Buried Alive (1939) User Reviews

Minor late-show material

[dinky-4 · 5/10 · 3 December 2002]

With its limited settings, slow pacing, and small cast, this "B" movie could almost be staged as a radio drama. It offers little in the way of suspense or romance and has no comic relief but there may be some academic interest in its Roosevelt-era attitudes toward prisons, capital punishment, and the power of the press.

Robert Wilcox, who always deserved better and who has one of the greatest heads of hair in the history of the movies, does what he can as the inmate who suffers a contrived and implausible string of bad luck. His best part came in the following year, however, when he played an inmate who endures a memorable flogging in "Island of Doomed Men."

Neatly Tied Up, But Overall Ridiculous

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 5 November 2009]

Let's see now. A central figure is the guy who throws the switch at electrocutions. There are three guys in love with a woman who works as a nurse at the prison hospital. One of the prisoners gets to dress up in a suit and drive people around. The warden spends all of his time trying to help this guy. The security is non-existent. The nurse falls in love with the convict rather than the three guys who are in love with her. If prisons were run like this, they would be empty. Everyone would have walked away.

My favorite character is the executioner. He has the shakes but can't seem to quit the job. About once a month he puts the juice to someone. He really wants to buy a farm and raise chickens. Oh, there's also a chaplain who is in love with this woman. Then there is an evil reporter who frames the poor schmoe. Does this sound like something you'd like to see?

"Of mice and men " in the big house

[kidboots · 4/10 · 6 April 2008]

I just read a wonderful interview with Beverly Roberts on the "Midnight Palace" site and thought I would look up her films. I didn't know anything about her but I managed to find this film which was just okay.

Directed by Victor Halperin of "White Zombie" fame it is the story of a prison executioner whose job is sending him around the bend. After enduring some taunts at a local bar, a brawl starts and Johnny, the Warden's prisoner chauffeur gets hurt, helping him out. As a result Johnny's parole is delayed.

Johnny's cell mate is a man called "Big Billy". Early in the film Johnny describes their friendship as similar to one in a book he had read (it wasn't named but it was "Of Mice and Men").

Big Billy is like a big kid - and he remembers all the guards who have treated him harshly. When he attacks and kills a guard - Johnny comes to his rescue but too late as Big Billy is shot while trying to escape. Once again Johnny has to prove his innocence.

Beverly Roberts has a pivotal role as the nurse, Joan, that Johnny loves and is determined to go straight for. This was Robert's last film for a decade - the big mystery is what happened to her in those intervening years??? She was no less talented than Wendy Barrie, who had a bigger career.

Dave O'Brien (minus his toupee) is one of the participants in the brawl and later in the film as a witness to an execution.

Don't be Fooled by the Box

[LynxMatthews · 19 September 2003]

The cheapo box I had made it seem like a vampire horror movie where someone is buried in a grave. So horror fans beware. But fans of little B movies might find this a pleasant diversion. Most remarkable is the very clear "Of Mice and Men" style relationship between the lead guy and his big, dumb buddy.

Sloppy Sloppy Sloppy

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 19 April 2019]

It's sad that poor production values and some sloppy editing so typical of PRC films. I could have seen someone like James Cagney who in 1939 the same year that Buried Alive came out starred in Each Dawn I Die. Some of the elements of that classic are in Buried Alive.

Robert Wilcox plays a model prisoner and trustee and is looking forward to his parole and maybe settling down with prison nurse Beverly Roberts. But George Pembroke who plays the executioner the guy sets up the electric chair is having angst and in the worst place, a bar. When Pembroke gets into a brawl with bottom feeding reporter Wheeler Oakman, Wilcox steps in and saves him.

Oakman has his revenge in the press and the story he prints kills Wilcox's parole. Later on while trying to stop a break by a mentally deranged prisoner another convict lies and Wilcox is on death row for the death of a guard.

There are some good elements in the story and if this had been done at a major studio with a bit more care it could have been a classic.

As it is it's a sloppy PRC product.

Awful, boring, inept noir -- AVOID!

[fwmurnau · 1/10 · 23 November 2012]

A prisoner with a spotless record, about to be paroled, encounters a series of misunderstandings, unlucky accidents, and set-backs that jeopardize his freedom and his future with the blonde prison infirmary nurse he's fallen in love with. Sound interesting? IT'S NOT!

This movie is so badly written, it might be used as a textbook example of how not to construct a story. The exposition wanders around, trying to get a story started, and fails miserably.

