Condemned! (1929) - Ronald Colman has a very nice voice for prison

If you are looking for a gritty, sweaty prison movie where people plan escapes with spoons, Condemned! might annoy you. It is definitely more of a romance that just happens to take place in a nightmare location.

It is worth watching today if you love the early talkie vibe or if you just want to hear Ronald Colman talk. Seriously, that guy had one of the best voices in the history of movies. 🎙️

If you hate slow movies where the camera doesn't move much because they were hiding microphones in flower pots, you should probably skip this one. It feels very much like a play that someone filmed outdoors.

Ronald Colman plays Michel, a thief who is supposedly so dangerous he has to go to Devil's Island. But he shows up looking like he just stepped out of a catalog, even with the prison uniform on.

He doesn't really seem like a criminal. He seems like a guy who might accidentally take your silver spoons but would definitely apologize for it afterward.

The plot kicks off when he gets assigned to work as a houseboy for the warden. The warden is played by Dudley Digges, and man, he is terrible. Not the actor, the character.

Digges plays him as this small, petty man who knows everyone hates him and he kind of loves it. He treats his wife, played by Ann Harding, like a piece of furniture he forgot to dust.

Ann Harding spent most of the movie looking like she was about to faint from the heat or the boredom. I can’t really blame her character for falling for the convict who cleans her floors.

There is this one scene where Michel is just serving dinner and the tension is so thick you could cut it with a dull knife. You can tell the warden knows something is up, but he’s too arrogant to think his wife would actually like a prisoner.

The sound quality is a bit crunchy. It was 1929, so everyone has to stand near the hidden mics, which leads to some very awkward blocking.

Sometimes a character will walk across the room and their voice just... disappears for a second. It reminded me a bit of the technical struggles in The Shadow on the Wall, though that one came later.

I noticed that the extras in the background look way more miserable than the main cast. There are these shots of the other prisoners just staring into space, and they look like they actually filmed on a real island.

Then it cuts back to Colman, who looks like he’s having a lovely time flirting in the kitchen. It is a very weird contrast that happens throughout the whole film.

The movie is based on a book about the actual conditions of Devil's Island, but the movie softens everything. It feels less like a documentary and more like a soap opera with mosquitoes.

There is a guy in the cast named John George who plays a servant. He is very short and has this intense face that honestly stole every scene he was in for me.

I kept waiting for him to do something more, but he just kind of exists in the background. It is those little details, like a weird face in the crowd, that make these old movies feel alive.

The escape sequence toward the end is where things get a bit more "movie-ish." There is mud. There is rain. There is a lot of heavy breathing.

It’s not exactly an action masterpiece like Border Law, but for 1929, they were really trying. You can feel the effort in the way they shot the jungle scenes.

I will say, the ending feels a little bit rushed. Like they realized they were running out of film and needed to wrap it up in five minutes.

One thing that bothered me was the music. Or the lack of it? Early sound films are so quiet sometimes that the silence feels heavy.

You just hear the hiss of the soundtrack and the occasional bird noise. It makes the warden’s house feel even more like a tomb.

I wonder if people back then found this movie scandalous. A woman falling for a convict while her husband is in the next room? That’s spicy for the twenties.

It’s definitely more interesting than something like Nearly a King, which feels much stiffer. Colman has a natural way of moving that makes the whole thing feel less like a museum piece.

There is a moment where Michel is talking about how the island changes a man. He gets this look in his eyes that is actually pretty haunting for a second.

But then he makes a joke and the charm is back. It’s a very specific kind of movie star performance that we don't see much anymore.

I also liked the warden's office. It’s full of these weird little artifacts that make it look like he’s been stuck there way too long.

The script was written by Sidney Howard, who did some big stuff later. You can hear that the dialogue is a step above the usual "I love you, oh do you?" stuff from that era.

Anyway, if you can get past the static and the slow pacing, it’s a decent watch. It’s mostly just a showcase for Colman being the most handsome man in a 100-mile radius of misery.

It’s not quite as wild as The Young Lady and the Hooligan, but it has its own weird energy. 🏝️

I'm still thinking about that warden's mustache. It was perfectly groomed for a man living in a swamp. That’s commitment to the bit.

The film doesn't try to be a big message movie about prison reform. It just wants to be a romance, and it mostly succeeds at that, even if the "prison" part feels like a stage set.

If you see it on a streaming service or a late-night TCM run, give it a shot. Just don't expect The Shawshank Redemption.