Ladies of the Big House (1931) User Reviews

Sylvia Sidney is strong in this prison drama

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 17 March 2018]

It's a little contrived how two young lovers end up in prison on false charges, and you'll have to suspend disbelief over the judicial processes in this film. If you can get past the set-up, you will probably enjoy the performances, particularly those behind bars. Sylvia Sidney is a revelation, and really delivers here. We see close shots of her pretty face amidst flowers early on, and she progresses through scenes of outrage over their false imprisonment, and passion in saying good-bye to her husband in his jail cell, all of which are wonderful.

When you hear 'pre-code women's prison film' you may have an impression based other films, such as 'Ladies They Talk About' (1933), but this one is refreshing in its portrayal of the inmates. There are no lecherous references or other exploitation, for one thing. The performances are also strong, from the inmate who hates Sidney's character (Wynne Gibson), to the one who befriends her (Louise Beavers). It also has an edge in its dialogue, and in showing a row of agitated prisoners rattling their bars and hollering, something we've seen many times through the years, but this is 1931. On the men's side of the prison (...as for the 'Gentlemen of the Big House'), Gene Raymond has some touching moments with a fellow inmate on death row, played well by Rockliffe Fellowes. There are also some nice camera angles employed from director Marion Gering, as well as a dramatic scene on the water that looked scarily realistic. Overall, not great, but a reasonably good film.

Bars may keep their bodies apart, but their love knows no cell.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 8 February 2017]

Crooked politics, dirty crooks and jealous molls are just a few of the obstacles in the way of lovers Gene Raymond and Sylvia Sidney. She made the mistake of going out with a mobster, and when she turned around and married Raymond, the jilted slime-ball sets him up for murder and the death penalty and Sidney for accessory. She's harassed by the mobster's former moll, sassy Wynne Gibson, and further corruption creates a prison scandal. That doesn't stop Raymond from ending up on death row, but the twists and turns are more crooked than the secret ways of getting out of the big house.

Obviously a play on MGM's "The Big House", this to my knowledge is one of the first women in prison films. A Barbara Stanwyck film, "Ladies They Talk About", is more well known because of its exposure on home video, but this one is equally memorable, although it lacks the hard-boiled pre- code comedy that made Stanwyck's film more popular.

Like that film, this has some great supporting players, most notably Jane Darwell as one of the many jailhouse wardens/matrons she played and Louise Beavers as a fellow inmate who stands up to Gibson on Sidney's behalf. Sidney is excellent, and Gibson is a forgotten gem of a pre-code actress. Among the men, in an unbilled role, is Roscoe Karns as Raymond's death row pal. Earle Fox plays the villain with daggers instead of eyeballs. Look briskly for several future leading and featured players in roles that are practically extra parts. Some of the scenes are filled with tensions and passions rarely explored in cinema, let alone pre-code.

Holy mackerel - what a wowzer!

[1930s_Time_Machine · 7/10 · 9 March 2024]

This is a fantastic prison drama - better, faster and more tense than EACH DAWN I DIE - seriously! Every second builds the tension and every scene adds to the drama of this exceptionally made picture.

This was Marion Gering's first film he made with his favourite actress Sylvia Sidney. Under his direction she instantly captures your sympathy and as the story progresses your heart is your mouth.

Mr Gering was one of the most imaginative and dynamic directors Paramount had. He really knew how to get his audience to engage. Unfortunately for him Paramount also had some of the greatest directors in their stable so as the decade went on, his prominence there faded - sadly and really unfairly he faded into obscurity. He truly made some of the best movies of the pre-code era.... someone needs to start up a Marion Gering appreciation society!

This picture is the perfect prison drama. I can't imagine how it could possibly be any better. You don't notice the gaping plot holes or the cheesy ending, you're just totally entranced.

SOLID "BIG HOUSE" DRAMA

[bensonj · 30 May 2004]

Flower shop girl Sidney has the bad luck to have a vicious hoodlum fall for her in a big way. When she prefers Raymond, the hood has them both framed for murder. Some powerful moments when they're allowed to see each other for a few brief moments in the penitentiary not long before he's to be executed, and it turns out that the meeting been arranged merely to give a tabloid a photo op. The conventions of "the big house" story seem to have been already firmly established by 1931: the snitch with the facial tic, the girl with phony society airs, the tough gal, the big break, the heavy-set matron (Jane Darwell, unbilled), Beavers as a friendly "hot music" loving mama. The story, the characterizations, the writing, all have the familiarity of the mid-thirties; solid entertainment, but not with the freshness found in so many pre-Code films.