It's not even clear who the main character is until about 45 minutes in. The script seems to have been written as some kind of protest piece against capital punishment. A worse punishment is trying to sit through this movie to the end.

Wooden dialog, poor acting and direction, and scene after scene in which characters' actions make absolutely no sense. This is almost Ed Wood- bad, but sadly it's not "so bad it's good". It's "so bad it's depressing".

Of Rice and Men

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 8 March 2009]

"A prison trustee is soon to be released from prison when he ends up stopping a bar brawl involving one of the prison guards. After some unkind press for him on the bar brawl, the convict is turned down for his early parole. Will his love for the prison nurse help him in getting past all of the people trying to keep him in prison and looking at the electric chair?" according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

"Buried Alive" is a potentially interesting look at the electric chair era, and the public servants who organize the executions. But, the main story, involving handsome Robert Wilcox (as Johnny Martin) doesn't end up serving the film's morality question; at least, not the one introduced in the opening, by twitchy switch-puller George Pembroke (as Ernie Matthews).

A "love story" between Mr. Wilcox and beautiful nurse Beverly Roberts (as Joan Wright) isn't terribly exciting. The book Wilcox describes, while driving, is John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" - which makes Wilcox "George" and cell-mate Don Rowan (as Big Billy) "Lennie". In the 1929s, prisoners did a lot more reading (and motion pictures were sometimes too talky).

*** Buried Alive (11/6/39) Victor Halperin ~ Robert Wilcox, Beverly Roberts, George Pembroke

A very tedious prison drama

[Red-Barracuda · 2/10 · 19 August 2010]

This mind-bogglingly tedious and utterly meaninglessly titled prison-drama is about a convict who is wrongly accused of killing a prison guard and subsequently sentenced to death by electric chair. Victor Halperin is at the helm here, he will be known to some as a director of some low grade poverty row genre pictures of the 30's. This has to be his least enjoyable feature that I have seen so far. It simply never gets going. It's very much a drama with little in the way of thrills; however, this is not a problem in itself. The issue is that the set-up and character relationships are not believable or compelling. The prison itself is like no other I know of, where felons are allowed out to work as chauffeurs for staff and even go drinking with them in bars in town. It's very silly. So too is the romantic sub-plot, where it seems that every man in the prison is deeply in love with the nurse/token woman. It's kind of trite and is a weak and pointless thread, as it doesn't really generate any worthwhile developments in the plot.

One of the few points of interest in the plot is the way the film deals with the issue of capitol punishment. It seems to be very much anti-death penalty. This surprised me, as I thought that the general consensus back in the 30's would have been 'kill them, kill them!' Shows you what I know, turns out there were some very libertarian humanistic views on the subject back then. So that was quite interesting. Sadly not a lot else actually was.

Good Intentions Are No Remedy For Bad Execution

[boblipton · 3/10 · 23 November 2023]

George Pembroke runs the electric chair at the prison. After a session, he goes out to get drunk, because he doesn't like his job. There he finds reporters, one of whom taunts him. They get into a fight, and Robert Wilcox, a trusty who drives the car, comes in and punches out the reporter and rescues Pembroke. The reporter decides he's going to get even and writes a story about how Wilcox was drunk and started the fight. As a result, Wilcox is turned down for parole.

There's something worse about a good idea that goes bad in a movie. This could have been. And arguably is, a movie about the breakdown of the penitentiary system and how that destroys lives. Instead, in the hands of director Victor Halperin, it becomes a confused mess. Wilcox and prison nurse Beverly Roberts (in her last big-screen role) are in love; Pembroke and prison doctor Stephen Chase also love her, but aren't going to mention it, because they are gentlemen. This is, I suppose, part of the movie's love of romance and melodrama, but is it necessary? Acting choices, like having Wilcox's cellmate, Don Rowan, speak slowly and refer to himself by name to show he is stupid, is likewise clumsy.

But worst of all is the slow pace of the dialogue and the visual inertness of the movie. Cinematographer Jack Greenhalgh was a talented cameraman, so the only conclusion is that this was a deliberate choice. A movie can survive a lot, but it can't survive the dullness thus imposed on it.

