This is a z grade snooze fest, one of the worst prison movies I've ever seen, which really gives PRC the name of perfectly rotten cinema. It surrounds the trustee of a prison who is framed on a murder charge and faces the death penalty. The convoluted plot keeps falling through the invisible sieve, so many holes and nothing coming out of it. This is extremely difficult to get through with Wilcox giving too moody of a performance to sympathize with and Beverly Roberts, once a Warner Brothers leading lady, absolutely lifeless. This is especially surprising to be so dull with cult director Victor Halperin at the helm. Even the intense prison scenes fall flat, and a seemingly serious car accident is badly staged with unrealistic details surrounding the crash.

Let's see now. A central figure is the guy who throws the switch at electrocutions. There are three guys in love with a woman who works as a nurse at the prison hospital. One of the prisoners gets to dress up in a suit and drive people around. The warden spends all of his time trying to help this guy. The security is non-existent. The nurse falls in love with the convict rather than the three guys who are in love with her. If prisons were run like this, they would be empty. Everyone would have walked away. My favorite character is the executioner. He has the shakes but can't seem to quit the job. About once a month he puts the juice to someone. He really wants to buy a farm and raise chickens. Oh, there's also a chaplain who is in love with this woman. Then there is an evil reporter who frames the poor schmoe. Does this sound like something you'd like to see?

The cheapo box I had made it seem like a vampire horror movie where someone is buried in a grave. So horror fans beware. But fans of little B movies might find this a pleasant diversion. Most remarkable is the very clear "Of Mice and Men" style relationship between the lead guy and his big, dumb buddy.

With its limited settings, slow pacing, and small cast, this "B" movie could almost be staged as a radio drama. It offers little in the way of suspense or romance and has no comic relief but there may be some academic interest in its Roosevelt-era attitudes toward prisons, capital punishment, and the power of the press.Robert Wilcox, who always deserved better and who has one of the greatest heads of hair in the history of the movies, does what he can as the inmate who suffers a contrived and implausible string of bad luck. His best part came in the following year, however, when he played an inmate who endures a memorable flogging in "Island of Doomed Men."