 In The Big House Robert Montgomery plays a squirmy inmate who is sentences to six years after committing vehicular manslaughter while under the influence. His cell mates are a murderer played by Wallace Beery and a forger played by Chester Morris. The picture features future staples of the prison genre such as solitary confinement, informers, riots, visitations, an escape, and the codes of prison life. The protagonist, Montgomery, ends up being a loathsome character, a coward who will sell anyone in the prison out to get an early release. The film was banned in Ohio, the site of the deadly prison riots that inspired it. Numbered Men, The Criminal Code, Shadow of the Law, Convict's Code, and others, from no less than seven studios, followed. However, prison films only appealed to men, and had weak box office performances as a result. Studios also produced children's prison films which addressed the juvenile delinquency problems of America in the Depression. The Mayor of Hell for instance, featured kids killing a murderously abusive reform school overseer without retribution.
