Analysis
Hawks easily exploits the prison genre to illustrate the male friendship and 'group as an organic force' themes often present in his works (cf. Only Angels Have Wings, Rio Bravo). This is most apparent in the scene in which Brady starts his first day of work as warden, greeted by a prison yard full of men booing him as if they were but one man. The warden (and the camera) peer down on them from the office window.
Constance Cummings is a far cry from, say Lauren Bacall, and has little to work with here, a small part with lackluster lines. Nonetheless, she does not fail to represent the typical Hawksian woman. Her character is strong and, to a certain degree, stoic. She inhabits an utterly masculine world. Yet, although she can leave, she prefers to stay and live at the penitentiary (cf. Mary Rutledge in Barbary Coast).
Read more about this topic: The Criminal Code
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“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
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