Summary

Wallace Beery and Robert Montgomery star in this tense drama that put the prison genre on the map. When playboy Kent Marlowe (Montgomery) gets 10 years for killing two pedestrians while driving drunk, he's sent to an overcrowded prison, where he must learn to survive. The Big House won Oscars for Best Writing and Sound and was nominated for Best Picture; Beery received a Best Actor nod for his portrayal of a brutal convict.