In the wake of Broderick Crawford's Oscar for All the King's Men, Columbia Pictures was having difficulty in finding properties for him. It was decided to team him with Columbia reliable leading man work horse Glenn Ford in a remake of The Criminal Code.
Convicted since it is remake can't really be blamed for having a lot of cliché in the dialog and plot situations. Just about every prison film deals with the same issues. Since Hollywood dropped the Code, prison films deal far more graphically than before. Still watching Convicted, you get the feeling you've seen it all before and there's nothing really fresh in this film.
Glenn Ford kills a man in a nightclub fight. A good lawyer could probably have gotten him off as District Attorney Broderick Crawford tells Ford. Ford unfortunately got pompous Roland Winters who's bag wasn't criminal law. Ford gets a 1 to 10 year sentence.
Wouldn't you know it, DA Crawford is appointed the new warden of the prison where Ford is. Since he's living on the grounds his daughter Dorothy Malone moves in with him. Ford by now is a trustee and acts as the warden's chauffeur. But he's still a con, a fact he never forgets and nearly costs him his parole.
Dorothy Malone for the first dozen years or so of her career played roles just like this one, good dutiful wives and daughters. No hint of that woman's talent until her Oscar for Written on the Wind.
Millard Mitchell and Will Geer are Ford's cellmates and both do a good job. But the best acting in Convicted without a doubt is Frank Faylen as the prison stoolie.
Convicted is not a bad film, but there's nothing real special about it in the careers of any of its principal players.
