The Criminal Code

Howard Hawks's THE CRIMINAL CODE is an archetypal early-talkie prison movie with a classic performance by Walter Huston as a tough warden whose favorite word--and seemingly that of every other character in the film--is "Yeah." After accidentally killing the son of a politician during a drunken barroom brawl, Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) is railroaded to jail by the politically ambitious district attorney Mark Brady (Walter Huston). Graham is sentenced to serve ten years for manslaughter, despite Brady's sympathy for the boy and his admission to a colleague that Graham could probably get off if he had a good lawyer. Six years later, Brady, after losing the race f...