A dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.
Acting
Beery's granite-softness as a man hollowed by impossible choices.
Direction
Sternberg smuggling expressionist shadows into studio crime programmer.
Director
Josef von Sternberg
Wallace Beery
Sgt. Shaun Madden
Alan Curtis
Dennis Madden
Tom Brown
Albert Boylan Jr.
Fay Holden
Mary Madden
Laraine Day
Eileen Daly
Marc Lawrence
Piggy
Marion Martin
Charlotte LePage
David Gorcey
Punchy LePage
Ben Welden
Stemmy
Donald Haines
Milton
Etta McDaniel
Dove
John Kelly
Nero
Bess Flowers
Nurse
Nell Craig
Nurse
Horace McMahon
Philadelphia
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Sternberg later disowned this MGM assignment, calling it 'a job, not a film'—yet his visual fingerprints remain unmistakable in the chiaroscuro prison sequences.
US
