You almost wouldn't know Glenn Ford was in this picture. He's in virtually every scene, but his character, Joe Hufford, is so laid back that he just seems to go along with the flow. Except when he gets the news his father died, and a guard tried to roust him; slugging the guard put him in solitary for a week. You don't get many prison movies in which the prosecuting District Attorney and the prison warden go to bat for a convict, but you've got that here. In fact, they're both the same person, as George Knowland (Broderick Crawford) takes the prison gig, some time after sending Hufford to the big house. He's not your typical warden, he's got compassion for his men and a keen sense of how far he can go when facing down the general population. I don't know that I would have walked through the prison yard on my first day there as boss, but Crawford made it work with his stern and commanding presence. Knowland's faith in Hufford pulls the convict through following a series of altercations and the murder of an inmate Hufford took pains not to rat out. Watching this film with captioning like I usually do was kind of amusing, as Hufford's name came across alternately as Huford, Buford and Guilford, while inmate Ponti's (Frank Faylen) name was translated variously as Potty, Party and Bonnie. Bonnie?
Review of Convicted