Wynne Gibson gives a dynamite performance!!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 27 October 2009]

Wynne Gibson was marvellous at playing hard, flinty dames - usually with hearts of stone. She made her debut in "Nothing But the Truth" where she played Sabel, a tough talking chorus girl looking out for her "simple" sister Mabel (Helen Kane). She did play a few Stella Dallas/ Madame X type parts but it was in roles such as Susie in "Ladies of the Big House" that she is remembered - even though she shares a cell with the Princess of the Down Trodden - Sylvia Sidney. This film really packs a wallop - there is even a jail break - lead by Sylvia!!!

Tough gangster Kid Athens (Earle Fox) is completely smitten with beautiful florist Kathleen (Sylvia Sidney) but she is definitely not interested, especially when she finds out his line of business. When she meets and marries Standish O'Neil (Gene Raymond), Athens is so incensed that he frames them for murder and before you know it - Standish is facing the gallows and Kathleen is looking at many years behind bars. The only friend Kathleen finds in prison is Ivory (Louise Beavers) - the rest are firmly behind hard hearted Susie (Wynne Gibson) who vows to make life behind bars tough for the newcomer. Susie has her own reasons - she was Athen's girl before he got her sent up on a trumped up charge so he could romance Kathy. But when a vicious female warder conspires with a reporter to have a picture of the two "love- birds" plastered over the front page and does it in a really deceitful way - the inmates go over to Kathy's side. Susie even recognises the murder weapon as being a gun she had given Athens as a present. She then helps Kathy in a daring escape bid. A young mother to be is gunned down but Kathy almost makes it as she tries to swim to safety. All this time nothing much is going on at the men's prison except a game of 20 Questions. Kathy can't get anyone to believe in their innocence because the person in charge, Martin Doremus (Rockcliffe Fellowes), is also in Athen's pay.

This is a really super film - I could imagine that it would have been very popular in it's day - it had everything that people would expect from a prison movie - stool pigeons, fights, jail breaks - and all taking place in the woman's prison!!! Gene Raymond, in one of his first films, was competent and handsome but the film belonged to the ladies. Sylvia Sidney, breathtakingly beautiful, showed why Paramount had such faith in her - she is sensational. Wynne Gibson, even though she was only in her 20s, made you believe she really was that tough (except for the poignant scene where Kathy and she become friends). Noel Francis - why, oh why didn't she become a bigger star, she had the looks and the ability. She has the small part of Kathy's assistant in the flower shop.

Highly Recommended.

Prison drama

[AAdaSC · 5/10 · 23 June 2019]

Flower shop assistant Sylvia Sidney (Kathleen) falls in love with Gene Raymond (Stan) and they marry. Just as they are about to embark on a new life together, Sidney's jealous ex-lover and wanted gangster Earle Foxe (Athens) sneaks into their house to kill them. However, he kills a detective instead who coincidentally shows up at the house on the same night. Bad guy Foxe frames the newlyweds for the murder and Sidney gets a stretch in prison whilst Raymond gets the death sentence. Are the lovebirds doomed?

Weirdly, the first half of the film is more tense than the main themed second half that is set in the prison. Once, the film moves to the prison, I was expecting tension and action but got very little. The film loses its way, gets a bit sentimental in parts and a bit boring. We need a more concerted effort to spend time with the girls so we can begin to relate. The only character who comes off well is bad girl Wynne Gibson (Susie). There should have been way more characters like her vying to be 'top dog'.

Plot-wise, all of a sudden, there's going to be a jailbreak! That's all very well but at least warn us of this so the audience can get a bit more involved. The whole experience is just emotionally uninvolving. The second half of the film brings things down after an interesting start.

Exciting...very exciting.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 1 January 2016]

When the film begins, nice girl Kathleen (Sylvia Sidney) learns that her boyfriend is a gangster and she dumps him. A bit later, she meets a nice guy, Stan (Gene Raymond) and they fall in love and marry. However, the old gangster boyfriend is enraged and vows to get even. So, he sneaks into her place and shoots a cop...and plants evidence to make it look like she did it. Then, she and her new husband are sent to prison. The film mostly follows her during her incarceration but you also see Stan...on Death Row!

