Up the River (1930) **

Release Date: October 12, 1930

Running Time: 92 minutes

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Claire Luce, Warren Hymer

Directed By: John Ford

Legendary director John Ford who would later go on to make many films with the likes of John Wayne, Henry Ford and Lee Marvin, helmed 1930’s Up the River, his only film starring Humphrey Bogart. Ford had a career that spanned from the early 1910’s all the way into the 70’s. When his failing health finally ended his amazing and long running career. He cut his teeth in the silent era and it is this influence that is most obvious when watching Up the River. Right out the gate it is obvious that this is a film right on the edge of the transition between silent films and talkies. Title cards crop up from time to time to explain the setting or the situation much the same way they did when there was no better way to convey this information. It was a crutch early filmmakers relied on until they found more natural ways to do it. The story also falls on vaudevillian tropes that better served the silent era such as sight gags sans witty dialogue. Other conventions, some no longer politically correct, also date this film. It is a film of its time; a time capsule into a world that no longer exists.

The story is almost non-existent here. Steve (Humphrey Bogart) is being held at a southern prison along with his friends and fellow inmates Saint Louis (Spencer Tracy in his motion picture debut), and Dannemora Dan (Warren Homer). Steve is one of the trustees, well regarded by the guards and the warden, and entrusted in checking in newly incarcerated prisoners. One of these new prisoners is Judy Fields (Claire Luce) who has taken the rap for con man Frosby (Morgan Wallace) and is serving a year. The two fall in love and promise to marry once both are free. Steve finishes up his sentence several months before Judy and travels home to his family who know nothing of his incarceration. But Frosby follows him and, using this knowledge, blackmails Steve into defrauding the family and neighborhood with bad bank bonds. Word gets back to Saint Louis and Dan who break out of prison, during a talent show for the inmates, to deal with the fraudster.

What becomes apparent early on is that Bogart is uncomfortable in front of the screen here. He had appeared in a couple of short films before this but was relatively new to film acting at this time and that shows on screen. It wouldn’t take long for him to find his niche but it wouldn’t happen here. Two years later he would appear in his first gangster role and settle comfortably into that stereotype for the next decade. Here, he is trying to play a part that is outside his comfortable range and it comes across forced and unconvincing. 

In stark contrast, Spencer Tracy, who also was new to the scene, is spot on in the role of Saint Louis, a career convict who is loyal enough to break out of prison to help his friend and honest (?) enough to check back in when it’s all over. Tracy is having a blast in such a broadly drawn character showing clearly that he was born for the screen. He has just enough dark humor to him that we can see in the right circumstances he could be a dangerous man, yet we are drawn to him anyway. It’s a shame the rest of the film is not up to his level.

The threadbare story coupled with some really poor pacing problems really sink this picture. Scenes have a tendency to go on well past the point of necessity. This is most obvious during the talent show where while acts are on display. This is a holdover to the days of vaudeville where audiences expected more of a variety show then just a straight up narrative. It may have played better in the 30’s but modern audiences will find it disrupts the pacing. 

The comedy is very hit and miss, too. Some of the bits are outright hilarious. Saint Louis’s knife throwing act is dark and hilarious. This comes back in another humorous scene on board a train as he prepares to throw a small knife into the floor he and Dan are sitting on and, presumably, between the fingers of Dan’s outstretched hand. It’s funny and also a little unnerving, enhancing the humor. The final set piece involving a prison baseball game is the best scene in the entire movie, landing joke after joke, many of which would become clichés in later films. Other moments are just plain bizarre such as the inclusion of twin girls who speak everything in harmony. Moments like this hit the ground with a heavy thud. Even worse then that, though, is a music and dance number involving convicts in black face, including several closeup shots of a black prisoner laughing uproariously at what now days is highly offensive.

Up the River is a product of its time. Many MANY elements here have not aged well. If it weren’t for the brilliant performance of Spencer Tracy this might be forgotten amongst so many other films of the era. It has a unsatisfying resolution to the Frosby plot line, making that whole part of the story feel more like filler than an actual integral part of the story. It runs too long and spends too much time away from Saint Louis and Dan, who is playing the straight man to Spencer Tracy and thus fails to make much of an impression on his own. The film is hardly a train wreck but is so tonally off that it makes it a chore at times to watch all the way through.