Numbered Men

... but fortunately, their output quality trended dramatically up starting the following year.

Overall it's just a jaw dropping novelty. A group of convicts, by virtue of their good conduct, get to work out in the open air on the road-building crew. There don't seem to be any guards - These guys are all on the honor system! And when they get hungry or thirsty they show up at Mother Miller's farm for some cookies and milk! They steal and molest nothing, not even the good-looking girl Mother Miller has hired to assist her, in spite of many of them being without female companionship for, possibly, years. Honestly! These guys are not in prison for dropping out of Sunday school!

And when one of the "bad" convicts escapes from the prison itself and threatens the existence of the honor system, erudite convict Bertie Gray (Conrad Nagel) suggests that the convicts on the road crew help in recapturing him as a means of preserving said honor system. Not only does the warden heartily agree, he passes out rifles to them! Where is a crusading journalist when you need one?

I can only assume director Mervyn LeRoy had directed so many Alice White films that, by this time, nothing seemed preposterous to him.

I'll cut this some slack since Warner Brothers had planned to make this a musical (???) - thus the presence of Bernice Claire in the cast. They had to change their plans when the moviegoing public began to mutiny against the glut of poor to mediocre movie musicals being produced.

I will say that the acting is pretty good, and it isn't overly talkie as so many early talkies were. But that plot - Yikes!