibits none of the intense features the stereotype implies. Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with stereotypes. It's really a matter of how well you do them. In Reid's case, his killing at the end again arouses no particular feeling beyond that of one more plot device. At the same time and on a bigger scale, when warden Crawford walks among the yammering convicts in the yard, the protesters look nothing like angry mob of the earlier stock shot, but more like well- fed extras standing around on a set. The point is (without going on) that the movie fails to rise above strictly programmer status, despite some clever dialogue, Frank Faylen, and a civilized dust-up between attorneys Crawford and Winters— and also, a sparkling, but largely wasted, Dorothy Malone.The problem, as I see it, lies with the director (Levin) who's responsible for staging the scenes, rehearsing the actors, and creating moods while pinpointing emotions. Mitchell, Reid, Doucette, and Ford are all fine actors, capable of rising to an occasion when called upon. However, they're not called upon here. I'm afraid Levin's preference for frothy comedy shows up in this situation where the material is comedy's polar opposite. So, my guess is that he took the film as simply another studio assignment and coasted through.In passing—I sympathize with Columbia studios and Broderick Crawford. Someone once pointed out that Crawford's probably the worst actor ever to win a top Oscar, and I think that person's right. He's a car with basically one gear—a blustery fast-forward-- and it does get tiresome. As a result, here he is in 1950, suddenly a big name commodity but without the skills to back it up. He's in an embarrassing spot while the studio wonders how best to cash in. Fortunately for both, serial TV is just around the corner. He makes a game try in this film, but unfortunately his pudgy car is just not geared for nuanced emotions. But then, neither is the movie.

Broderick Crawford, (George Knowland) plays the role of a District Attorney and has to bring to justice a man named Joe Hufford, (Glenn Ford) who was drunk and struck a man in a night club and killed him. George Knowland knew that Joe Hufford was a good man who had an excellent military service record and told Joe he should obtain a good lawyer to represent him in a court of law. However, Joe did not obtain a good lawyer and he had to serve one to ten years as a prison sentence. Years go by and eventually George Knowland becomes the Warden of the prison where Joe Hufford is serving his prison sentence. George Knowland shows some mercy to Joe along with his daughter, Kay Knowland, ( Dorothy Malone ) who starts to fall in love with Joe. There is plenty of problems in this prison and lots of surprises. Great 1950 Classic to view and enjoy.

In the wake of Broderick Crawford's Oscar for All the King's Men, Columbia Pictures was having difficulty in finding properties for him. It was decided to team him with Columbia reliable leading man work horse Glenn Ford in a remake of The Criminal Code.Convicted since it is remake can't really be blamed for having a lot of cliché in the dialog and plot situations. Just about every prison film deals with the same issues. Since Hollywood dropped the Code, prison films deal far more graphically than before. Still watching Convicted, you get the feeling you've seen it all before and there's nothing really fresh in this film.Glenn Ford kills a man in a nightclub fight. A good lawyer could probably have gotten him off as District Attorney Broderick Crawford tells Ford. Ford unfortunately got pompous Roland Winters who's bag wasn't criminal law. Ford gets a 1 to 10 year sentence.Wouldn't you know it, DA Crawford is appointed the new warden of the prison where Ford is. Since he's living on the grounds his daughter Dorothy Malone moves in with him. Ford by now is a trustee and acts as the warden's chauffeur. But he's still a con, a fact he never forgets and nearly costs him his parole.Dorothy Malone for the first dozen years or so of her career played roles just like this one, good dutiful wives and daughters. No hint of that woman's talent until her Oscar for Written on the Wind.Millard Mitchell and Will Geer are Ford's cellmates and both do a good job. But the best acting in Convicted without a doubt is Frank Faylen as the prison stoolie. Convicted is not a bad film, but there's nothing real special about it in the careers of any of its principal players.