What happens inside prison to Kathleen is what makes this film interesting. The inmates, for the most part, are NOT shown as homicidal maniacs and deviants...nor is the prison staff. Instead the main focus is on Stan's upcoming execution and the efforts of women in the prison to help Kathleen. However, the prosecutor is corrupt and evil...and in league with the real murderer!!

The cast of this film is very good and I particularly liked Louise Beavers and thought it interesting that a black prisoner would be so sweet and decent in a 1930s film. Jane Darwell is also in the film but this film actually is well done all around. Perhaps not 100% believable but often underplayed and intelligently written and directed. It helped that they didn't make everyone sadistic and evil--and there was some real depth to the prisoners.

By the way, one shortcoming of the film is that the evidence that convicted both people seemed flimsy--especially since they didn't have criminal records nor was there any motive for their killing him...none.

Wynne Gibson's standout performance.

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 8/10 · 5 July 2005]

In several previous IMDb reviews, I've expressed my distaste for Sylvia Sidney's acting. Stop the presses! I've finally seen her give a good performance, in 'Ladies of the Big House'. Yes, it's a women's prison movie, and I was pleased that two of the clichés of 1930s women's prison movies were avoided: for once, the cellblocks are racially integrated, and also there are no smirking references to lesbianism.

The premise of the film is somewhat contrived. Sidney's character is mildly criminal, but she dumps mobster Earle Foxe for a guy she's just met: Gene Raymond, as an engineer who's got a big damn project (I mean, a big DAM project) in South America. They get hitched, but before the marriage can be consummated, Foxe shoots cop Robert Emmett O'Connor and frames the newlyweds. They get sent to a co-ed prison, but they're staying in separate dorms: in fact, Raymond goes to Death Row. Sidney's cellblock has a lovely view of the prison courtyard and the gallows, so she'll be able to watch her husband hang for a murder he didn't commit.

As usual, there's some bad B-movie dialogue. When Sidney enters the prison, a female lag smirks and declares: 'Didja pipe the fish that just came in?' Another inmate is a pregnant Mexican who keeps lapsing into Spanish ... but when she dies, with nobody present to hear her last words, she implausibly lapses into English. On the night before Raymond is scheduled to hang, Sidney tells him: 'Wherever you go, I'm going.' At the end of the movie, there's a rather contrived visual device to mislead the audience about Raymond's fate. Plausibility is also weakened because Sylvia Sidney wears full makeup throughout her prison scenes: yes, I know that most female convicts have access to cosmetics, but in this case I get the impression that Paramount just didn't want to take the risk of letting Sylvia Sidney attempt a natural look.

End of bad news. Now the good news. There are several standout performances in this film. The best performance is by Wynne Gibson, as the tough moll who hates Sidney but (very plausibly) endangers herself to help Sidney when she realises that Sidney's been framed. Roscoe Karns, who was usually given weak material, is superb here as a condemned inmate who passes the time on Death Row by playing Twenty Questions, and then touchingly guesses the right answer just before he hangs. Louise Beavers, reprieved for once from her typecasting as a chucklin' maid, makes the most of a meaty role as an inmate who murdered her husband (who apparently deserved it). There are also fine performances from Evelyn Preer and Edna Bennett as inmates. Sylvia Sidney gives a genuinely impressive and convincing performance as the wife who risks her life in an escape attempt, desperately hoping to clear her doomed husband. The good performances outweigh all the clichés and implausibilities in this movie, and 'Ladies of the Big House' rates a solid 8 out of 10.

Sylvia Sidney Makes a B-Movie become a A-Movie

[Deloreanguy79 · 9/10 · 1 September 2018]

Ladies of the Big House (1931) is worth hunting down. Never getting a official DVD release Sylvia Sidney gives her all with those big soulful eyes and deep vulnerability balanced with real strength. This Pre-Code drama could have been a throwaway movie but all the actors make you deeply care about what they are facing. This movie balances heart,a compelling story and Pre-Code drama at it's finest. A obscure movie I hope more people discover and see it's value past it's exploitation sounding title.It's so much more.