Convict's Code (1939) - an above average film-noir crime B-Movie

Описание: In order to eliminate football player Dave Tyler (Robert Kent) from a crucial game, gamblers unjustly frame Dave for a bank robbery. After serving three years in prison, Dave is released on parole and sets out to clear his name and find the real criminals who framed him.

Dave is hired as a chauffeur by Gregory Warren (Sidney Blackmer), an investment broker, partly due to the head of the sports department at the newspaper having written that Dave will need a job on release.

Unknown to Dave, Gregory is the man he has been looking for. Gregory wants to keep a watch on Dave. He figures he can always violate Dave back to prison.

Dave falls in love with Gregory's favorite little sister, Julie Warren (Anne Nagel), who knows nothing of Gregory's criminal interference with the judicial process. Julie is also unaware that her brother is the covert head of a crooked gambling ring.

Discovering that the six witnesses who testified against him have vanished, Dave is about to give up his search when Sniffy Johnson (Pat Flaherty), an ex-convict, promises to give him the name of the man who framed him, on the condition that Dave act as his accomplice in a robbery. Dave reluctantly agrees, but when the alarm is sounded, he forces Sniffy to admit that Warren was the man responsible.

To protect Julie, Dave withholds this information from his blonde haired girlfriend, and when she tells her brother of her love for Dave, Warren hurries to stop Joe Russell (Norman Willis), his henchman, from murdering him.

A gun fight with a police officer ensues, and Warren is seriously injured. Dave remains silent about Warren's guilt because of his love for Julie, and is sent back to prison for violating his parole.

Soon after, Warren dies of his wounds, leaving behind a letter which exonerates Dave. Julie takes the letter to the governor, who grants Dave a pardon, thus freeing him to begin a new life with Julie.

A 1939 American Black & White film-noir crime B-Movie directed by Lambert Hillyer, produced by E.B. Derr, written by John W. Krafft, cinematography Arthur Martinelli, starring Robert Kent, Anne Nagel, Sidney Blackmer, Victor Kilian, Norman Willis, Maude Eburne, Ben Alexander, Pat Flaherty, Carleton Young, Howard C. Hickman, Joan Barclay, and Harry Strang.

This is a nice little movie to cap Lambert Hillyer's non-western career. Hillyer would never venture beyond B-westerns and the occasional serial again.

Lambert Hillyer (1893-1969) was born Lambert Harwood Hillyer in Tyner, Indiana. His mother was character actress Lydia Knott. A graduate of Drake College, he worked as a newspaper reporter and an actor in vaudeville and stock theater. During World War I he began working in motion pictures and became a prolific director and screenwriter, working on many silent-era Westerns by William S. Hart, Buck Jones, Tom Mix and others. Often associated with producer Thomas H. Ince, Hillyer expanded into romantic melodramas and crime films in the 1920s. He directed two chillers for Universal, the science-fiction film T"he Invisible Ray" (1936) and the cult horror film "Dracula's Daughter" (1936). He directed the first screen depiction of "Batman" in a 15-part serial produced in 1943 that was re-released as a theatrical feature in 1965. Hillyer directed many B-Movies for Columbia Pictures in the 1930s and early 1940s, including the Westerns that were his specialty. Hillyer finished his career directing low-budget dramas and Westerns for Monogram Pictures. In the early days of television, Hillyer also directed episodes of the syndicated Western, "The Cisco Kid". Hillyer directed at least one episode of "Highway Patrol", which starred Broderick Crawford. Hillyer died July 5, 1969, in Los Angeles, California.

B-Movies in the 1930s and 40s were inexpensively made and relatively short films that were shown as part of a double-feature. Many were made by "poverty row" studios--tiny independent companies that often rented space on the major studio lots at night.

There's a good deal to be said in favor of uninspired B-Movies like this. It has everything going for it: solid story, good acting, fast pace, and convincing dialogue. The cast is worthy, too. It's fast, not a moment is wasted, the actors hit their marks, speak their lines with conviction but with few errors. The sets are sparse, the dialog instrumental. The whole point was to grind out a short and inexpensive programmer with the ability to make a few dollars for a poverty row house like Monogram, best known for John Wayne westerns during the 30s. It succeeds.

As with many B-movie productions, this one doesn't have any star power so is forced to get by through the strength of the story alone. In that respect it works well, with many suspenseful moments as our hero narrowly avoids his parole officer and attempts to go straight. Not a film that will require much thought or concentration, but certainly an above average "B" film, and very fast moving. Quite interesting and entertaining!