Production
The Criminal Code was adapted for the screen by Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo, Jr., son of director Fred Niblo. The original play by San Francisco Bay Area native author and playwright Martin Flavin was produced on Broadway in 1929 at the Belasco Theater. Boris Karloff, who delivered a strong performance in the stage play, is recast here as Galloway. This film served as the vehicle which would essentially launch his career. Though appearing in dozens of pictures during the 1920s, he had mostly bit parts.
The film is the first of two collaborations with infamously foul-mouthed producer Harry Cohn, the second being Twentieth Century (1934). It is Hawks' only picture with Frank Fouce, who produced only five films, all of them in 1931. Hawks worked with screenwriter Seton Miller several times in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This is the only occasion he worked with Niblo, Jr.
The Criminal Code was remade the following year in France as Criminel (directed by Jack Forrester, starring Daniel Mendaille & Harry Baur) and again in 1950 (directed by Henry Levin with Glenn Ford in the lead role).
Though an early talkie, The Criminal Code makes a sophisticated use of sound. The intercourse is at times rapid and Hawks seems to be experimenting with overlapping dialogue.
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