Robert J. Maxwell Glenn Ford, a middle-class sort of guy, causes an accidental death and is sent up for one to five because his lawyer bungles the case criminally. Broderick Crawford is the DA who convicted him, but believes Ford got a bum bounce. Crawford becomes the prison warden and brings his daughter, Dorothy Malone, along. She and Ford meet briefly and it's love at first sight. There are more sights when Crawford deliberately makes Ford his chauffeur.Malone leaves for a few weeks and when she comes back she meets Ford again in the warden's office. By an unfortunate juxtaposition of circumstances, Ford has suffered mightily in her absence, and when he leaves the office, Malone says to her Dad, "He doesn't seem like the same man." The problem is that Ford actually DOES seem like the same man -- sullen, taciturn, full of resentment. The first time we SEE him, he's glum and he stays that way throughout, as if he were playing a musical instrument that had only one note on it. He's a decent actor with some considerable range -- from melodrama ("The Big Heat") to comedy ("The Teahouse of the August Moon) -- but not here.Dorothy Malone was never much of an actress. Every word sounds like a memorized line from a script. But she's never looked better than she does here. Really, she's very attractive, though not nearly as sexy as she was allowed to be in "Battle Cry." Broderick Crawford had TWO notes on his instrument -- gruff, factual, sneaky, and happy, gullible, and dumb. Here he's in Role Number One. He's -- how you say? -- stern but fair. But his job as warden leaves him towards the end with his huevos in a vice, just like Ford. Crawford's code is the law. Ford's is not squealing on a friend. The two don't mesh.It's an inexpensive production. There are plenty of extras but few outdoor scenes and no panoramas. We see only a few indoor sets. (It was a play before it was a movie.) It's amazing how much difference location shooting can make. Compare the prison scenes in "Call Northside 777." Prison movies are generally kind of depressing. The entire milieu is so drab. And Harry Levin certainly gives us a sense of the tedium involved in working in the laundry, a place full of clattering machinery and steam.I don't know what prison life was like in 1950, probably more brutal than it is today, which is saying a lot. I doubt Ford would get through Day One without being sodomized by two or three big, bald, tattooed goons with names like T-Bone and Ripper. According to my sources, one of whom claims to be a penologist although he seems to know next to nothing about sex, the film only hints at the atmosphere. Ford is loyal to his friends because they happen to be his cell mates. Modern allegiances extend to a much larger group, often based on race, and survival depends on that membership.In his book, Randall Adams, who spent twelve years in the slams after being unjustly convicted of murder, describes an incident in a Texas prison. He and another inmate are sitting at a table playing cards. Another inmate trips on a steel staircase, perhaps in an epileptic seizure, and tumbles to the bottom. Adams and friend continue playing cards. After a few minutes, one of them saunters to the phone and reports the unconscious body at the foot of the staircase. You have your clique, your clique has enemies, and everyone else is treated with complete indifference.

LeonLouisRicci Rather Bland Characters move around the Cold Concrete Yards and in an out of the Prison Environs with not much Emotion and the Whole Film has a Blase Boring Feel to it. Broderick Crawford is Miscast and Dorothy Malone seems to be getting ready for a Fifties Housewife Template and can't wait to Bake Cookies.Glen Ford is Always Watchable but here He doesn't really do much more than Brood. It is the Supporting Players that Add what Zip there is to this Plodding Penitentiary Drama. The Film has Little Style and while it is all put Together Nicely it is just too Nice Looking and Sterile to be Considered a Superior Prison Picture.

bkoganbing 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.

rich52 Broderick Crawford plays a district attorney that reluctantly prosecutes a defendant for accidentally killing a man in a fist fight in defense of a lady's honor. Realizing that Ford was being severely under-defended by his own lawyer, Crawford tries to pass every break in the book to the defense attorney, who's too stupid to pick up on it. In the end, Ford is convicted of murder and sentenced to prison. Later, Crawford is assigned as the new warden and attempts to help Ford further.This is a very good, highly underrated movie. It's worth a look.