Not a horror movie

[vampi1960 · 7/10 · 19 August 2006]

despite the title buried alive is'nt a horror film,nor is it a film about anyone being buried alive,its a well made PRC poverty row prison melodrama about a prison trustee(Robert Wilcox) who gets in a jam after helping a prison employee in a bar room brawl.he gets hurt and ends up in the prison sick bay and falls in love with the prison nurse(Beverly Roberts)it has the look of an old warner brothers crime drama,i kept waiting for the dead end kids to show up.for a low budget movie its pretty good.warner Oakland and don Rowan(both from the buster Crabbe flash Gordon serials play supporting roles.it was directed by victor halperin(white zombie)i bought this DVD for a buck at a local dollar store,it has 2 features on it,the other is the infamous ;i bury the living with Richard Boone.now thats a bargain.as a fan of vintage horror and dramas I'm always on the prowl for these bargains.buried alive is 7 out of 10,pretty good b-movie.

Give this one a miss!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 4 December 2017]

Victor Halperin, who make such excellent work of both "White Zombie" (1932) and "Supernatural" (1933) obviously had an off day when he agreed to direct "Buried Alive" (1939) (available on a quite good Alpha disc), which is actually not a horror film by any stretch of the imagination, but a slack prison picture in which the luckless hero is condemned to an endless stretch.

So no-one is actually physically buried alive at all. It's merely a figure of speech. That, in itself, is more than somewhat disappointing. But there is even more bad news to come! Burdened with a surfeit of dialogue and a totally uninteresting cast (including throaty-voiced Beverly Roberts in her final movie appearance — and who could blame her for quitting after being incarcerated in this turnkey turkey?), it makes for a boring 62 minutes, despite an obvious borrowing from John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men".

An odd title but even odder is that this PRC film is actually good!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 22 December 2012]

reference to "Of Mice and Men" for Big Billy PRC was one of the crappiest studios of the day. It consistently churned out films that were ultra-low budget AND rather stupid. By comparison, the films of Monogram and Republic looked like Oscar-contenders!! And, it's because of this I was so shocked by "Buried Alive"...because it is actually very good! Sure, the acting is occasionally shaky, but the story was really good and it makes you think.

Despite the title, the film is set in prison. The film is an indictment of the prison system and a call for reform. It also appears to be a strong condemnation of newspapers. It begins with a prison trustee, Johnny Martin (Robert Wilcox), doing his best to make his stay in prison as brief and productive as possible. He is not only a model prisoner but does his best to look out for other prisoners. However, when he comes to the aid of a prison worker who is pulled into a fist-fight, a long series of unfortunate events occurs--resulting in Johnny NOT being paroled but being sentenced to the death chamber!! In addition to savaging the press, the film is very clearly anti-capital punishment and in favor of rehabilitation. It's unusual for its day and although it's a tiny bit preachy, it makes its case very well and is well worth your time. Cheap but effective and with a nifty ending.

This film should be buried...and not in a time capsule!

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 15 September 2016]

This is a z grade snooze fest, one of the worst prison movies I've ever seen, which really gives PRC the name of perfectly rotten cinema. It surrounds the trustee of a prison who is framed on a murder charge and faces the death penalty. The convoluted plot keeps falling through the invisible sieve, so many holes and nothing coming out of it. This is extremely difficult to get through with Wilcox giving too moody of a performance to sympathize with and Beverly Roberts, once a Warner Brothers leading lady, absolutely lifeless. This is especially surprising to be so dull with cult director Victor Halperin at the helm. Even the intense prison scenes fall flat, and a seemingly serious car accident is badly staged with unrealistic details surrounding the crash.

An executioner's second thoughts

[clanciai · 8/10 · 19 November 2022]

The interesting thing about this film is the story by William A. Ullman, who has a clear eye for poignant realism and is always consistent with a sharp psychological intelligence, and he stands as far from the Hollywood dream factory output of box office candy as anyone could ever do. This is a grim story of a prison ward who is about to be set free on parole, when his concern about his fellow prisoners gets him into trouble. His interference in a bar brawl undoes his parole, and it will get worse. When a fellow prisoner tries to escape he tries to stop him, while that prisoner gets time enough to kill a prison guard before he is shot to death. Our fellow gets indicted for the murder and is actually brought to the electric chair.

The film begins with the executioner and his second thoughts about his job, which isn't very funny, we follow a detailed execution from the beginning, and the film ends up where it started, with another execution, which becomes one execution too much for the executioner, who quits his job.

The story is very polyphonic with many characters involved, the direction is lousy, but the film is definitely worth watching for the sake of the story. It's an early and astute attack on the death penalty, showing how easy it was for an innocent to become executed by mistake. No one is buried alive here, but the whole system is by understatement accused of being an institution for burying people alive.