Appearing in the year 1930 The Criminal Code was based on a stage play by respected San Francisco based playwright Martin Flavin.  It was directed by the versatile & influential Howard Hawks, whose directing career went from classic gangster film Scarface(1932), onto romantic adventure Only Angels Have Wings(1939), through to classy Noir The Big Sleep (1946), and one of the better examples of 50’s sci-fi horror The Thing From Another World(1951). The
Criminal Code is certainly a very well made & shot film, with Hawks largely managing to translate the play into a worthy/ at points powerful cinematic feature film.

The film focuses on wily & cigar sucking DA Mark Brady(Walter Huston), who mangers to get a relatively short ten years stretch for Robert Graham( Philips Holmes), a timid young man who killed a man in a club by accident. We fast forward some six years, Graham is still in prison becoming both mentally & physically worn down by experience. And Brady, after failing to get the state governors job, has become the prisons new warden.  The film deals with Brady’s attempts to save Graham, tough prison life, and in the second half another murder & a moral dilemma.

Huston is good as the strutting & smoke puffing Brady- as he switches from cocky DA, to (at points) out of his depth warden. Holmes is a nice fit as Graham, as he moves well between smart & timid, to physically & mental battered down, and more hopeful. We also have a largely good & competent supporting cast- there’s Boris Karloff as the cunning & revenge focused cell mate Galloway. We have the wonderfully named Constance Cummings as Brady’s daughter Mary- who comes across as a fairly filled out & believable female character. The film is at it’s most effective when it focusing in on prison interactions,with cell-based scenes often captured from inside to give a great feeling of claustrophobe. And when the moral dilemma turns up we get some nicely tense drama and some quite effective moments of action. On the whole, I found  The Criminal Code a compelling & rewarding film. Sure at points it comes off a little too office based in its wordy drama scenes- but fairly soon more prison focused stuff returns, and one really does get  the feeling of what it would be like to be in crowded, hot, and grim prison.

Going onto this new Blu Ray disc, and we get a high definition print of the film- this has moments of great clarity, depth and detail. Sure due to the film's age it’s still a little murky in places, but considering its ninety-one years old it’s pretty amazing looking. Moving onto the extras, and we get a good selection of new stuff- first off we have a commentary track from film historian Nora Fiore. And this is a very professional & fascinating track, as she covers a lot of ground. She starts by briefly mentioning crew members in the credits, moving onto talk about early additional scenes added into the film from the play version. She goes onto discuss classy & clever shot set-ups, comments on the nuances in the acting. She moves onto talk about the different versions of the film, and how key scenes differ in each. She goes into more detailed bios about key actors & crew, and  talks about sets & locations. All told a very worthy & easily play a few times commentary track.
Next, we have Behind the Mask- which finds genre writer/ expect Kim Newman talking about the non-horror work of  Boris Karloff, this runs twenty-six minutes, and is a most interesting/ informative featurette- really giving an appreciation of both Karloff the horror icon, and a great/ talented actor in general- giving a list of films to track down. We have Codes and Convictions a thirty-minute audio essay comparing the different versions of the versions of the film, again well worth a play.
On the archive side of things we a 1939 radio version of the story, this runs just shy of the hour mark. There’s The Howard Hawks Masterclass with John Carpenter- this is from a 1997 audio recording that runs thirty-six minutes. We have an image gallery that includes stills from the lost Spanish version of the film. With the finished version of the release coming with a 36-page booklet featuring a  new essay by Philip Kemp, Howard Hawks on The Criminal Code, an archival article on Hawks by Henri Langlois, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits.

In finishing don’t let the age of The Criminal Code put you off, as it’s (largely) undated and still relevant today, making it one of the great prison drama. Powerhouse has once again done a mighty fine job on this Region B Blu ray release- with classy new print and a good selection of extras.