Buried Alive (1939)

Starring Beverly Roberts, Robert Wilcox, Paul McVey, Ted Osborne, George Pembroke
Directed by Victor Halperin
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A convict coming up for parole finds his chances ruined when he comes to the rescue of a trustee of the prison in a bar fight and is railroaded by a shady reporter at the scene.

Despite the film's title, it's not a horror film, nor is anyone buried alive, but what it is is a taut prison story with some melodramatics, well directed by White Zombie's Victor Halperin.  It has the look and feel of a poverty row production, although a high class one, and has the cast and crew one would expect from such a studio, and was released by the forerunner of PRC.  The story is jam packed with characters and subplots before we even meet Wilcox, our principal hero, with no less then three of the prison trustees in love with the nurse, the man who throws the execution switch torn by his nightmarish duty, and a brutish inmate modeled after Lenny from Of Mice And Men threatening a violent escape.  Halperin does an admirable job of keeping things balanced, and gets good performances from his cast, especially Pembroke as the tormented executioner, and Wheeler Oakman as the hissable villain of the film.  Although Wilcox, as the privileged prisoner who finds his hopes dashed, gives a fairly one-dimensional performance, I found the movie as a whole a very worthwhile watch for me.