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You Can't Beat the Law (1943); Prison Mutiny
Topic Started: Apr 29 2018, 08:42 PM (135 Views)
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You Can't Beat the Law (1943) Dir. Phil Rosen
a/k/a Prison Mutiny
A Monogram Picture
64 min. / B&W / 1.37:1

Playboy Edward Norris is a little too freewheeling in his personal life and ends up in a car with some guys who have just robbed a bank. To shield their actual boss, they all turn state's evidence against him, and he goes to stir, ya get me? It hardens him and turns him into a badass, but new reform-minded warden Milburn Stone believes in him, and pretty Joan Woodbury - daughter of a prison guard - thinks he's cute, so he's got THAT going for him. Eventually (which isn't very long, you know how short a Monogram picture is, and thankfully so) he's able to clear his name - and stays in prison as the new athletic director, trying to reform his tough-guy ex-cellmate Jack LaRue and form a prison baseball team(!).

Funny how even with their brevity, Monograms seeeeeeeeeeem longer, y'know what I mean? This is an okay picture as a bottom-bill, I s'pose, but Edward Norris - whoever he is - did nothin' for me. On the other hand, I've seen Miss Woodbury several times (including of course Brenda Starr, Reporter and some Charlie Chan movies) and I like her - she's got charisma. Tris Coffin makes a quick appearance as a mob lawyer.

Funny, invariably when I watch an old prison picture it reminds me that I should break out Laurel & Hardy in Pardon Us again - that's a fine prison picture and doesn't get watched or shown enough.

Million-dollar Dialog:
New warden to the prison's new athletic director: "I think if you keep the men PHYSICALLY fit they'll stay MENTALLY fit."

Hey, what can I tell ya? It's a routine programmer but one doesn't visit the Monogram room of In The Balcony for Shakespeare now, does one?
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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