San Quentin

There are a lot of things I disliked or even hated about this film. It's a routine drama, or maybe it would be better to call it melodrama. I found all characters very annoying and unbelievable, not even Bogart made me happy. Sappy convulsive prison movie without a bit of charisma.

Enjoyable enough but very generic (even for the time) little prison drama. O'Brien doesn't really do a ton. Bogart is better but it's certainly not his best work. It's only 70 minutes long and not a bad use of time, but there's not all that much interesting going on here.

Bogey being what he usually is. A bad guy. Here in prison. The San Quentin! And they got Pat O'Brien as warden. Pretty much the same story as in "The Big House (1930)" and "20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)" or any other positive prison reformer vs prisoners movie ever made. So nothing original there and with all the clichès you'd want for such a story. One can't go wrong with a Humphrey Bogart movie and while this is hardly his best role, it's still a quality movie.