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W aiting . . . Hating .
• Why don't you go back . . . and finish your sentence? Then you can come to me . . . free!”
Leila Hyams was speaking to the man she now loved. Chester Morris had come out of the night fog ... to wreck her life. He meant to avenge a wrong done to him, by this woman’s brother— in prison. Then ... he discovered that he could not harm the vibrant, beautiful woman.
Once — she had the opportunity to give him up to the law . . . send him back to the grim walls from which he had escaped. But she found that she could not harm a strong, essentiallydecent man ... so she asked him to go back to prison, serve his time, and come
• CHET MORRIS Wally Beery and Bob Montgomery . . give their greatest performances in the most realistic of all human dramas . . .
"Big House.”
Big
House
Ho piracy . • *
to her — a free man.
What would his answer be?
Four people tried to decide. Frances Marion, who wrote the scenario, was there. Her husband, George Hill, whowas to direct “Big House,” was there. Paul Garret, of the American Society of Penal Information, was there. A marn who had lived within prison walls was there.
What would Chester Morris, as John Morgan, say to the girl he loved?' It would be easy to make him go back,, serve his time, and come to her free. Such a turn to the story solved many dramatic problems.
But these four people faced a character who, under the tutelage of Frances Marion’s pen, had grown into ai strong, decent, honest-with-himself outlaw. There was only one answer sucha man could make.
Chester Morris answered the woman, who had proved to him that love existed :
“Go back and serve my sentence?Don’t be foolish. They would give me four more years for escaping. No. There is only one thing to do — get out of the country, and make a new start. ”
It would have been so simple to have John Morgan go back and give himself up with a grand gesture. But it would1 not have been true to life. Therefore John Morgan was made to answer asin life he would. The difficulties involved in working out this situation were terrific for Frances Marion . . . but she was bent on creating a great piece of screen realism. She chose the hard and honest way.
The best of the old silent screen brains, and the best of the speaking stage, have come together in “Big House.” In itself a great achievement, it portends even more. With its intense love, searing suspense, and ringing humor, it has the tang of the classics. “Big House” is one of the greatest pieces of realism ever to grace the screen.
Directed by George Hill, played without makeup or theatrics, “Big House” became a gripping, thrilling, terrifying tale of prison life.