Good start, but then it gets ruined

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Tuna boat skipper Joaquin Shannon is enjoying his best mate's bucks party (he is engaged to Joaquin's sister) when his own fiancée Joan's brother shows up to pass on his father's hostility to Joaquin's proposal to him marrying Joan. Joaquin kicks him out of the bar but a mysterious man kills the brother & flees. Thinking that the groom might have killed him (since he was drunk & asleep next to the corpse) Joaquin decides to take the rap. Convicted of manslaughter, he is sent to prison for ten years but told that he will get out after a year if he keeps his nose clean. Once on the inside, Joaquin does his best to mind his own business. But when a cheap thug named Red Kincaid returns to prison after a spell outside, Joaquin's life gets harder. Red decides to ruin Joaquin's hopes of parole by taunting him into a fight, which he succeeds due to Joaquin's easy temper. But Joaquin has the last laugh when he singlehandedly foils Red's daring escape attempt. Given parole at last, Joaquin tries to adjust to civilian life. But Jean's father does his best to derail his career options. When Red finally manages to escape the prison, he forces Joaquin to join him on a little boat trip to Ecuador.Barton MacLane must have some kind of record for appearing in the most prison films. Besides Prison Break, he had appeared in the following prison films – San Quentin (1937), I Was a Convict (1939), Mutiny in the Big House (1939), Men Without Souls (1940), a different San Quentin in 1946 & finally Jail Breakers in 1955. With that kind of track record he must have had some good experience playing convicts.Prison Break is something of a morality tale of life in prison, although the title is somewhat inaccurate – MacLane doesn't actually take part in any prison escape (although he foils one himself) & the actual successful escape takes place offscreen. Instead, it's more of a story on how a man takes some rash & very poor choices to protect his friends & finds himself in almost perpetual trouble with the law. First, his fiancée's father objects to him marrying his daughter, which causes the woman's brother to try to stop him but ends up being killed by a stranger who flees the scene. Second, he takes the rap to protect a friend he believes caused the death, causing him to go to jail for a decade but with the option of parole if he stays clean in jail, which is going to be impossible with the prison heavy after him. Third is after he gets his parole, where his fiancée's father tries to keep him out of work, forcing him into a confrontation with the escaped heavy, who is finally revealed (SPOILER ALERT) to be the man whose actions in killing the woman's brother that landed MacLane in jail. The film is not always totally convincing but is pretty realistic, MacLane does his best to make the material work & the 1930s production values add some sort of modest thriller mechanics to the film.

This one is another in the series of Hollywood's campaign against a parole system in which parolees must get work but must also tell their prospective employers that they're on parole. In films – such as this one – their dilemma is usually solved by an act of God. Despite the use of coincidence to bring this about and despite the fact that the movie attempts to crowd so many plot turns into its 72 minutes of running time, there is scarcely a chance to draw breath (I'm not complaining), it's a humdinger of a "B" movie with some great performances all around, particularly from MacLane, Bond, Farrell and Hurst. Arthur Lubin's direction is never less than effective. See is you can spot Glenn Strange, Roy Barcroft and Walter Long in the super-extensive support cast. Available on a very good Alpha DVD.

From 1937 through 1939, Barton MacLane and Glenda Farrell made seven Torchy Blaine films together--he as the police lieutenant and Farrell as Torchy, a crime-solving reporter. During this same period, the pair made this film at Universal, not at their usual Warner Brothers home.While "Prison Break" is clearly a B-movie with a modest budget and cast, it is a dandy film--and a nice chance for MacLane to prove he was a very good actor and could play characters other than baddies and cops. It begins with Joaquin (MacLane) working on a tuna boat and planning on marrying his sweetie (Farrell). At the same time, his buddy is planning on marrying Joaquin's sister and all looks great. However, when a man is killed, Joaquin takes the blame in order to help this friend--and ends up in prison. Things get worse when the same guy (Ward Bond) committed the murder is soon admitted to the same prison--and he's aching for a fight with Joaquin. Although Joaquin cannot help it, this fight and future fights against this thug serve to increase his sentence and it looks like he'll never get out at this rate! What's to become of nice-guy Joaquin? See the picture and find out for yourself--as there is a lot more to this film.The best thing about this film is MacLane--his acting was quite good. Additionally, while the story has some tough to believe coincidences, the film is enjoyable throughout. Plus, it has some reasonable criticisms of prisons and the parole system--ways that they might serve to make a guy who can be rehabilitated into a hardened criminal.

Prison Break finds the two leads of Warner Brothers Torchy Blane series, Barton MacLane and Glenda Farrell, in a serious sociological drama about the dilemma of an ex-convict trying to go straight. Both in and outside of prison MacLane has it really stacked against him.This film was done for Universal Pictures and MacLane plays a captain of tuna fishing boat who's in love with Glenda Farrell. She's a widow with a small son, but for reasons not quite explained her father Victor Kilian has a vicious hatred for MacLane. MacLane also has a sister played by Constance Moore who is in love with Edmund MacDonald who works on MacLane's boat.On his bachelor party night, MacDonald gets good and drunk and later wakes up next to the unconscious body of Edward Pawley who is brother to Farrell and son of Kilian. MacLane says he clocked, but the next day Pawley dies and MacLane is in a jackpot for manslaughter.In prison MacLane's nemesis is Ward Bond who is one vicious thug, usually the kind of part MacLane plays in films. Which is also coincidental because if you recall both MacLane and Bond played partner cops in The Maltese Falcon and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.In the end it all resolves itself a little too neatly. In fact when Bond kills a prison guard during an escape attempt that should have brought the death penalty for him. I'm surprised that Universal Pictures neglected that little fact.Still MacLane gives a really good and sincere performance as a man trapped by circumstances only partly of his own making. He should never have taken the rap, even though he thought it was only for assault. A bit melodramatic and neat still Prison Break is a well made B film from Universal and it was nice to see Barton MacLane as a good guy and hero in this film.