Up The River (1930)

A convict (Humphrey Bogart) is set to be paroled soon. He's in love with a female convict (Claire Luce) and they plan a life together after she serves her six months. But an unscrupulous scam artist (Morgan Wallace) blackmails the convict into working for him with the threat of telling his family he was in prison when they thought he was in China. Directed by John Ford (THE SEARCHERS), this pre-code comedy (though I'd consider it more of a dramedy) creaks a bit but it's amiable enough. It's fun to see Bogart and Spencer Tracy (both making their feature film debuts here) in early film roles, their only movie together. It would take awhile for both actors to achieve stardom. This is a Fox film and Tracy would find stardom at MGM while Bogart found his place at Warners. In spite of Bogart and Tracy in lead roles, my favorite performance came from Warren Hymer as Tracy's none too bright pal. The movie is padded out by a prison talent show which stops the movie cold including a dreadful rendition of Theodore F. Morse's M-O-T-H-E-R with the prison inmates all tearing up, a typical sentimental contrivance that that Ford would often use in his later films. With Ward Bond and Edythe Chapman.