Review: 20,000 Years in Sing Sing

Spencer Tracy stars as a cocky hoodlum arriving at New York’s Sing Sing prison for a 5-30 stretch, though he thinks he and his slick lawyer Louis Calhern can buy his way into preferential treatment. Unfortunately for them, the Warden (Arthur Byron) is entirely incorruptible and is hell-bent on reforming the young punk whether he likes it or not. Bette Davis plays Tracy’s girlfriend on the outside, whilst Lyle Talbot plays another prisoner.

 

Although it seems awfully lumpy now, this 1933 prison flick from director Michael Curtiz (“The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex”, “Casablanca”, “King Creole”) is well-shot and the acting keeps it from sinking. Louis Calhern in particular steals his every scene, the slippery bastard, and you wish he were in much more of the film.

 

The film is ultimately not very convincing, it only barely holds up over 70 years later, but the script is the problem here, everyone else does their damn best. So blame the quartet of Courtney Terrett (“Castle on the Hudson”), Robert Lord (“Little Caesar”, “Hard to Handle”), Wilson Mizner (“One Way Passage”, “Hard to Handle”), and Brown Holmes (“I Am a Fugitive on the Chain Gang”). Or perhaps former Sing Sing warden Lewis E. Lawes, on whose (presumably biased) book the film is based. Lawes was still warden at the time of filming apparently (and allowed interiors and exteriors to actually be shot at Sing Sing), and no doubt wanted to present a good picture of prison wardens, but the film goes way too far. The warden (rather well-played by Arthur Byron) allows prisoners out to visit sick/dying loved ones, with merely the prisoner’s word of honour (as a criminal?) that he’ll return. What. The. Fuck. It gets worse, though. ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** Spencer Tracy allegedly kills someone while on leave, but the warden is vindicated in letting him out for the day simply because he returns? He’s still an alleged fucking murderer! Yes, the audience knows he didn’t actually do it, but no one else knows it. Vindicated my arse. ***** END SPOILER ***** So obviously, things don’t really hold up so well all these years later, with prison seemingly being run like a home for wayward young boys rather than hardened crims.

 

Thankfully the cinematography and acting come up a winner. The film is rather well-shot in B&W by Barney McGill (“Hard to Handle”, “Charlie Chan in Shanghai”), prison bars and shadows are always a pretty sight to me. The lighting is really nice without being so artistic that it seems phony. Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, and Louis Calhern hadn’t quite hit their strides as actors by 1933, but all three do fine jobs here. Spencer Tracy’s role seems more of a Jimmy Cagney or Edward G. Robinson part to me (and indeed, Cagney was the original choice but unavailable at the time due to a legal dispute with Warners), but once you get past the ‘Hey…why, I oughtta…!’ voice Tracy is putting on, he proves to be good as always. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him underperform as an actor. He looks shockingly young, too, playing this pugnacious hoodlum who thinks he’s a bigshot tough guy. Even more so than in 1937’s “Kid Galahad”, if you’ve never thought it possible that Bette Davis was once young and attractive, watch this film. Like the aforementioned film, this isn’t the best use of Davis, but she gives a good performance nonetheless. However, Louis Calhern easily walks off with this film as one of his patented villains with an outward veneer of respectability. Look for a very young Lyle Talbot playing a smart prisoner. It’s a shame Talbot will forever be remembered for his participation in “Plan 9 From Outer Space”, because he shows himself to be pretty damn good here I must say.

 

Time hasn’t been terribly kind to this prison film, and its depiction of the grandfatherly relationship between prisoner and warden just doesn’t wash anymore, but this is a good-looking film with several solid performances, and a one-time pairing of two great stars in Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis. So you have to see it at least once. It’s watchable, but lumpy.

 

Rating: C+