ShangLuda Admirable film.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

ponekingpetch If you like the Screen's First Rebel you will love this fun B programmer which was Garfield's initial film for Warner Bros. He had that rapid fire line delivery and script memorization of hard lines down to a T here. Great supporting cast of Warner stock players and Stanley Field's most screen time ever. Loved the prison set decoration and lensing of the movie. The Tough Guy looked like he had fun making this assembly line B picture and you will as well viewing it. Highly Recommend!

dougdoepke After being convicted, an egotistical crime boss corrupts the prison he's sent to, until a crusading commissioner and crime reporter get on his trail.If you like the blustery Wallace Beery you might like this movie. After all, the film's real star is a Beery impersonator, Stanley Fields (Bull Bransom), who has the most scenes and screen time. Looks to me like Garfield's only got a featured part though he gets top billing. I guess (IMDB) the top billing is because his smash hit Four Daughters (1938) was made after this film but released before Blackwell. So Warner's shot more scenes for him in this film before releasing it, knowing they had a budding star. Anyway, as a Garfield fan, I've never seen him look so young. Still, he's got his usual fast-talk delivery but without the patented tough guy demeanor. All in all, this may be his first screen appearance.At the same time, why top bill Rosemary Lane when she's only got about a minute of screen time. No doubt she was also added after initial shooting because she played so well with Garfield in Four Daughters. I've spent some time on these oddities because the movie itself is ordinary, at best. Fields makes a comical crime boss in a routine screenplay that relies mainly on his Beery-like qualities. Warner's does get to use a lot of its stock footage of prison turmoil, a topic it specialized in. Still and all, except for the evolution of Garfield's career, the movie itself is nothing more than a routine bottom-of-the-bill programmer.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Hard hitting writing and take no BS investigative reporter Tim Haydon, John Garfield, who's been a torn in the butt of New York City Mob Boss Bull Bransom, Stanley Fields, gets himself arrested to end up in the notorious Blackwell's Island on the East River for slugging Manhattan District Attorney Hampel, William B. Davidson. That's after Bransom was sent there for an assault and battery against NYPD cop Terry Walsh, Dick Parcell, after his men tried to murder hospitalized boat captain Pedersen, Wade Boteler, that officer Welsh tried to prevent. Pedersen who refused to pay protection money to the Bransom Mob was later murdered, together with Oficer Welsh, by them after his testimony sent Bransom for a six month "vacation" to Blackwell's Isand.Hayden as an inmate at Blackwell's Island is actually working undercover for the NYC D.A's office in order to expose the corruption that's going on there that Bransom is wholly responsible for. Yet at the same time befriends Bransom in order to get on his good side as well as get the goods on him and his paid off stooge Warden Stuart "Stu" Granger, Granville Bates. It's later when Bransom gets wind of what Hayden is really up to he sets him up to be shot trying to escape from the island. A plan that backfires on him and ends up sending Bransom up the river in Sing Sing Prison on murder extortion as well as racketeering charges for the next 99 years!John Garfield who would have celebrated his 100 birthday yesterday March 4, 2013, he didn't lived long enough to celebrate his 40th, in one of his first tough guy roles that he soon was to became famous for is very convincing as reporter Tim Hayden who goes all out to take down big time mobster Bull Bransom as an act of both justice as well as revenge for his goons murdering his girlfriend Sunny Welsh,Rosemary Lane, brother Officer Terry Welsh and does it John Garfield style. He also has help from the new straight as an arrow and incorruptible Correction Commissioner Thomas MacNair,Victor Jory, who ends up not only putting Boss Bransom away for good but his stooge of a warden "Stu" Granger and his entire paid off,by Mob Boss Bransom, prison crew as well.

bjinfo As incredible as it may seem, much of the details of the main criminal is this film is stolen "straight from the headlines" about Joseph/Joeyrel Rao, a racketeer who was convicted on conspiracy charges related to a seltzer racket in the Bronx. Once jailed, he literally took it over, with the help of crooked Tammany Hall politicians, and ran more rackets then they could list or even discuss in the film (e.g. drug dealing, prostitution, etc.).This Rao was related to the same Rao family as the famous restaurant and yummy tomato sauces you can get in your grocery store.You can research him by going to the NYTimes.com. It is hard to find general data about him on the web.