Condemned! *** (1929, Ronald Colman, Ann Harding, Louis Wolheim, Dudley Digges, William Elmer) – Classic Movie Review 12,820

Ronald Colman stars in the 1929 melodrama film Condemned! as a suave thief sent Devil’s Island where he falls for Madame Vidal (Ann Harding), the wife of the sadistic warden Vidal (Dudley Digges).

Director Wesley Ruggles’s 1929 American pre-Code melodrama film Condemned! [Condemned to Devil’s Island] stars Ronald Colman, Ann Harding, Louis Wolheim, Dudley Digges and William Elmer.

Colman plays Michel, a suave thief sent to be incarcerated at the notorious Devil’s Island French penal colony in South America, where he becomes romantically involved with Madame Vidal (Harding), the wife of tough, sadistic prison warden Vidal (Digges). Michel plans to escape when Madame Vidal quits Devil’s Island for France.

It features good turns from Oscar-nominated Colman, Harding and Digges as the warden, but there is also some creaky acting in this obviously very dated exposé story.

Though a century old, it still looks good thanks to William Cameron Menzies’s sets and the George S Barnes/ Gregg Toland cinematography, but the drama doesn’t grip enough and director Ruggles’s direction has no special flair or fluidity. Samuel Goldwyn’s production is impressive enough, though it is too set bound at this dawn of the talkies era of film-making. Sidney Howard’s screenplay is stagey and talky, but nevertheless it is packed with intelligent dialogue.

Stagey and talky as it is, you would think it was based on a play, but it was actually taken from Blair Niles’s 1928 novel Condemned to Devil’s Island.

This film was released in a sound version running 86 minutes and also released in a silent version running 9,000 feet. It premiered on 3 November 1929 was released on 16 November 1929.

It is the first of eight films written by Sidney Howard for producer Samuel Goldwyn, up to Raffles (1939). Howard also wrote the 1930 version of Raffles starring Colman.

A Double Life (1947) is Colman’s only Oscar win, but he was nominated for Random Harvest (1942) and twice in the same year at the 1930 Academy Awards, for Bulldog Drummond (1929) and Condemned! (1929). He also starred in several classics, including Raffles (1930), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and Kismet (1944).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,820

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com