Dapper dude, Glenn Ford falls prey to being the gallant chap, who, in attempting to defend his lady friend's honour seriously assaults another man in a bar. Ford's fortunes are suddenly in freefall when his victim, the son of somebody 'IMPORTANT' dies from his injuries. His female friend (Martha Stewart) is hardly Top of the Pops on the Reliable Witness charts, initially giving a false name before revealing her true identity, Bertha Williams. (Not exactly Bertha the cool!)
Ford's fate is sealed with the arrival of company provided defence attorney, (Roland Winters), who has never handled a criminal case, is the kind of man who would place a bucket beneath a gas leak and proves to be as much use as a chocolate teapot. Despite the best efforts of brusque, hard as nails, but fair-minded prosecutor Broderick Crawford to influence the outcome, the disconsolate Ford finds himself on the wrong end of a manslaughter charge.
Convicted depicts an abrasive, forbidding portrait of prison life: exhausting, soul destroying work, rigid regimentation and the FOOD. Even the dishes on the a la carte menu amount to little more than recycled slop. The movie throws in a kitchen sink of desperate and despicable characters: the morose, sadistic, corrupt yard captain (Carl Benton Reid), cynical, sarcastic prisoner, Millard Mitchell, a wind-up addict, who makes no secret of his contempt for authority and Frank Faylen, the edgy, agitated informant who would 'set fire to his sister for a dime.' The casting department deserves credit for unearthing Hollywood's most vile and grotesque looking mugs for the yard scenes. The kind of repellent, blood-churning slobs you would least want to encounter in an alley on a Friday night. A thoroughly loathsome crew, who keep the movie just short of descending into a yammer horror.
Such is the grim, gritty nature of the narrative, that the moments of comic relief seem almost macabre. Ford's future looks brighter when Crawford is appointed as the new prison warden and remembers his case. He becomes a trustee, given the job of chauffeur to both himself and delectable daughter, Dorothy Malone. Crawford's other household staff include a chef convicted of poisoning and a barber serving life for slitting a man's throat. Crawford himself scores points for entering the yard and calming the yammering mob. Increasing his street cred by conversing in fluent Spanish with one prisoner, though he gives the Oriental gentleman nearby a wide berth. Will the new boss further Ford's fight for justice, or is the road to freedom littered with unexpected twists and turns?
This consistently engaging prison drama presents one of Crawford's most distinguished performances and one of Ford's least celebrated ones. Whilst delightful Dorothy Malone provides the romantic interest in a largely male dominated cast.
Ford's fate is sealed with the arrival of company provided defence attorney, (Roland Winters), who has never handled a criminal case, is the kind of man who would place a bucket beneath a gas leak and proves to be as much use as a chocolate teapot. Despite the best efforts of brusque, hard as nails, but fair-minded prosecutor Broderick Crawford to influence the outcome, the disconsolate Ford finds himself on the wrong end of a manslaughter charge.
Convicted depicts an abrasive, forbidding portrait of prison life: exhausting, soul destroying work, rigid regimentation and the FOOD. Even the dishes on the a la carte menu amount to little more than recycled slop. The movie throws in a kitchen sink of desperate and despicable characters: the morose, sadistic, corrupt yard captain (Carl Benton Reid), cynical, sarcastic prisoner, Millard Mitchell, a wind-up addict, who makes no secret of his contempt for authority and Frank Faylen, the edgy, agitated informant who would 'set fire to his sister for a dime.' The casting department deserves credit for unearthing Hollywood's most vile and grotesque looking mugs for the yard scenes. The kind of repellent, blood-churning slobs you would least want to encounter in an alley on a Friday night. A thoroughly loathsome crew, who keep the movie just short of descending into a yammer horror.
Such is the grim, gritty nature of the narrative, that the moments of comic relief seem almost macabre. Ford's future looks brighter when Crawford is appointed as the new prison warden and remembers his case. He becomes a trustee, given the job of chauffeur to both himself and delectable daughter, Dorothy Malone. Crawford's other household staff include a chef convicted of poisoning and a barber serving life for slitting a man's throat. Crawford himself scores points for entering the yard and calming the yammering mob. Increasing his street cred by conversing in fluent Spanish with one prisoner, though he gives the Oriental gentleman nearby a wide berth. Will the new boss further Ford's fight for justice, or is the road to freedom littered with unexpected twists and turns?
This consistently engaging prison drama presents one of Crawford's most distinguished performances and one of Ford's least celebrated ones. Whilst delightful Dorothy Malone provides the romantic interest in a largely male dominated cast.