Absolutely loved the idea for the story, which sounded suspenseful and intriguing. Howard Hawks did a lot of fine films, especially in screwball comedy and westerns. Walter Huston was a great actor, my first exposure to him being in Rene Clair's 'And Then There Were None' but my favourite performance of his is in 'Dodsworth'. Also have always liked Boris Karloff a lot since the 'Frankenstein' films and there are some fine prison films, including the film that this has been compared to 'The Big House'.
'The Criminal Code' on the whole was a good film, it was intriguing, suspenseful, well made and acted. Part of me did feel though that it could have been even better than it was with not everything coming off completely successfully, this did have potential to be a great film considering what it was seen for by me but ended up being a strong good one. Which is good enough, one can say.
Plenty of good things here in 'The Criminal Code' here. The two big pluses being the performances of Huston and Karloff. Huston has such a powerful presence and plays his part with dignity and eloquence. Karloff mesmerises even more, not many actors achieve a mix of menacing and moving and not only balance them beautifully but excel at each individually but Karloff does this and one of the best at the time at this. Hawks directs slickly and the film is stylishly and atmospherically made.
Script flows very well, makes one think and has tension on the most part. The story gets bogged down a little at times, but it often intrigues, the more menacing moments are suspenseful and it all feels plausible. Nicely scored too.
Not much wrong here actually. Phillips Holmes and Constance Cummings don't fare as well as Huston and Karloff. Cummings does fare better as she is charming and touching, her problem is that she doesn't have a lot to work with. Holmes however struck me as rather bland.
Likewise with the central romance, which is fairly underdeveloped and can tend to slow the film down.
Drawbacks aside, on the whole as said this was to me a good film. 7/10
'The Criminal Code' on the whole was a good film, it was intriguing, suspenseful, well made and acted. Part of me did feel though that it could have been even better than it was with not everything coming off completely successfully, this did have potential to be a great film considering what it was seen for by me but ended up being a strong good one. Which is good enough, one can say.
Plenty of good things here in 'The Criminal Code' here. The two big pluses being the performances of Huston and Karloff. Huston has such a powerful presence and plays his part with dignity and eloquence. Karloff mesmerises even more, not many actors achieve a mix of menacing and moving and not only balance them beautifully but excel at each individually but Karloff does this and one of the best at the time at this. Hawks directs slickly and the film is stylishly and atmospherically made.
Script flows very well, makes one think and has tension on the most part. The story gets bogged down a little at times, but it often intrigues, the more menacing moments are suspenseful and it all feels plausible. Nicely scored too.
Not much wrong here actually. Phillips Holmes and Constance Cummings don't fare as well as Huston and Karloff. Cummings does fare better as she is charming and touching, her problem is that she doesn't have a lot to work with. Holmes however struck me as rather bland.
Likewise with the central romance, which is fairly underdeveloped and can tend to slow the film down.
Drawbacks aside, on the whole as said this was to me a good film. 7/10